The Observer Effect

      Harry froze. He couldn't move. His brain was experiencing some private version of a railway accident where a dozen carriages were folding into a space meant for only one. As if someone had twisted the dial on a wireless and three stations had crashed into each other at once—voices, music, crackle—until he couldn't make out a thing. As if a whole crowd of people, silent until now, had suddenly begun talking all at once, and he needed to listen to each one. All available resources of his consciousness were completely occupied processing new—actually, old—information.       God, Merlin, Tom had told him almost directly. And he’d even explained exactly how he’d chosen that name, and why.       And worse still, after that Harry had composed his own silly-but-potentially-ominous anagram. He’d even complained to Tom that Tom’s name had letters for ‘Lord’ whilst Harry’s didn’t.       Harry remembered how he’d asked Tom to show him which book he’d found the name of his second, more adult version in, and nearly burst out laughing. It seemed now he knew, it seemed now he could show it himself—which one. Not even in a single book, just like Harry’s name.       The Lumos charm had gone out at some point, and Harry hadn’t noticed when. The scarlet letters had faded too. They stood amidst the ruins, under the stars, in darkness. Wind rustled through ivy leaves; night birds cried in the distance.       ‘The wand chooses the wizard,’ Ollivander had said. And Tom had just explained to Harry how it chose. Harry’s wand had chosen another wizard—and he hadn’t thought to ask why such a thing was even possible.       ‘What an idiot I am,’ he voiced the conclusion of his reflections. ‘But you know, I always felt it. Right from the very beginning, do you believe?’       In the surrounding gloom it wasn’t visible, but Harry got a distinct impression that Tom was surprised. He made a questioning sound.       ‘You…’ Harry was embarrassed, but forced himself to finish, ‘…you’re like my brother. Elder brother. If our magic is so similar, then in some sense that’s how it is, isn’t it?’       This seemed not to be the conclusion Tom had expected from him. He made a strange strangled sound, like laughter cut off before it could properly sound, stepped smoothly to one side, and moved about the room, circling around Harry. Harry noticed he couldn’t hear his footsteps—no steps, no rustle of cloak, no sound of breathing; Tom glided in the darkness with the silence of a shadow.       ‘Is this what you want to talk about?’ he asked with curiosity.       ‘What else?’ Harry was surprised in turn.       ‘For instance, about the fact that I killed your parents?’ Oh, Harry had an answer to that. This dilemma had been left so far behind that it didn’t even flicker in his metaphorical rear-view mirror.       ‘Voldemort killed my parents,’ he said, emphasising the invented name with his intonation, ‘not you.’       ‘I am Voldemort!’ Tom protested.       ‘Well, technically—yes,’ Harry argued, ‘but actually—no. How old are you, Tom?’       ‘Sixteen,’ he answered in a voice that suggested serious doubts about Harry’s sanity.       ‘And you, er… became a diary in nineteen forty-three,’ Harry continued developing his thought. He had to turn his head to follow Tom as he paced back and forth, and this was annoying. ‘My parents died in nineteen eighty-one. That’s four decades’ difference.’       Earlier Harry had somehow thought that Tom’s ‘other self’, who had been in ‘mortal danger’, had died—and Tom had indeed confirmed that he had died—then too, during the war, or shortly after. But it turned out everything had worked out quite differently.       ‘He’s a grown man. Was. With his own separate life. And he’s not you at all.’       ‘But your parents are still dead,’ Tom insisted with some unhealthy stubbornness. ‘Murdered.’       ‘They were part of an organisation that was trying to kill him. You. It might have been self-defence altogether. Well, or, you know, mutual destruction, something like that,’ Harry had thought this through earlier, and from his point of view both sides were no better here. After all, he’d shared these thoughts with Tom; surely he hadn’t forgotten? ‘By the way, as you remember, no one really knows what actually happened then; there were no witnesses.’       Tom snorted, but didn’t continue arguing, switching to something else.       ‘Granted. Frankly speaking, this wasn’t the reaction I expected, but overall I agree with you. I wouldn’t want you to decide that I’m eager to test whether the Killing Curse would actually bounce off you.’       ‘Would it bounce off?’ Harry asked with interest.       ‘No,’ Tom answered emphatically. ‘That’s categorically impossible. If I wanted to kill you—you’d be dead. There was no Killing Curse; I’d stake anything on it.’       ‘You see,’ Harry said, shrugging. ‘I know you wish me no harm.’       And he meant every word he said. The thought that Tom would want to kill him seemed absurd.       ‘Such confidence,’ Tom marvelled, stopping, and Harry could practically hear his toothy grin in the darkness. ‘I confess, it wasn’t always so. At first I really did consider what I might do with you—whether to drain your magic dry, or perhaps seize your body?’       Harry swallowed. Unexpected.       ‘And… how long did this “at first” last?’ he asked. Tom approached closer and shook his head, his eyes glinting with reflected moonlight.       ‘About… five minutes?’ he suggested cheerfully. ‘You came up trumps, I must say. Learning that you were a Parselmouth, I became interested. It seemed promising.’       ‘And then you realised you didn’t want to harm me,’ Harry rejoiced, raising his head. Tom’s silhouette, black against the blackness of the surrounding space, towered over him. Stars burned like a halo around his head.       ‘Not at all,’ Tom objected, his tone of voice tender and condescending, ‘then I decided I’d subjugate your mind. Make you do whatever might occur to me—open the Chamber of Secrets, for instance.’       ‘But now,’ Harry insisted, losing confidence inwardly, ‘you don’t want that? To subjugate my mind?’       Because it sounded, honestly, very bad. And frightening.       ‘Of course not,’ Tom assured him with a chuckle, taking another step forward. Now they stood almost close together, so close that Harry could make out the lights in his pupils. ‘Why would I now? You offered me so much more yourself. You shared your magic so generously that I had to restrain you, not allowing you to give too much. You voluntarily swore to resurrect me. You brought me a sacrifice—a human sacrifice. None of my knights served me as faithfully as you have. There’s no need whatsoever for a subjugation spell.’       This, Harry decided, was the most sinister explanation of friendship that human history had ever known. Mr Darcy with his love declarations paled in comparison.       ‘Dark Lord, eh?’ he thought even with some admiration; Tom’s ability to terrify with words alone was unprecedented.       A shiver ran through him from the cold, and Harry drew his shoulders up against it. He raised his wand, casting Lumos again. The bright light made him squint painfully; Tom didn’t even flinch.       ‘So anyway,’ Harry remembered, blinking at the magical light, ‘our magic—do you know why it’s so similar?’       Tom shook his head, his lips pursing thoughtfully.       ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. There are cases when something similar happens, but none of them resembles ours.’       ‘Oh?’ Harry adjusted his glasses in expectation of another lecture. ‘What cases?’       ‘Magical twins, for instance. These are children born with one magic between them—they’re so physically similar that neither their own parents nor identification spells nor blood-seeking spells can distinguish them. It also happens that wizards appear in the same family, with a difference of several generations, whose magic can master the same wand or personal artefact.’       ‘So we might be related after all,’ Harry concluded. ‘I kept thinking about this when I learned about Parselmouths. That’s the explanation, isn’t it?’       ‘Are you accusing your mother of marital infidelity?’ Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Possibly… but I don’t think that’s it.’       ‘What then?’ Harry didn’t quite understand the nature of Tom’s expressed doubts. Conceiving a child not by one’s husband—well, yes, not very good, but adults did this more often than was conventionally acknowledged. And the timing worked out perfectly.       ‘What if Voldemort didn’t know I was his son,’ a new theory came to Harry’s mind, straight from his aunt’s favourite novels, ‘and then he found out, and came here, but my parents didn’t want to give me up, and that’s when they killed each other!’       ‘Speculation,’ he cut himself off, ‘no evidence, no proper facts either.’       ‘You tell me.’ Tom shrugged. ‘A fresh perspective on the problem might be useful.’       ‘The facts are these,’ Harry said thoughtfully, responding more to his thoughts than to him, ‘ten years ago three adult wizards and one child met in this house. Everyone, except the child, ended up dead. What else happened here that night, exactly how, and why—not one living soul knows.’       ‘But I intend to find out,’ Tom said ominously. ‘Let’s get out of here; your teeth are already chattering. Or do you intend to admire it some more?’       ‘Nothing to admire here,’ Harry grumbled, ‘stupid idea it was. At least you came for the wand, but I—don’t even know why. By the way,’ he added, ‘if I hadn’t dragged you here myself, how would you have managed?’       ‘I assure you, I had some ideas in reserve,’ Tom also cast Lumos, and by the light of two pale blue flames, they went out through the door and began descending the rickety staircase.       ‘Slippery as an eel,’ Harry complained, ‘don’t want to answer—just say so.’       ‘I’m not an eel!’ Tom’s answer could have filled a small pool with disdain.       ‘Yes, sorry. A basilisk, at the very least,’ Harry, crushing debris lying on the floor, made his way to the front door, stuck fast in a partially open position. ‘Tom! Is it possible… if ghosts exist, does that mean there’s a possibility of summoning the souls of the dead?’       ‘Want to talk to your parents?’ he guessed.       ‘Well—yes? They should know what happened, shouldn’t they?’ Harry closed the creaking gate, glancing irritably at the plaque covered with vandals’ graffiti.       The moon, now moved to the zenith, shone brighter, and the overgrown privet bushes seemed bathed in silver. Dew glimmered on the tall grass; shadows, black as coal, lay in patches everywhere.       ‘Well, such a possibility does indeed exist,’ Tom stepped onto the darkening road. Moonlight played on his hair. ‘But it’s not that simple. Necromancy is a secret, forbidden, and unnatural art…’       ‘…and therefore you’ve studied it thoroughly?’ Harry prompted. He again had to walk much faster than was comfortable, hurrying to keep up with Tom’s long strides.       ‘No,’ Tom snorted, but one could feel the assumption flattered him.       ‘Why not?’ Harry was even a little disappointed. Somehow he’d got used to Tom knowing absolutely everything.       ‘There were other tasks enough. However, it’s not too late to catch up. But returning to methods, there’s one amusing legend…’       By the time he had finished retelling the story of the three brothers and the Deathly Hallows, they had almost reached the Star and Hops. Harry very much liked the fairy tale—both in itself and for its potential.       ‘Tom! There it is,’ he exclaimed, nearly jumping with excitement, ‘the Resurrection Stone! Isn’t that exactly what we need?… I mean, you say that girl, the middle brother’s bride, was sad, pining, and all the rest—but you, you, you’re nothing like her at all! You didn’t go beyond any veil; why would it pull you there? For you the stone might work. It should work!’       Tom rubbed his chin with his hand and looked at Harry thoughtfully.       ‘It’s only a legend,’ he noted coolly. ‘A children’s fairy tale, if you will.’       ‘The Chamber of Secrets was also considered a fairy tale!’ Harry didn’t give up. ‘But you found it!’       Here he had to fall silent because they’d arrived. The pub was still open, but inside only the card-players remained. The yawning witch behind the bar silently nodded when Harry handed her two Knuts for Floo powder. He, much more boldly than before, scooped up the grey, slightly sparkling powder and commanded, ‘The Leaky Cauldron!’       The common room, empty and shrouded in shadows, met them with silence. The barman had long gone to sleep. Benches and chairs pushed close to tables looked unusually tidy; their wood gleamed in the firelight. A mouse ran across the rushes covering the floor. One could feel the hour was very late, and when they went up to their room, Harry was drawn to sleep with irresistible force. He barely managed to wash. Tom, who had again settled with a book at the table, didn’t even raise his head whilst he bustled about, collecting books from the bed. The last thing Harry saw before falling into slumber was his quiet, dark figure framed by tiny flying lights summoned by magic.       In his sleep he walked through Hogwarts corridors. Darkness, sparingly diluted by the light of enchanted oil lamps, embraced him comfortably, like his own skin. Stone slabs passed beneath his feet with barely audible rustling, his cloak rustled, stirring slightly in the habitual, inevitable draught, the sound of his breathing echoed vibratingly from vaults and walls. He smiled—night was his time, these corridors his kingdom, and the weight of the badge on his right lapel, unnoticeable but at the same time so tangible, only emphasised his right to this power. Quiet. Gloomy. Deserted. No one sees anything. No one will interfere. If they catch him here—an extremely unlikely situation, but what if—he’ll say that…       Something tickled his nose. Harry sneezed and opened his eyes.       A sunbeam that had broken through the window glazed with small squares crept across his face, warm and bright as summer itself. Weightless dust motes floated in the beam, and this was so similar—and simultaneously not at all—to their circling in the light of the dim torch illuminating the cupboard under the stairs. Harry sat up in bed and stretched.       ‘What did you dream about?’ Tom asked with interest, raising his head from his book. Harry was first indignant that he seemed not to have gone to bed at all—and only then remembered with horror and regret that Tom didn’t need to. He couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to, even if he felt such a need. ‘You were laughing in your sleep.’       ‘Don’t remember?’ Harry rubbed his face with his hands and looked for his glasses. They were found under the pillow, next to the diary. ‘Must have been something good, if I was laughing. In any case, I’m in a truly excellent mood.’       The excellent mood didn’t last long, alas.       After breakfast—milk and scrambled eggs again, but Harry wasn’t thinking of complaining—he returned to his room and recreated yesterday’s book paradise on the bed. Ghost Animals of Britain had ended almost too quickly, and now he lovingly sorted through the rest of his treasures, feeling like a dragon on a pile of gold coins. So many books—and all his own. They didn’t need to be returned to a library, didn’t need to be finished by a certain deadline—he could read them in any order, return to them again and again at will. No one could take them from him, tear them, soil them, hide them, or throw them away. There was no one who would command him to do the hoovering, or peel potatoes. Harry was in a state close to complete bliss, and it was in this state that he reached for the volume Natural Nobility. Genealogy of Wizarding Families—an elegant edition in pale green morocco binding decorated with gold embossing.       To someone else this reading might have seemed boring, but Harry felt in it the possibility of satisfying his still unabated need to find roots, to fill that emptiness felt in place of his connection to magical kin. Who were they, these people standing on each other’s shoulders in a pyramid of generations crowned by his own shaggy and bespectacled person? How did they love, befriend, fight, feud, where did they live, and where did they travel? How had that thread stretched through the abyss of time, the thread of blood and magic that connected them all? He wanted to know everything, even about his father and mother who had so let him down—what life had they lived, where had they stumbled so terribly that they’d destroyed themselves whilst young?       Unlike the Sacred Twenty-Eight, which ended in the mid-fifties—possibly more recent editions existed, but this is what Harry had got—Natural Nobility embraced the period right up to the early eighties, and at first this seemed quite convenient to Harry. However, some two hundred pages later, his rosy mood evaporated without a trace. The further he read, the worse it got—and then he came across something that made him instantly understand the meaning of the phrase ‘his hair stood on end.’       ‘Salazar preserve us,’ said Harry, staring unseeing at the wall before him and slowly, faintly turning pale.       The tone of this exclamation was apparently such that it left no doubt—something very bad had happened. In any case, Tom, who had been leafing through some tome as thick as a fist, whilst thoughtfully tapping his chin with the tip of his quill, immediately set aside both quill and book and stared at him, raising his eyebrows questioningly.       ‘How difficult do you think it would be to flee to the Continent?’ Harry asked him. ‘Oh wait, no, that won’t do. She’d reach me through the Malfoys. Merlin, Tom, I’m a dead man.’       ‘I’m sure you’re being dramatic,’ Tom chuckled, but Harry hotly objected, ‘Not at all! You remember the Blacks? Of course you remember the Blacks! Well then, how’s this: their main line has completely died out! Only my damned—well, sorry, never mind, don’t pull that face—only my second cousin once removed, Sirius, remains, and he, imagine, is currently languishing in Azkaban with no chance of getting out and somehow continuing the line. And somewhere through the wall from him sits cousin Bellatrix too—first once removed, but that doesn’t matter—but the other two, Narcissa and Andromeda, are quite free, and do you know what they’ll do to me?’       Tom, chuckling, shook his head. He didn’t look particularly impressed.       Harry, getting worked up, continued, ‘Yes, that’s just it, I don’t know either, but you’re aware of their wonderful family’s reputation.’       ‘Black madness was a byword even in my time,’ Tom agreed. ‘But why do you expect them to pounce on you with anything besides familial embraces?’       ‘Did you not listen?!’ Harry was indignant, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘The line has died out! There are no Blacks left! Oh, Merlin’s beard, and I thought—well now, I’ll disappear into Britain’s largest magical family, no one will even notice! But it turns out I stick out like a sore thumb. I’ve shown myself in Diagon Alley everywhere I possibly could. Malkin, the daft cow, has already recorded me as Alphard’s grandson—and he never had children at all. I’m an impostor, Tom! What a nightmare. What will happen when Lady Malfoy learns of this? She’ll personally come to disembowel whoever declared himself, essentially, the sole heir of the Black family!’       Tom shook his head. Now he too seemed to grasp the situation.       ‘I didn’t know Narcissa, but Walburga is only a year older than me. When I went up to fifth year, she was already betrothed to Orion. And these are presumably their children? Let me read it.’       He leafed through Natural Nobility, occasionally humming. Harry nervously chewed his nails, watching him from the bed.       ‘Yes, Fomalhaut Black,’ Tom concluded, snapping the book shut, ‘I really don’t envy you. I’m sure the rumours have already spread.’       ‘Terrible,’ Harry looked at Tom with tears trembling in his eyes. ‘What am I to do? Perhaps I should buy a tent, run away, and live in the forest? I can’t stay here, they’ll find me here! Track me down! Look, Snape already came.’       ‘Snape won’t come again,’ Tom shook his head, ‘I guarantee that. And as for the tent… I’ve no desire to fall into such asceticism.’       ‘Why not?’ Harry was surprised. ‘I’ll cook for myself, I can do that. And clean too, especially now I have a wand. I’ll definitely learn everything in a month, you’ll see!’       ‘There are no books there,’ Tom said curtly.       The argument was compelling. Their proximity to the bookshop had spoiled them.       ‘Moreover,’ Tom continued, and a slow, wild smile illuminated his face, ‘I know a better option. I’m not sure it will work, but it’s worth trying.’       Harry made an eloquent noise.       ‘You see, you really are a Black—a quarter, through your grandmother Dorea. In an ordinary situation this would mean nothing, but since things stand as they are, it’s worth attempting. Besides, the benefits are wonderfully great…’ Tom rubbed his chin, his face taking on a calculating expression.       ‘Do speak properly, for Salazar’s sake!’ Harry pleaded.       ‘The darkest place is under the candlestick,’ Tom announced dramatically. ‘I suggest you take refuge where Lady Malfoy will look last of all.’       ‘Under her skirt?’ Harry joked weakly.       ‘Almost like that,’ Tom nodded affirmatively. ‘In the Black family mansion.’       By midday a thunderstorm had broken over London. Harry had his first chance to experience water-repelling charms on himself, and the impression was strange—droplets rolled off him like water off Wellington boots, and some even bounced off entirely, like peas. He realised he’d completely forgotten to buy an umbrella, and also realised he didn’t need one—and probably never would in his entire life. Tom walked beside him, calm and composed as usual, striding along the pavement as if the entire city, down to the last brick, belonged to him alone. This aura of authority remarkably didn’t dissipate even during the Underground journey.       The mansion on Grimmauld Place turned out to be a tall, gloomy, Gothic-style building rising in a row of other equally tall, old-fashioned houses greyed by weather. Its elongated, narrow windows, barred at the bottom, looked at Harry like dark, unwelcoming eyes. Water streamed from the roof slopes, unable to drain fast enough through the gutters. The front door was black as tar. Black tiles went well with black window frames and jambs. When Harry stepped onto the high granite steps of the porch, the sky was illuminated by a branching flash of lilac-white lightning. The thunderclap that followed completely drowned out the knock of the door knocker.       Yes, exactly—instead of a bell, a real door knocker hung on the door, made in the form of a snake biting its own tail, once apparently brightly gleaming with its silver scales, but now almost merged in colour with the door. The black paint up close also showed signs of decay—a fine web of cracks and peeling pieces. The house was poorly maintained. No one had been here for a long time.       Harry froze, holding his breath. For the door that had a knocker to knock with had no door handle. It either opened itself or didn’t, and only the master of the house decided this. But now the master was dragging out his days somewhere in an impregnable fortress in the middle of the North Sea, blown by winds, flooded by rains, and guarded by terrible creatures that drained human souls. The dead beyond the Styx were not as far away as the last of the Black line was from his ancestral nest. Harry waited. And waited. And hoped.       And the door opened.       A new thunderclap crashed overhead, and a lightning flash lit up the sky behind him, as Harry stepped into the house.