The Observer Effect

      Harry spent the evening of that seemingly endless day at the Leaky Cauldron.       Over the past few hours, the pub hadn’t become any cosier or more pleasant, but something else had changed: Harry had learned that Tom (the other Tom—blimey, this was still confusing), who turned out to be not just the barman but the innkeeper, was delighted to let Harry have a room on the first floor of his establishment. For a number of reasons, this decision seemed optimal.       The accommodation advert Harry had come across earlier belonged to another pub that looked much cleaner and more presentable than the Leaky Cauldron. The pub was called the White Wyvern, and it was run by a cheerful young witch with very long, very curly, and very red hair. Strange, lively music played in the main room, emanating from an enchanted jukebox in the corner. The machine was wound up with a key, like a grandfather clock, and inside it a disc turned, rather like a clock face; like most things in wizarding households, it seemed very old-fashioned. And that pub served a wonderful drink called Butterbeer, which Harry would have compared to eggnog if he’d ever tasted the latter in his life (but he hadn’t, so, whilst being delighted, he managed without making comparisons).       Alas, despite the generally pleasant atmosphere, this luxury was clearly not for him. Harry could easily invent stories that allowed him to visit cafés and shops unimpeded, but he’d been unable to invent even one remotely acceptable reason why a small boy without parents might rent a room there for a whole month.       The proprietor of the Leaky Cauldron was simpler in this regard. He clearly had some notion about Harry in his head, and, as is usually the case with madmen, it corresponded rather poorly with reality. Taking advantage of this was simply a matter of technique. After a confused and inconsistent dialogue filled with exclamations of ‘Sir!’, Harry found himself in possession of dinner (of mediocre quality even by his modest standards), a hot-water bottle (barely lukewarm), and a room furnished simply and sparsely but boasting a window and a fireplace.       In both the furniture and the interior itself, there was something that hinted not at Shakespearean times but at thoroughly medieval ones. The rough simplicity of every object, the general impression not of decrepitude but of wear, and a certain special aura that appears only in truly old things—an atmosphere borrowed from Time itself. The hint of antiquity was reinforced by such an ‘inconspicuous’ detail as the layer of rushes on the floor. Harry fervently hoped that no fleas or anything worse nested in them; the ‘carpet’ smelt surprisingly pleasant, actually—of tansy and something else cold and sharp, like wormwood.       Settling down at the unprepossessing table without a tablecloth, whose boards were smooth at the edges as if worn down by the flow of bygone days like water and whose every crack seemed to preserve ingrained grease from feasts of the Arthurian era, Harry cautiously tried the roast (dreadful, as was to be expected from a dish whose name included the word ‘home-cooked’) and the porous grey bread (tasty), sipped milk from a tall glass (the glass also looked older than the Norman Conquest—heavy, thick‑walled, and made of cloudy glass), and realised that he wanted to sleep more than eat.       He was swaying; everything swam before his eyes; his thoughts scattered—quick little shadows like mice hiding in corners. Harry tried to chase one, but then his forehead rang against the tabletop, fortunately missing the plate. He straightened up with a groan. He needed to talk to Tom.       Fatigue retreated as soon as he took hold of the diary; this time was no exception, of course. Harry reverently turned the cover of the diary.       ‘Still 26th July.       Dear Tom!       GUESS WHAT       I’ve found lodgings in the wizarding world!!!       Right, okay, in order.       Bought everything I needed, even more: robes (decent ones, as you said!), other clothes too, books, a telescope, scales, a cauldron, ink—you’ve noticed that already, I think, and I’m writing with a QUILL now, so there…’       Writing with a quill, to tell the truth, turned out to be terribly inconvenient. Harry scratched his head, then tore a long, narrow strip from the parchment and wound it around the shaft in several layers, creating a thickening that sat much more comfortably between his fingers. Tom, meanwhile, had erased what he’d written and replied, as usual, not sparing ‘compliments’:       ‘Indeed—it would be hard to miss.       You ought to devote some time to practice—your handwriting is absolutely dreadful. You don’t want this to cause you problems at Hogwarts, do you?’       Harry sighed heavily. He didn’t want that. But the prospect of toiling over copybooks didn’t appeal to him either.       ‘Yes, yes, I understand everything, honestly.       SO ANYWAY       I also bought a trunk—it’s brilliant; you should see it…’       Tom approved of the trunk and even praised Harry for his resourcefulness, and advised him not to listen to Malkin—technically, only artefacts specifically designed to cause harm to wizards, physical or psychological, could be called Dark. This definitely didn’t apply to the trunk. For instance, locking charms on a door could seriously maim a burglar, but that didn’t make the door a Dark artefact. The essence lay in intention: a door’s business was to lock, and any resulting damage was incidental. After all, one could poke one’s eye out with a fork if one tried.       Harry had rather thought so; he just wouldn’t have been able to express it so coherently and consistently.       Encouraged, Harry shared his thoughts about how every worthwhile piece of magic was immediately branded Dark; this earned ironic agreement from Tom:       ‘The form is rather questionable, but essentially you’re probably right. We’re surrounded by hidebound minds thoroughly possessed by prejudices…’       The word ‘prejudices’ reminded Harry of another memory, and he hurried to relate to Tom the whole peculiar story he’d heard from Rosier that day. As he retold it, he supplied it with his own commentary, unable to help himself—almost everything related aroused scepticism.       For instance—how much sense was there in turning up at the home of a complete stranger and his wife with their infant child and casting Avada Kedavra at all three? And doing all this alone, under cover of night. Such things were either done as publicly as possible, for intimidation, or not done at all; otherwise it could only be considered an act of personal revenge. The follow‑up question was: what had Harry’s parents done to offend their killer, if this was revenge? Or rather, why had they offended him to such an extent—that was the right question.       When Harry had supposed that his mother and father had died in a car accident, he’d been angry at them for abandoning him. Then he’d learned they were wizards, and his anger had increased, since only an extremely stupid, irresponsible wizard would allow himself to perish in a car accident. Now, alas, everything looked even worse. On the one hand, at least the manner of death wasn’t overtly Muggle-ish (a special sort of shame for any wizard—to die in such a way, when you thought about it). On the other hand, a crash was an accident, but to ensure that Lord Pinochet personally came to kill you—well, they’d really had to work at that.       Couldn’t they find anyone in the resistance without an infant? Had the victory of the resistance turned out to be more important than the welfare of their own child, who, after all, needed at least one living parent? Why hadn’t they gone deep underground? Why hadn’t they fled to another country? What sort of strange alternative thinking did one need to possess to know that you and your entire family were threatened with death—and sit tight?       ‘One should always consider more than one opinion,’ Tom noted rationally. ‘I’ll wager that if these events really are so widely known, then at least something about them will be contained either in books on recent history or in old newspaper articles. Tell me, the Daily Prophet office hasn’t moved, has it?’       Harry smacked his forehead and agreed with him enthusiastically. How had he not thought of that himself—rather than collecting idle gossip, he should have turned to written sources.       ‘Rumours are still important, though. They provide an unofficial—if you will, mythologised—version of events, processed by the mills of the human subconscious. The results can be surprising, of course, but people believe rumours more than newspapers. You were generally right to start with them; you just mustn’t stop now—you need to study the matter further, and only then form your own opinion.’       Harry propped his head on his hand. His eyes were sticking together. A solitary candle flickered on the table, emphasising the old-fashioned nature of the surroundings. His glasses pressed on his nose like two concrete slabs, and his fingers were tired from using the quill—even modified, it was devilishly unfamiliar. It was high time to go to bed, but Harry lacked the will to end their conversation. And there was something else he particularly wanted to tell Tom about.       ‘…Voldemort!       By Merlin, I’m not lying!       Can you imagine?       I thought I’d die laughing.       What do you think—it’s a pseudonym, isn’t it? But why is it so AWFUL—surely he could have thought of something better—actually, it seems hard NOT to think of something MUCH better, even without trying.’       Tom’s answer astounded him.       ‘I,’ Tom wrote, ‘would have done exactly the same thing. Look: “Lord Voldemort” amuses you because it seems that this nom de plume is either excessively pompous or rather ridiculous, or perhaps both at once, correct? Excellent, and the more bombastic and stupid the better. When people stop laughing and start fearing, when terror robs them of the ability to speak aloud the name that seemed funny to them—then success can be considered fully achieved. Remember, your Rosier—ten years later, he’s still unable to resist the fear that “Lord Voldemort” instils in him. Yes, it’s silly, I don’t dispute that; but that’s rather the point.’       Harry… really did look at ‘Lord Voldemort’ with new eyes.       ‘I never thought of that, not even close,’ he wrote. ‘Looks bloody perverted and clever. What pseudonym would you choose for yourself then?’       ‘Probably some anagram,’ Tom replied after brief consideration. ‘They’ve always seemed completely ridiculous to me. What about you? You’ll have to try hard to surpass such a thing. Come on, surprise me.’       Harry rubbed his face. His eyes ached, his scar itched, his head felt stuffed with cotton wool. ‘Just a bit more,’ he lied unconvincingly to himself, ‘five minutes, and I’ll go to bed.’       ‘CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!’ he announced and wrinkled his brow. ‘Give me a second… right, now…’       So, anagrams… Hmm. Not a bad option.       ‘Threy Raptor.’ No, rubbish. ‘Hrryr Teapot.’ Even worse. ‘Pher Traytor.’ ‘Y’ didn’t fit; it should be ‘I’. ‘Ptyorr Heart.’ Still nonsense. He was too tired for anagrams. His brain refused to work.       ‘Herr Tarotyp. Or Herr Tyoptar. Sorry, I don’t have the right letters for “Lord”. But if people start to fear THIS, it would mean that I’d be a god in their eyes.’       ‘You’ve clearly lost the competition,’ Tom responded—Harry could practically hear him chuckling—‘but you’ve grasped the principle, well done. Isn’t it time for bed, child? It’s been a long day.’       It certainly was time. Harry yawned jaw-crackingly and finally closed the diary. However, once he found himself in bed, he realised he couldn’t fall asleep.       Everything was different.       The room was too large, with an enormous amount of empty space inside, with uncomfortably distant walls and an excessively high ceiling. It was unusually bright: light came from the street through the window—weak, but it was simply there, whereas usually it wasn’t, nor was the window itself. The rushes on the floor rustled barely audibly, and Harry wondered whether something was crawling in their thickness. The walls creaked very, very quietly—was it the wind, magic, or simply old age that was loosening the building like a tooth in the gum, dreaming of completely destroying it one day? Wind whistled in the chimney of the unlit fireplace. It smelt of wax from the extinguished candle, cut grass, mice, tansy, and dinner remnants. The mattress was springy and lump-free to boot, the pillow too high and too soft, the blanket the wrong thickness and weight.       Everything around him was not as Harry was accustomed to—absolutely everything.       He discovered that, though it was better this way—objectively better, and very much so—he somehow missed his cupboard. Harry had grown up in that cupboard, had taken its shape like a pumpkin ripening inside a bottle—not in one sense but in many—and now suddenly the cupboard was gone. He felt like a snail whose shell had been torn off. A caterpillar dragged into the light during pupation. A mollusc without its shell. A snake that had shed its skin. Time was needed to find new points of support in the changed, expanded world.       Harry lay gazing at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking about his possessions left in the cupboard. Everything except the Hogwarts letter was worthless—clothes, bedding, a few exercise books, a few pencils and rubbers, a torch without batteries, Jane, tin horsemen, the He‑Man action figure without a head. Rubbish, by and large. But Harry found it unpleasant to imagine the Muggles touching his things with their hands, even though they had no value in his eyes. Simply… they were his. Muggles shouldn’t be allowed to touch them.       With these thoughts, Harry finally closed his eyes.       He dreamt of darkness. The floor pitched and rolled. A child wailed heartbreakingly; someone prayed aloud, desperately mixing up words; someone sobbed. It smelt of urine and vomit. Fine dust trickled down onto his head, sticking to his skin. He heard something crash somewhere outside (and why had he decided it was ‘outside’? Where was the ‘inside’ where he was located?), slam with all its might—and again, and again.       ‘No,’ thought Harry, ‘not like this. I don’t want to!’       …and woke up.       Sunlight beat through the window; bright patches from it lay on the walls and ceiling—sooty, with protruding beams, as biblical as everything else in the room. The blanket had bunched up at his feet, but Harry, who’d gone to sleep in new pyjamas, hadn’t grown cold during the night. He had no idea what time it was, but it felt like late morning.       Still lying in bed, Harry laughed with joy.       No one had come to wake him; he’d woken up himself. There was no need to prepare breakfast for the pig family, wash dishes, clean the kitchen. No need to do anything at all. The enormous day stretched before him, empty and sunny like this room.       Harry touched the diary lying under his pillow—naturally, it hadn’t disappeared during the night, but it was pleasant to confirm this once more—then stretched and jumped out of bed.       There was no bathroom here. He had to wash with a sponge in a basin, but the water in the jug, prepared the evening before, turned out to be unnaturally warm, almost hot. ‘Magic,’ Harry thought with delight. The soap produced suspiciously volatile, multicoloured bubbles. The towel became dry again as soon as he returned it to the washstand. Harry sighed with satisfaction.       He called Trunk over, peacefully dozing in the corner by the window, pulled out his new clothes and put them on. They didn’t feel very familiar, but at least they were so similar to the things Tom wore. Trousers with creases, shirt, pullover, and tie. With irritation, Harry noticed he’d forgotten to buy shoes—his trainers were so unsuited to the rest of his outfit that it hurt to look at. Never mind, it wasn’t too late to fix that. He threw a robe over everything else—one of the school ones; yesterday he hadn’t thought he’d need any others—and regretted that there was no mirror in the room.       The Muggle clothes he’d shed before sleep still lay in a heap on the floor. Harry didn’t even want to touch them; they seemed like skin he’d moulted from, but just touch it and it would grow back, tight, suffocating, dirty. He gave them a wide berth as he walked to the door. His wand lay in the pocket of his robe, and the diary was bound to his chest under his shirt. Harry felt like a royal heir, no less.       Ah, well, yes, he was one after all—Salazar’s heir, wasn’t he?       The pub’s proprietor, cleaning candle soot from a chandelier lowered from the ceiling (it turned out to be mounted on a movable pulley, and Harry hadn’t been aware of such subtleties), grinned at the sight of Harry, twitching his moustache, and clapped his hands a couple of times.       ‘Yes, sir!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Completely incognito, sir! Don’t you worry! Breakfast?’       Harry smoothed his fringe, which he’d carefully combed over his forehead after washing, and nodded with an answering smile.       For breakfast he was served eggs, not too attractive to look at but quite decent‑tasting, and the best part was that Harry hadn’t cooked them himself. There was no tea on the menu, only milk and beer, but Harry politely declined the latter.       Harry spent the time from breakfast to lunch most pleasantly. He acquired a pair of Oxford shoes, identical to those Tom wore, only smaller, of course. He wandered around Magical Menagerie for ages and almost decided to buy an owl, but ultimately rejected the idea—Hogwarts had the Owlery, so there was no point in acquiring his own postal bird. He listened to a Runespoor arguing with itself in the pet shop’s terrarium (but he made no comment; you never knew who might be listening). He bought various trifles he’d forgotten yesterday—a toothbrush, a shoehorn, handkerchiefs, a pocket mirror, and a comb. The witch from the haberdashery assured him that there was a potion to help tame even the most unruly hair; Harry bought that potion too.       ‘Morgana,’ grumbled Madam Malkin when Harry appeared before her to replenish his collection of robes. ‘That abomination is still with you?’       Trunk shifted on its legs. Harry scowled.       ‘He’s not an abomination. And not a Dark artefact. I was allowed to keep him.’       ‘My dear… Oh, by the way, what’s your name, my boy?’       Here Harry panicked slightly. Well now, here we go! No, he needed to think of something, introduce himself under another name. Surnames of supposed magical relatives flashed through his head. The Blacks suited best—an enormous family, a real constellation, considering their names. Unfortunately, Harry wasn’t strong in astronomy. But science fiction unexpectedly came to his aid. Sending mental greetings to a couple of favourite authors, Harry primly bowed his head and declared:       ‘Fomalhaut Black, at your service. I beg your pardon for my rudeness, madam.’ One more Black in such a crowd wouldn’t be noticed, Harry reasoned.       Madam threw up her hands.       ‘Of course! How did I not guess immediately! Another rebel in the family, I see? Just like Sirius… hmm, you look alike too. What is he to you—an uncle?’       ‘A cousin,’ Harry decided not to push his luck. He’d no idea who Sirius was—Tom certainly hadn’t mentioned him—but “cousin” did for just about anyone, more often than not.       ‘Ah, so you’re Alphard’s grandson! Merlin, of course—well, that explains everything.’ She caught her breath and wagged her finger at him. ‘Still, be careful—Dark things are terribly dangerous. So, another set of robes? What colour do you want? Personally, I’d recommend green—it would suit your eyes wonderfully.’       Tom didn’t wear green robes. Harry also insisted on black. Malkin was clearly disappointed but didn’t argue further.       ‘And who is this Alphard?’ Harry mused on his way to the bookshop. ‘I definitely need some sort of guide to all my relatives. Where could I possibly find such a thing?’       It turned out to be closer than he thought. A reference book called The Sacred Twenty-Eight didn’t include the Potters, but the others, particularly the Blacks, were there. And Harry also became the owner of such important books as Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century (he pinned particular hopes on this one), A Modern History of Magic, and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts (the last was interesting to read just for its own sake).       Newspapers proved more difficult. The Daily Prophet office really hadn’t moved—Harry had walked past it several times already. And it seemed that back issues could only be found there—they weren’t in the bookshop. Perhaps they were available in the Hogwarts library, but Tom said he didn’t recall such a thing, which wasn’t encouraging. No, he needed to search here. But how to do it?       Lost in thought, Harry returned to the Leaky Cauldron and settled in his room.       Rosier’s version was confirmed.       More than that, it was enriched with tear‑jerking details, though it was unclear how they became known, or from whom. For instance, Harry could still understand how they’d managed to establish which of his parents died first—forensics and such; wizards probably had even more means to investigate possible clues. But who could know what Lily Potter’s last words were and what Lord Voldemort replied to her? Was there a Peeping Tom nearby, or what? Or was this artistic licence? If so, what was it doing in supposedly documentary books?       The mysteries weren’t diminishing. Harry pulled out his diary and began sharing the progress of his investigation with Tom.       ‘How I wish,’ he scrawled irritably, flexing his cramped fingers yet again, ‘I could simply show you everything I’m reading. This is becoming dreadfully inconvenient.’       And also—and Harry didn’t write this but thought it, and not for the first time—when he went to school in just a month, he wouldn’t be able to communicate with Tom as often as now. If only because there he’d have to devote time to actually studying. And—for efficiency’s sake—he’d have to sleep at least a bit more. And Harry very much didn’t want to sacrifice conversations with Tom; but he didn’t know what could be done about it.       ‘How lovely it would be if we could see each other, like in your memory then,’ Harry daydreamed. ‘So we wouldn’t have to write to each other, but could talk properly… Don’t misunderstand,’ he caught himself, ‘I don’t mind at all, I very much enjoy corresponding with you. I’ll try to continue doing it as often as possible in future (you know why)…’       ‘Because you don’t exist when the diary is closed, but I won’t remind you of that again—there’s no need,’ Harry mentally finished with a sigh, dipped his quill in the inkwell and continued:       ‘…but I was just thinking—hypothetically—how CONVENIENT it would be.’       ‘Actually, there is a way,’ Tom modestly remarked, having waited for the end of his melancholy outpourings.       The quill fell from Harry’s hand. Plopping onto the page, it left an enormous blot, which, however, was immediately absorbed. Harry sat with his mouth open, unable to believe what he’d just read.       And…       ‘AND WHY FOR MERLIN’S SAKE HAVEN’T WE USED IT YET       ?????       Tom?’       ‘The reason is quite substantial,’ Tom replied after a pause, as if reluctantly. ‘I’ll say directly: this will require something rather disapproved of by society. Something not entirely legal. And if this is ever discovered—it will indeed be received very, very badly.       Do you remember our house motto, Harry?’       Of course he did. The main and only motto of Slytherin, now, always, and forever, was:       ‘DON’T GET CAUGHT!’       ‘Exactly. So you must clearly understand what you’re getting into. Don’t agree if you’re not going to see it through to the end. But if you’re ready, if you’re really ready to get your hands dirty up to the elbows, transgress the law, and commit an act highly reprehensible in society’s eyes—’       Harry rolled his eyes. This passion for bombast! It was damnably ineradicable in Tom.       ‘Yes, yes, I’m ready. Spill it already, please, or I think I’m about to have a fit.’       ‘Then let’s preserve your fragile health.’       ‘TOM!!!’       ‘All right, all right. So, here’s what I have in mind: there’s a possibility of creating my spiritual projection, a semblance of a ghost, which will be visible or invisible at will, able to move relatively freely whilst not straying too far from the physical anchor, which is the diary, and even to perform magic within moderate limits. This won’t revive me and won’t bring me any closer to such a state, but at least it will allow us to interact freely, exactly as you want, and will give me greater stability.’       Wow. Harry considered everything Tom had said.       ‘Sounds excellent, even too good. What’s the catch?’       Because Harry’s life was arranged such that there always had to be a catch.       ‘A human sacrifice will be required.’       Harry froze to the spot. Tom… wasn’t joking about getting ‘dirty up to the elbows’, was he?       ‘Do you… we… have to kill someone?’       ‘Not literally. But I’ll have to drink magic—completely, every last drop—from some wizard. As I’ve already told you, I myself don’t possess even a tiny particle of magical power—only what you voluntarily give me. This is enough to sustain me whilst you interact with me, but that’s all. Creating a spiritual projection will require much more, since parasitic losses in the process of transferring it from the donor to me are inevitable. But if everything works as it should—I’ll acquire my own magic, independent of whether you’re writing in my diary at any given moment or not.’       Well, this was still better than murder—but only just. Harry would probably have preferred death to losing his magic.       ‘So we’ll have to choose, and choose carefully—by no means does every wizard deserve such a cruel fate. No, it must be some scoundrel, a person empty and absolutely useless—to society, family, and even to himself. We must think it through…’       And suddenly, Harry already knew the answer. Actually, nothing could be simpler.       ‘…one who, whilst possessing magic, cannot make use of it in the slightest…’       ‘Tom,’ Harry wrote hastily, in horror and delight at himself; at this very moment Salazar could definitely be proud of him, exactly as Tom had said, ‘Tom! Does it absolutely have to be a wizard?       Or would a Squib do?’