XXVIII. Desire of a Heart
January 28, 2026 at 5:00 PM
There were, as it happened, a few advantages to leaving the Quidditch match early. With almost the entire school absorbed in the ritual unfolding over the pitch, Harry could sneak Trunk out of the dormitory without drawing awkward stares or awkward questions.
The plan was made on the spur of the moment, but no worse for that. He wasn’t keen on hurling curses in the Room of Hidden Things, and he’d been wracking his brains for ages over where to set up a suitable testing ground. Then it came to him.
The anti-Disapparition boundary around Hogwarts was anchored to a ring of enchanted stones, sunk along the fringe of the Forbidden Forest in immemorial times. The forest had spread since then, and most of the megaliths were now lost in the undergrowth. The stones also underpinned other defences, including the great protective shield which, as Harry had read in Hogwarts: A History, had been raised eleven times in the school’s existence (twice because of Grindelwald). Professor Fliltwick oversaw the enchantments, regularly inspecting and renewing them when needed. His small feet had worn a narrow path around the stone circle; step beyond it, outside the cromlech, and the forest became genuinely dangerous, but within, between the path and the open grounds, lay a strip where the forest’s more dangerous creatures did not venture, yet scrub and saplings flourished, and did a fine job of hiding anything from prying eyes.
Perfect.
Of course, without Tom he wouldn’t manage anything truly powerful, but Harry wasn’t about to start with a Killing Curse anyway—for all he knew, the simplest charms might already show Trunk’s weak points. And going up to their secret HQ to fetch Tom now would cost time, squandering an opportunity that had fallen into his lap so neatly.
With that in mind, he flipped Trunk open and began piling clothes and books from it onto his bed.
‘Don’t stand there like a post, lend a hand,’ he told Draco. Obediently, though not without asking, Draco asked, ‘What are we doing?’
‘Pushing the boundaries of magic, obviously,’ Harry smirked. ‘I want to test how well this charming little thing can hold up under attack, just in case.’
Draco frowned, thinking it over.
‘You planning to hide something valuable in it?’ he said, more statement than question, as they drew the bed-curtains tight. ‘Is it by any chance…?’
Harry hissed, and Malfoy fell silent at once—clearly, he’d realised the answer was ‘yes.’ Even here, in their own bedroom, it wasn’t the sort of thing to discuss out loud more than was strictly necessary.
Instead they set to picking Quirrell to pieces. What, precisely, had driven the Defence teacher to try to take Harry’s life? Was it hatred of Slytherin’s Heir, jealousy of him, or a muddle-headed zeal to serve the Dark Lord’s wishes? Lucius Malfoy ought to have warned the Death Eaters about Harry’s special status, of course, but it could be that not all of them had believed him, or the news simply hadn’t reached Quirrell yet. Then again, Quirrell might belong to the faction that loathed the Dark Lord, aiming a blow at his protégé on that account. So many explanations—take your pick. Harry’s own notion was more prosaic.
‘I think he’s cursed,’ he said.
Draco snorted, eyebrows jerking up. ‘Some revelation. The post is cursed, that’s why they take any Tom, Dick, or Harry, or – well, anyone, so long as they limp through a year.’
‘No, not like that. I mean he himself is cursed,’ Harry tried to put the nameless suspicion into words. ‘Have you noticed how he reeks?’
‘I thought he just doesn’t change his socks nearly often enough,’ Draco quipped. ‘All right, I get you. Black magic, yes?’
‘You tell me, Mr Half-of-a-Black. Do you sense anything off about him?’ Harry asked hopefully.
‘No more than you do, Mr Quarter-of-a-Black,’ Malfoy returned with a thin smile. ‘I sense I want to hold my nose. We’d need to hunt through a proper library—Mother’s family one would be ideal. Only we can’t get in now…’
He sighed. ‘What do you mean, can’t?’ Harry nearly blurted, then bit his tongue in time. Interesting. So Lady Narcissa was barred from the manor? Draco too?
He should have worked it out sooner, he scolded himself a moment later. Otherwise the house wouldn’t have been in the state Harry had found it.
‘Curses can affect the mind, can’t they?’ he went on. ‘What if he hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s doing any more?’
Draco’s shrug was uncertain. ‘A curse can warp anything, and the mind first of all. But I reckon he’d be flinging himself at everyone like a werewolf at the full moon if that were the case. No, doesn’t feel like that to me.’
Talking thus, they left the castle by the door that led towards the greenhouses. Above the sun-glossed slopes of glass roofs zipped tiny, colourful figures—the game was still on. The roar from the stands, softened by distance, carried even here. Beyond greenhouse five, whose clouded panes guarded the most dangerous and unpredictable flora, came ranks of ferns, and then the tall bristly hedges of gorse and wild raspberry. After fighting their way through the thorns, Harry looked around with satisfaction.
‘This should do,’ he decided, and drew his wand.
At the mention of the greater good and necessity, Trunk reacted much as the Hole had done before—whether it understood or not, it made no attempt to dodge when its master hexed it, only shifting from foot to clawed foot, tearing the turf with fretful little hops. Tickling, Stinging, Stunning—none of them seemed to touch it, and Harry brightened—this might well work. For safety’s sake—what if the artefact was only warded against its owner’s magic—he got Draco to cast Incendio, and that was when the unforeseen happened. Trunk gave a jump, shook the flames off like a dog shaking water, and bolted into the undergrowth—branches crackled and thrashed in its wake.
‘Stop! Morgana’s dirty vests… Stop! Where are you—’ Harry howled, but it was too late. The shrubs swung shut behind the runaway.
Draco burst out laughing, doubled over, and Harry flicked a Stinging Jinx at him before tearing off after his unruly property.
The Forbidden Forest was enchanting.
In summer it must have been even more so, but now, in the browns and russets of late autumn, it looked no less mysterious, no less inviting. Ancient yews bowed and arched their branches as though caught half-way through some sinuous dance. Plump green clumps of mistletoe nested atop elms furred with moss. Here and there wild apple-trees still held tiny yellow fruit on bare twigs—perhaps this patch of woodland had once been part of the school’s orchard. Hawthorn heavy with scarlet berries, rowans bowed beneath blood-red clusters, and rose-hips swollen past their time all looked splashed with gore. A soft, thick carpet of fallen leaves sprang underfoot, broken by blotches of black and yellow lichen. The air, rich with the smell of rot and leaf-mould, held a sharp unfamiliar note—as though this were what magic itself smelt like.
Everywhere, unseen life moved and seethed.
Something rustled and chittered up in the ragged canopy. Something else darted from trunk to trunk, too fast for Harry to make out. Shadows that made no sense at that angle of the sun capered in the hazel thickets. A dead twig winked, showing black glittering pupils. A rotten snag he tripped over came to life, flattened itself against the ground, and wriggled into a crevice among the roots. Overhead, there was a burst of hooting, flapping, and startled wing-beats—but when Harry peered up, whatever had caused the disturbance was gone.
Worse, Trunk was gone as well.
‘I’m not going into the Forest,’ squeaked Malfoy, who had caught up, but Harry turned, shot him a feral glare, and hissed, ‘You’re coming if you value your hide.’ A fresh curse quivered on the tip of his tongue, and the urge to take out his vexation on someone for his blunder was strong. Draco, apparently reading it on his face, fell silent smartly and struck as brave a pose as he could manage, trembling lips and knees notwithstanding.
They pushed deeper under the trees. A faint breeze sent leaves down in occasional showers, spinning as they fell. One settled on Harry’s shoulder and, before he could brush away the uninvited decoration, unfolded thin, mica-like wings and flew off. Draco breathed hard and raggedly. He glanced about with wide eyes and kept his wand ready, gripping it till his knuckles blanched.
‘Trunk!’ Harry called, feeling like a complete idiot. He should have given it a proper name—he had meant to. ‘Here! Trunk!’ He whistled.
Something cracked in the distance, then went still again.
‘This way! Oi!’
‘My lord,’ Draco quavered, ‘perhaps we shouldn’t…’
‘Draco, you’re not helping.’
The farther they went, the more space opened up. The scrub thinned, trees grew thicker, taller. Ivy ran up the gnarled trunks, and tangles of Iceland moss hung from the branches. Harry began to worry—they could all too easily lose their way.
‘Trunk! Mordred’s bastard! Come on! Here!’
Something white lay ahead. Odd—there hadn’t been any snow, though it was bound to come soon. Harry barely glanced at the pale patch; he had finally spotted the runaway. With an air that could only be called guilty—how the little blighter managed it without even having a face, Merlin alone knew, but Trunk contrived—it scuttled towards him, rustling the fallen leaves. Harry tapped the palm of his hand with his wand in a menacing little pat.
‘Heel,’ he ordered, and stepped forward.
And walked straight onto the thing that gleamed in the hollow, half-buried under forest litter.
Draco made a strangled noise—half-squeak, half-sob—and Harry vaguely hoped that, if Malfoy decided to be sick, he would have the sense to turn aside. But his knight didn’t retch. He panted, bared his teeth in a crooked grimace, and lifted his wand higher. Apparently, when Malfoy was truly frightened, his fear turned into anger—this was the second time today Harry had witnessed the metamorphosis.
A dead unicorn lay before them.
The fine legs were drawn up with painful stiffness, the pearl mane splayed, its horn’s magical brilliance quenched for good, and its eyes filmed over. No insects had touched it—perhaps the air was too cold, perhaps the essence of that marvellous creature protected it from death’s last indignity. Its milk-white neck gaped with a ragged wound, a hole big enough to put a fist through. Silver blood had dried on its fouled hide and the leaves around. Harry had never been much of an animal lover, yet the sight brought tears to his eyes.
It seemed he was not the only one with a knack for inner alchemy. Harry felt his mouth twist into a grin he had borrowed from his elder brother’s arsenal. Tears of grief melted into tears of rage.
Who dared?
The unicorn herd in the Forbidden Forest was the last in Magical Britain. In the world, for that matter. They were said to have no natural predators here. They lived unimaginably long; they bred very slowly; the loss of even one would not go unfelt. Whatever creature hunted incarnate magic itself had to be tracked down and destroyed.
Trunk sidled up to Harry and flopped down, tucking its legs under itself. Harry patted its lid absently—he no longer felt like telling off the half-sentient artefact; there were more pressing things.
‘Whom do we tell?’ Draco whispered, his voice breaking the silence over the glade, as if a charm had been laid on it. Harry snapped out of it. There was no point standing here choking on fury.
‘Our Head of House,’ he decided. ‘And him, of course. And Granger. No one else.’
‘What d’you want the Mudblood for?’ Malfoy grimaced.
‘She’s a Gryffindor, that’s what for. Let her spy. Who knows what they’ve heard.’
Malfoy choked.
‘You… you think it wasn’t a beast, then?’
Harry gave him a dark look.
‘I don’t know. But think about this—if you weren’t just a dark wizard from a family of certified lunatics, but a total lost cause, a real piece of rubbish, what might you want unicorn blood for?’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Draco said without thinking. ‘Hair and horn go in potions and artefacts, and blood is only used to…’ He stopped as the sense of his own words struck him, and finished in a fallen voice, ‘…to prolong the life of someone who’s as good as dead.’
Which was true—the Blacks’ library, the one Draco had been sighing over, was witness enough.
Anyone who drank unicorn’s blood brought down a terrible curse upon themselves—but, when there was in truth nothing left to lose, madmen would sometimes choose to stave off death by that sacrilege. Usually they were trying to finish something before the end—father a child, take revenge on an enemy, complete a magnum opus. Defend a kingdom against invasion—that happened too. Only the curse of unicorn’s blood was peculiar. It twisted all fair purposes into their opposites. Wit became madness, bravery fear, resolve languor. The enemy escaped scot-free. The labour of a lifetime went up in flames, leaving not even ash. The kingdom rotted within, ripped apart by ruinous taxes and noble squabbles for the throne. As for the child… He was named Mordred, and that’s quite enough about him.
He and Tom had studied the matter in detail. They had shut the book for good—the price, like a proper devil’s bargain, consumed the thing itself. It was never worth it, under any circumstances. Someone else thought differently, and Harry feared he knew who.
The very type of fool Ravenclaw House specialises in producing—the fool who believes he’s cleverer than everyone.
If Professor Quirrell was dying, he might, in a fit of misguided cleverness, have hit on this as a remedy.
And he was dying. One did not need to be a Black, by quarter, half, or whole, to see how fast the Defence teacher was falling to bits with every passing day.
The manic compulsion to chatter had gone. There were no more tall tales of African adventures and rescued princes. No more disquisitions on the benefits of garlic. The bouts of tics had ebbed, and in their place had come a wooden, strained face, the eyes alone alive. Taken together, it was classic poisoning with nux vomica, only stretched to an absurd extent—Harry had borrowed a book on vegetable poisons from Zabini, and could not get rid of the associations. Professor Quirrell looked like a broken automaton, a puppet—jerky movements, his gaze fixed on nothing. Lessons had become set reading, pure and simple. No practical work, no questioning. He didn’t even seem to mark essays, though he dutifully chalked the topic up on the board at the end of every class.
He’d begun to stammer as well.
A Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Stammering.
In Harry’s firm opinion, Quirrell needed a nurse, not a lectern.
And wasn’t it odd that, in this state, that wreck had had the strength and subtlety to lay such powerful charms on a ball?
‘Please, can we leave?’ Draco broke a silence that had gone on too long, and Harry realised he had sunk too far into thought. He nodded.
So, Trunk had shown promising resilience—not a singe mark on the carved wood—but two nasty revelations outweighed one good.
They barely made it back to the dungeons before voices sounded nearby as Harry was closing the door of the Slytherin common room. High, excited, overlapping and laughing—without doubt, supporters and the team coming back from the pitch.
A quarter of an hour later, stepping back into the common room, Harry found himself in the middle of a party as grand as the night they’d presented Slytherin’s Heir to the masses.
Slytherin had won again, it turned out, though not so effortlessly this time. That wretch Spinnet had managed to get the better of Higgs—she’d snatched the Snitch coming out of a steep dive, nearly ploughing up the turf with the tail of her shiny new broom. Witnesses swore she’d brushed the tips of the grass. As ever, catching the Snitch ended the match, but it didn’t save Gryffindor—while the Seekers had been playing chase, Flint, Montague, and Pucey had hammered Quaffle after Quaffle through the other hoops, and the score stood at one hundred and ninety to one hundred and seventy to Slytherin. In some ways, catching the Snitch and losing anyway was even more humiliating—fancy that! Nineteen goals to two (plus the one hundred and fifty points for the Snitch)—Bletchley, enraged that the very first goal had gone against his own side, must have died on the line, whereas Gryffindor really ought to consider a new Keeper.
Butterbeer flowed like water, the prefects’ sacred hip-flask was doing the rounds again, a bewitched gramophone appeared, and Myron Wagtail of the Weird Sisters urged everyone, over punchy guitar riffs, to ‘shake it like a hairy troll.’ Whereupon the students did so with gusto. They tossed Flint, the captain, into the air, and he kept roaring, ‘Put me back where you found me! Drop me, and you’re dead!’
Harry endured half an hour of this Sodom (he had been sensible enough to steer clear of the butterbeer this time, and without it the revel lost some charm), then decided his disappearance would go unnoticed. Besides, he wasn’t remotely in the mood. Unease and a nameless anxiety were throbbing under his ribs.
Outside the door, he ran into the House ghost, circling about in visible agitation.
‘The Master summons you,’ the Bloody Baron intoned, and drifted after him. Harry scratched his head—well, then. He’d been on his way to Tom, and it wasn’t the first time Tom had sent messages via the school’s ghosts (the unforgettable appearance of Myrtle on Troll Night came to mind), but Tom had never called him before. Usually it was Harry who sought him.
The spirit escorted him all the way to the Room of Hidden Things—through the closing gap, Harry glimpsed him sinking through the floor, away on spectral business. The lock clicked, and a cold, harsh voice said, ‘Where, pray, have you been wandering all morning?’
‘The Quidditch match,’ Harry said cautiously, turning. Tom stood right behind him, arms folded. His face was unreadable, which generally meant he was feeling something strong he didn’t care to show. Bad sign. What had Harry done wrong now? Did Tom know they had been in the Forbidden Forest?
Tom frowned.
‘And that was worth your time? Listen carefully. From this moment, you are not to be alone under any circumstances. One of the ghosts will be—’
‘Tom,’ Harry ventured to interrupt, ‘Tom, I need to tell you something—’
‘Be quiet,’ Tom flashed him a look. ‘This is important.’
‘My news is important too,’ Harry insisted. ‘Tom, we—’
‘Let me finish, you exasperating child!’ Harry had a very clear sense he was one step away from another Cruciatus—even that didn’t stop him.
‘Just hear me out—’
They spoke the next sentence together, as smoothly as if they had rehearsed it.
‘We have a possessed man in the school.’
* * *
The enchanted door opened to admit a visitor. He stepped inside—reluctant that was plain—and said with pompous politeness, ‘Headmaster Dumbledore, sir. You wished to see me?’ There it was again—that intonation on ‘sir’. Albus sighed and called, ‘Harry, my dear boy! Come in, come in! Tea?’ ‘Thank you,’ the boy answered, slipping into a chair. His feet didn’t reach the floor, and once again Albus reminded himself—Harry was still so very young; there was time to set things right. This time, he would not repeat old mistakes. ‘Harry, I have good news for you,’ he smiled, passing him a cup. The boy smiled back, and Albus shivered—there it was, that impeccable little grimace in which the eyes did not take part at all. Surely not… No, it could not be. Fate was cruel, but not that cruel. No—they were alike because Harry had been chosen to face evil. Sometimes, Albus knew from experience, only like could successfully oppose like. ‘You’ll be pleased to hear that several families have asked me to let you spend Christmas with them as their guest,’ he went on, keeping bleak thoughts from his face. The child tilted his head, questioning. That sliding, evasive look again—apparently at one, but never quite into, one’s eyes. ‘I see, sir,’ he said without an ounce of enthusiasm. Albus widened his smile, nodding encouragement. ‘Yes, yes. Listen. Mrs Weasley—she has a large, close-knit family. You’ve met the boys, and there’s a little girl too, a year younger than you. I’m sure you’d like it—I myself love to visit them, and Mrs Weasley’s cooking is… well, you’ll lick your fingers clean.’ Harry looked as though he’d been invited to lodge in a manticore’s nest. Albus tugged at his beard—a ridiculous habit, and the bells had done nothing to cure it—and carried on, feeling like a cross between a market barker and a rakish villain from a lady’s novel. ‘Lady Longbottom has also expressed an interest in having you to stay. She has only her grandson, Neville—you know him, he’s in your year. A quiet, gentle boy—you’d get on most excellently. They have a proper old estate, with house-elves and everything else one expects.’ Including acres upon acres of beds and greenhouses overrun with weeds, gone to pot since her industrious husband died. Hardly a recipe for holiday fun, but there was no arguing with Augusta. She still had not forgiven him for the decision to place the boy with Muggles. No interest at all. He had expected as much. He drew his third card. ‘Lastly, this may surprise you, but Professor McGonagall too would like to have you to stay. She is on her own and no longer young, but she will look after you as though you were her own. She is very keen on Quidditch, and of flying in general—your father was an outstanding player, you know, the best Chaser on the team. And what boy your age doesn’t enjoy Quidditch? You wouldn’t be bored, I promise you.’ ‘I’m not a Quidditch fan. Sir.’ ‘Well,’ Albus sighed again, ‘no one will force you. In that case, I think I can guess what you want to ask me. We’re drafting the lists this week… Harry, tell me plainly—do you want to stay at school for the holidays?’ He was so sure the answer would be yes that he thought he had misheard when a firm ‘No,’ followed. What? But— ‘I already have an invitation, sir. From a friend.’ ‘Friend’ was hopeful, on the whole. That word had not existed in Tom’s lexicon—until then. Albus turned the phrase over, sensing a flaw in it, then struck out ‘until then.’ ‘Friendship is a marvellous gift, is it not? I’m very glad for you,’ he said. His own smile was threatening to turn into the same ghastly rictus, and he sternly ordered himself to behave. ‘May I ask who?’ The word ‘no’ was written all over the child’s face, but he answered obediently, ‘Of course, sir. Draco Malfoy. He’s in my house, as you know.’ The last bit, translated from Parseltongue into English, meant something like ‘you senile old ninny.’ Albus smiled inwardly. But Malfoy… Even in Slytherin, it was hard to imagine a worse option. Well, nobody ever said it would be easy. ‘You don’t like school?’ he tried to get to the bottom of it. Tom had always wanted to stay at Hogwarts during the holidays — and later, as a professor once he’d graduated — by fair means or foul. It was one of the crucial mistakes: he’d never once been allowed to. Who knew — if things had gone differently, he might be with them now as a splendid Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, even with a few quirks and excesses, and the post itself might have stayed un-jinxed into the bargain… ‘I like it very much.’ His smile turned a couple of degrees warmer and, perhaps, a touch more sincere. ‘But sometimes it’s nice to have a change of scenery, wouldn’t you agree, sir?’ There was another difference, too. Albus felt his spirits lift a little. Even though the very thought of the Malfoys made him feel sick—especially the head of the family, who was vile, deceitful, and a slippery, half-crushed Death Eater—he had to remember the promise he had made to himself, and keep it, if not to the letter, then at least in spirit. Yes, this was unexpected, but to impose his own choice again would be to fall into the same mistake. Old men always thought they knew best. When had Albus become a dull old man? ‘As I said, no one will force you,’ he repeated. ‘But if you change your mind… Remember—Hogwarts never refuses shelter to those who ask. Do you understand?’ ‘Yes, sir. I’ll remember.’ He never so much as sipped his tea—just warmed his hands on the cup. How on earth was one to get it across that he wasn’t going to drug him? No trust at all—dreadful. One step at a time, Albus decided. We’ll go slowly, and one day this little hedgehog will lower his spines. After all, watching Death Eaters on their home ground might bring important insights. And they were less likely to cluck over the ‘poor dear,’ unlike Augusta, who had clearly set her mind on it, spoiling the hero of Magical Britain rotten. Even Molly would be better, though she could not say ‘poor orphan’ without her eyes misting up. Yes, in their own fashion the Malfoys might serve as a substitute for the Dursleys, whom, Merlin help him, Albus would still have preferred—but then Severus dug his heels in, threatening, half in jest, half in earnest, to kidnap the boy if he were sent back to Privet Drive. For some reason, once indifferent to Harry staying with Petunia, he now objected violently. ‘I know best, don’t argue,’ he’d said as well. ‘The war has turned us all into old men,’ Albus thought gloomily. Still, where had Harry spent that ill-fated month before school? Surely not with the Malfoys? Harry had let slip something about relatives… For now, there was something else to attend to. As soon as the door closed behind the boy, Albus drew the Pensieve towards him. A thread of memory slid into the stone bowl like quicksilver, and the surface misted with silver vapour. Albus lowered his face into it. ‘Sir, is it true Professor Merrythought is retiring?’ ‘Tom, Tom, if I did know, I wouldn’t be at liberty to tell you. And where do you get your information? You’re better briefed than half the staff. With your uncanny knack for picking up things you shouldn’t know, and your careful flattery of important people… Thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you’re quite right, I’m rather fond…’ Again and again the same old dialogue unfolded between young Riddle and Slughorn. He could hardly watch the borrowed memory without nausea any more, but he forced himself—there must be a clue here somewhere. ‘What I don’t understand… I mean purely out of curiosity… Is one Horcrux much use? Can one split one’s soul only once? Wouldn’t it be more practical to divide it into more parts?’ ‘How many did you make, Tom?’ Albus whispered, though he knew he would not be answered. ‘One? Or more?’ He stood behind Slughorn’s shoulder, and, for a moment, it felt as though Tom Riddle smiled at him, Albus, with the same polite, cloying smile Harry had worn.* * *
The Headmaster’s summons that evening caught Harry on the hop. He had a right dressing-down from Selwyn first—the prefect had not spotted him at once and had worked himself into a proper state. ‘I was in the library,’ Harry began to make something up, but Selwyn snapped, ‘Don’t lie, you weren’t—that’s the first place I looked.’ ‘I’m not lying,’ Harry bristled (he had been in the Room of Hidden Things, of course). ‘Then you can’t have looked properly.’ ‘Next time I’ll say I was down in the Chamber of Secrets, taking in Salazar’s wisdom—and they can go and feed the manticores,’ he decided. The subsequent interview with the Headmaster threw him even more. He hadn’t considered that Dumbledore might forbid him to spend the holidays where he wished. Could he, though? Harry decided to ask Draco. With his father chairing the Board of Governors, Draco ought to know which documents governed such things. There had to be a school charter or the like somewhere. And there hadn’t been time to warn Tom. Tom despised it when Harry talked to grown-ups without his blessed coaching. ‘I’m sick of this,’ Harry thought, slumped on the Slytherin common-room sofa with the November issue of Potioneer’s Practical (he ought to suggest Granger subscribe—or else Snape would keep slicing fine shavings off her every week for trusting the textbook too much). ‘We need a sensible way of getting messages to each other. Ghosts won’t do, even if one’s on duty next to me at all times. I’ll look a sight, especially in class. Grim.’ On ghosts, Tom was adamant—and grew sterner still after Harry told him what had happened at the match. Harry himself wasn’t delighted about being dragged into scrapes, but, truth be told, only one had been on him—that wretched duel with Weasley. The others… just happened. And he’d be the first to cry, ‘Tom!’ (there was something unutterably sweet in the phrase ‘my big brother will be along presently to sort you out’). Only that would mean carrying the diary everywhere—robbing it of a safe resting place and blowing the whole secret wide open. His head was stuffed fit to burst with what he’d learnt in the last day. A Horcrux in the diadem. A Horcrux in himself—did Harry have a personality of his own at all? Or had the fragment of soul thrust into him grown into a full, separate person? Propagation by cuttings—the thought made him snigger. Tom could not help; no one had ever put a Horcrux into a living creature, let alone a sentient one. They were on the shifting ground of conjecture and hypothesis, and it would have been far more fun to explore if the subject weren’t himself. Preferably someone not overly worth keeping. Now there was the Quirrell Problem on top. Tom swept away the last doubts. The reek of decay, the spell too mighty for a half-dead stammerer, the dead unicorn—it all lined up, and on top of that, one of the ghosts (Lord Draben, whoever he was—Harry had yet to meet him) had caught the professor talking to himself in different voices. Thank Merlin the spectre had had the sense to go straight to Tom. Tom had tracked the suspect himself and confirmed there was no mistake. They ought to have guessed earlier—and Harry almost had—but he had made the mistake of trusting the school authorities more than was wise, and now he couldn’t stop berating himself for it. At a school where trolls wandered the corridors, where they kept a Cerberus, and where the gamekeeper adopted a dragon—what sort of proper vetting of staff could one expect? Medical checks, for heaven’s sake… Had he picked up this nonsense from Granger? So he and Tom would have to deal with the possessed man themselves—there was no other way. Tom was all for simply killing him. For once, Harry felt inclined to shelve humanitarian scruples. Exorcising a possessing spirit was messy, long, and difficult, even for a fully fledged adult wizard, and the two of them together barely added up to one of those, whatever Tom might imagine about himself. And there was no telling the host would survive. Nor how many questions he would have afterwards. Yes, the feat could bring handsome dividends, but not enough to justify the risk. They would need to be careful, though. They couldn’t have anyone linking this death to Harry. On the other hand… ‘I refuse to believe you’re quite so enthralled by anomalous reactions to sage in a baldness draught,’ Draco cut into his thoughts. Harry realised he’d been sitting with the journal open, without reading a word, for the best part of an hour. ‘You’ve been sighing over the same page for ages. What’s eating you? Is it because of… what happened this morning?’ ‘Never you mind,’ Harry muttered, snapping shut the magazine with the bubbling cauldron on its cover. ‘You know what? Lights-out is ages away. Let’s go and let off some steam.’ Luck was on their side, at least to start with. Their prey walked straight into their hands, and what prey! ‘Hullo,’ Harry said, unable to keep the smile out of his voice, and Dean Thomas stared about in panic. ‘Don’t,’ he squeaked in a voice high as a girl’s, thinner than Crabbe’s, even. ‘Don’t… please…’ This bit was Harry’s favourite. When they begged, and he hadn’t even done anything yet. ‘Is this what you say to your little friend Weasley when you set him on me?’ he asked sweetly. He had no proof—but Thomas had just given himself away. Guilt, a frantic scrabble for excuses, fear—all written all over his face. ‘I didn’t… I didn’t set… I never even touched you…’ Harry nodded, all sympathy. ‘I believe you. You wouldn’t make an Auror. You’re more the sort who’d snitch to the Aurors. So tonight we’re playing “Death Eaters and Snitches”, all right?’ The prey squealed and struggled, but Crabbe and Goyle had him tight. The simple advantage of mass—try shifting one of those. Harry drew up his hood with leisure, and took out his wand. A mask would have been the finishing touch—he should bring along the silver one from the Room of Hidden Things (not a real Death Eater mask, of course, but it would serve)—but, to his own disappointment, he kept forgetting about it. Back at Headquarters, his thoughts switched to Tom, utterly and completely. ‘Well, look what we have here! A grass. I’ll wager he’s ratted out plenty of our lads to his filthy Order of the Phoenix. We’re about to teach him a proper lesson, so he—’ ‘Heads up,’ Draco hissed down the corridor. ‘Heads up, lads—Filch is coming!’ Harry hissed through his teeth. The blasted old man, spoiling such a lark! ‘Look over your shoulder, you hippogriff crap!’ he promised, and threw a baleful look at the Grey Lady, hovering nearby. ‘And you—you call this helping? You said nothing!’ The ghost wavered sadly. They had a standard plan for such moments. The four Slytherins scattered like quail. As he ran, Harry pushed his hood back and shot through to the tapestry of the werewolf baying at the moon, then slipped into the secret passage. Students often used the shortcut to reach the fourth floor, and the library. It would close in half an hour, but Harry could still pretend he had forgotten to bring along some extra reading. ‘Miaow!’ came from behind him. ‘Miaow!’ That spurred him like a siren. Swearing blue murder about the caretaker under his breath, Harry tiptoed down the corridor, trying to be both fast and silent—not a trivial task. He smacked open every door on the right with an outstretched palm—the left was nothing but a row of tall, narrow windows. The sixth or seventh door gave way; he slipped in, eased it shut, and held his breath. ‘Where are they, my sweet? Where are those wretches?’ Filch’s rasping voice sounded right on the other side, and Harry started. ‘Fighting in the corridors, forbidden! Magic in the corridors, forbidden! Dungbombs, forbidden! I may be old, but my nose still works. There was a dungbomb, wasn’t there, my dear?’ ‘Miaow!’ ‘I said so, didn’t I! In my day they’d have had the birch for that! Ten of the hot ones, across the soft spot, that’d have them meek as lambs…’ The muttering began to fade. Harry wiped the sweat off his forehead, slumped bonelessly against the door, and slid down to the floor, wrung out with fright. ‘Bastard,’ he said aloud, though still barely above a whisper—who knew what the old relic could hear. ‘Goblin-and-manticore love-child. I’ll get you one day too.’ Filch fully deserved his place on the List. Had the prefects not added him, Harry would have done it himself, and given him three stars instead of one. A meeting with the basilisk would do him the world of good. The Grey Lady wafted through the shut door. Harry looked at her with indignation—so that was how Filch had hunted him down! No, it would not do. He would explain to Tom tonight—not tomorrow—that the idea of a ghostly escort was sheer folly. He looked about. Another forgotten, abandoned classroom. What had they taught here? Faded charts and graphs hung on the walls. Harry stood—and something shifted opposite. He nearly died on the spot, but it was only a mirror propped against the wall. The reflection was off, though. Harry went closer. He was looking at a large mirror, seven feet tall or so, in a gilded frame of repeating geometric ornament, its feet shaped like bird’s legs with long talons. Along the bottom ran an inscription: MUIREDISED. Latin again, of course. Harry despaired. But when he raised his eyes and looked properly into the charmed glass… It was himself, naturally, but he barely recognised the reflection. Older, a good deal older, within striking distance of graduating—only the uniform marked him as still at school. A prefect’s badge gleamed on his lapel. He sat on the edge of a desk with lazy ease, chatting to someone. A moment later the other appeared. He ruffled Harry’s hair as he passed—it looked casual and affectionate both—then settled at the desk and drew a stack of papers towards him. Tom. In a professor’s robe. And with a shadow. Harry could see it clearly—ink-black, it stretched behind him, broke at the join of floor and wall, and followed Tom’s movements as a shadow should. Harry couldn’t breathe. He wanted to cry, to scream. He wanted to go through the glass like Alice, and stay there for ever, in that marvellous reality with his living brother. What did the mirror do? Did it show the future? Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away, though they were starting to sting—he was afraid to blink, lest he miss a heartbeat of that bewitching vision. But his mind carried on working. ‘Muiredised.’ What was that supposed to be? What did it mean? Where was Granger with her Latin when he actually needed her? And Tom. Dragging his gaze away with immense effort, Harry said, ‘You. Go and fetch your Master. Now.’ The Grey Lady—she did not appear in the reflection, by the way—did not hurry to obey. She said nothing, but Harry had gathered by now that Ravenclaw’s ghost was not given to speech. He raised his voice. ‘I know he told you not to leave me, but if you don’t bring him at once… you’ll envy Peeves, do you hear? Ask the others, if you’re afraid to go yourself. Work it out. Move!’ The ghost quivered. Bloodless lips twisted in a noiseless sob. She darted towards the wall and slipped away. Harry returned to his looking. Tom was lecturing, eyes lit, pacing the length of the chalkboard—and the shadow was there, sliding after him; Harry saw his own rumpled head in the front row. They had tea in the Black House library over a chaos of books—and Tom drank, the cup touched his lips, his throat moved as he swallowed. They walked down Diagon Alley—two shadows, not one, stretched along the cobbles. They fought—not seriously, of course, a practice bout—and sparks from Tom’s counter-curse singed his robe; he smacked them out and said something, smiling with such open, glowing warmth it was as though— ‘I told you not to be alone for a minute,’ said a commanding voice behind him. Harry did not turn, but stretched his hand back—and found nothing. He had expected it, and still it hurt. It hurt so much… This time the curse felt like a deep toothache in every cell of the body. Still sitting on the floor, Harry wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. ‘Tom,’ he blurted (and some part of him marvelled at how different this Cruciatus Curse felt from the first—or was it only his reaction?), ‘Tom, what do you see in the mirror?’ Tom, towering over him like an avenging angel, gave an irritable twitch of his brow, but his eyes slid to the reflection—and fixed there. Harry watched, heart in his mouth, as the façade of chilly indifference cracked, and showed— Pain. Eyes widening a fraction, lips pressed thin, a crease digging in over the bridge of his nose, chin tilted up in that unconscious gesture of defiance, and the briefest bob of his Adam’s apple. ‘What do you see?’ Tom asked at length. Fighting dizziness and weakness, Harry got to his feet. Yes, it wasn’t a proper day if he didn’t end up on the floor collecting dust. He smoothed his robe, but decided against magic, lest he sit down again. He’d clean up later. ‘That you’re alive,’ he said simply. ‘Me, in seventh year, and you next to me. And you’re alive.’ Tom turned away from the mirror. A bitter, painful smile twisted his face. That unruly lock over his brow had come completely loose. ‘I see the same,’ he said.
