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“-. October 31, 1992 .-“

Harry remembered the aftermath vaguely, even though he was hyperaware while it was happening. Half the professors sputtered in outrage, the other half fretted in concern, the Headmaster took charge of the Rat Man, and Professor McGonagall looked like she’d seen a ghost when she and Professor Flitwick led Harry to the hospital wing with Fred and George floating after them.

Madam Pomfrey slathered his face in bruise-removing balm, covered him in gauze and bandages, and gave him a calming draught that made him feel a lot less horrid, but then she had to devote herself fully to the twins. George was just tired and scuffed from the bad fall. Apparently, stunners didn’t throw people across the room, they just made them faint. It was just George’s luck that he was mid-run when it happened. Fred, though, was the worst off. Even with the short exposure, Madam Pomfrey had put him to sleep and was checking every inch of him over to make sure he didn’t need a nerve-regrowth potion. The Cruciatus curse was seriously bad news.

That was about when Ron and Hermione rushed into the hospital wing.

“Harry, are you alright?” Hermione asked in a rush. “What am I saying, of course you’re not, you’re in the hospital wing again!”

“They locked us in!” Ron hissed, looking around as if he thought someone would come to throw them in jail any moment. “They wouldn’t let us help, they boxed us in the Common Room and locked the door, even changed the password! Bloody Perfect Percy, always with the good ideas no matter who they put in the hospital – George? The heck are you doing in a hospital bed?”

Harry flatly and factually summarised the situation. He was thinking a lot more clearly now. Must be the potion.

Hermione gaped and Ron blanched. “Fred was Crucioed?” He stared at the divider behind which Madam Pomfrey was hard at work. “What? When? Who was that guy?”

“Peter Pettigrew,” George said from the other bed, voice low. “Least that’s what the Map called him.”

“Peter Pettigrew,” Harry repeated flatly, his mind flashing back to all their research of that night. “As in my parents’ friend Peter Pettigrew. ‘The man who was supposedly killed by Sirius Black’ Peter Pettigrew. Peter Pettigrew the-”

“Marauder, aye,” George grunted, reaching for the bedside counter. “Wormtail Peter. It’s sparked a total mess of an argument. Take a look.”

George’s weak throw ended with the map on the floor. Ron had to dig under the bed for it and hand it on. Harry took it and opened it. The ink-art of Hogwarts was ripped and bloated while a stag, a rat, a dog and a wolf were falling over each other in a veritable storm of disbelieving and angry speech bubbles.

“Well, at least you’re not petrified,” Hermione said, though she didn’t sound altogether convinced that was a bright side here.

“Petrified?” Harry asked in confusion. “Was I supposed to be?” Come to think of it, there was that one upper-year that shouted-

“We only just found out too, Harry, Filch’s cat has been petrified. She was found near the second floor girl’s lavatory, hung from a sconce. There was a message left behind too, written in blood on the wall.”

“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.” Ron murmured, looking warily at Madam Pomfrey’s shadow on the divider. “It happened while we were at Nick’s party. And since we weren’t with the rest of the school when the feast broke up, we’re the main suspects.”

“Or we were,” Hermione valiantly tried to appease Ron’s sour face. “But it’s abundantly clear now that we weren’t responsible.”

Harry didn’t say anything about the… probably wrong conclusion. He was too busy being very unnaturally calm while remembering his vision about Ron’s sister finger-painting in very thick red ‘ink.’

Noises from the entrance made Harry quickly fold up the parchment and pass it back through Ron to George, who deactivated it with a quick Mischief Managed and hid it under his pillow.

It was the Hogwarts staff accompanied by the rest of the Weasleys, including Arthur and Molly. They descended on the twins in a veritable storm of anxious mothering. They put more than a token effort to include Harry in it too, even if it only made Harry feel jealous at not having a bedside somebody of his own. Thankfully, the calming drought deadened the feelings.

“Harry,” Dumbledore said when the Weasley huddle was properly clustered around the twins. “I want to know if you’re ready to answer questions. Many grave things are unravelling tonight. It grieves me to ask for more of you so soon, but experience has taught me it never serves to let such things lie.”

Harry blinked, raising his head to meet the headmaster’s gaze, trying to discern the expression of the eyes behind the half-moon spectacles. Dumbledore's light-blue gaze twinkled, making Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. Like when he was being watched, except ten times stronger and right in his face. He blinked hard and averted his gaze. The feeling disappeared.

Harry’s bruise throbbed. The inside of this head seemed to be in disarray, as though his brain had just been rattled along with the rest of him by an earthquake. The loving hustle of the Weasley family seemed very far away. Hermione was next to him, earnestly meeting Dumbledore’s gaze.

Finding a trustworthy teacher that will not abuse the privilege of seeing your deepest self is the tallest order.

The calming draught felt like cotton around his brain. Harry leaned into it. If he didn’t, he would scream.

The one with first-hand intelligence will do as he thinks right.

“I want to talk to Hermione a bit first, sir.”

The silence hung between them a moment too long. “Very well Harry, but please hurry. There are others vying for your attention and I can keep them away only so long.”

Harry waited for the headmaster to walk to the door. Then he slid out of bed and stood between him and Hermione, not entirely faking the need to wait for his dizzy spell to go away. “Hermione,” he whispered just loud enough for Ron to hear too, even though he was understandably focused on his brothers. “Dumbledore reads minds through eye contact.”

Hermione gaped.

Harry’s hand snapped up to cover her mouth before she exploded like she was clearly about to. “I didn’t realise until just now.” He carefully withdrew his hand and dropped it when Hermione didn’t burst with her million questions. “We’ll talk. Soon. All three of us. But right now I need you to do something for me. This is important, Hermione, please.”

“Alright Harry,” Hermione said worriedly, making to look around Harry to Dumbledore and stopping half-way. “What do you need?”

“Back in the dorm. In my bed, hanging off the top frame is a glass globe. I need you to break it.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “What, why?”

“Hermione,” Harry clenched both his fists and his teeth. “I can’t explain anything right now. I just need you to do it. Take it and smash it, throw it at the ground, I don’t care, just make sure it’s in pieces before I reach the Headmaster’s office, please.”

“Alright, Harry, alright, I’ll do it. Is there anything else I can do?”

“No. Just do it fast.”

“Blimey!” Ron exclaimed hard enough to echo out in the corridor. “I forgot my wand in the common room! Mum, Dad, I gotta get it, it’s dangerous to be without one right now!”

Maybe Harry wasn’t the only one grasping for freedom.

“Oh Ronald,” Mrs. Weasley sighed. “When will you stop forgetting every important thing?

“I’ll go with him,” Arthur announced. “Come on, Ron.”

“I’ll come with you!” Hermione called. “I’ll see you later Harry. You should hurry, the Headmaster’s waiting!”

I could hug you both, Harry thought gratefully. Then he frowned with all the self-discernment of drug-induced peace. Why don’t I ever do that anyway?

“Harry?” Dumbledore called. “Are you ready?”

I don’t wanna. “I’m coming.”

The Hospital Wing was a tower accessible from the first floor, while the Headmaster’s Office was its own tower on the other side of the castle accessed from the third floor. That meant that they didn’t need to pass through the second floor if they took the Grand Staircase, which they did. But Dumbledore led him through the corridor where Filch’s cat had been petrified anyway. Harry wouldn’t pretend not to appreciate having his curiosity satisfied. The cat was gone, but the writing wasn’t. Harry’s footsteps splashed in the lingering puddle as they passed by, echoing dully in the hall. The water split ahead of Dumbledore though, not touching him at all.

One day I’ll be able to do that too.

“Gobbledy Goobers,” Dumbledore told the gargoyle, who jumped aside to let them pass.

The calming potion was already working overtime.

The spiral staircase spun on its own to raise them up to the office proper, where Dumbledore preceded Harry into the chamber. It was a large circular room with many bookshelves and delicate silver instruments on spindle-legged tables, puffing smoke and whirring. Portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses dozed in their frames. High above, the ceiling was dominated by a slow winding orrery. And on a perch beside the door stood a bird with crimson feathers on its body, claws and a beak gleaming gold, black eyes, and a golden tail as long as a peacock's. The bird watched Harry with bright interest as he entered.

“Ah yes, Harry, this is Fawkes, my familiar. You’re lucky to see him looking so well, his burning day is coming so he’ll be turning ragged and decrepit soon, rather like me really. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers, and they make highly faithful pets.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’m sure that’s all very fascinating, Dumbledore,” came the condescending voice of Lucius Malfoy from where he stood further in, because the office was far from empty. “But we should get back to the matter at hand, unless you still need time to come up with excuses for the madhouse you’ve allowed this school to turn into.”

In addition to Draco’s older clone, there was Professor McGonagall, a woman wearing the biggest monocle Harry had ever seen, two aurors, and Snape lurking like a giant bat near the wall next to where Peter Pettigrew was tied unconscious to a chair. The people all turned to look at Harry the moment they saw him.

“… Hello,” Harry said. The calming potion seemed to be losing strength fast, so he turned his attention to the first thing he noticed that wasn’t trying to make him feel like a bug under a microscope, which happened to be the fireplace. It was lit. The red and orange flames danced merrily, uncaring of the grave atmosphere in the room.

“Harry Potter,” murmured Malfoy Senior as if Harry hadn’t been there to see him provoke Mr. Weasley into a fistfight just a month before. “The hero of the hour.”

Is he related to Snape?

“Harry, allow me to introduce Madam Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and with her are aurors Gawain Robards and Rufus Scrimgeour. She’s here to get your testimony of the night’s events and then everything can go back to normal. And you know Lucius Malfoy of course. He’s here today in his capacity as Chairman of the Hogwarts Board of Governors.”

Harry met the man’s eyes before he thought better of it and blinked a few times even though he didn’t feel anything from him, pretending exhaustion. Then he spotted who was hiding behind the man. A small, wrinkly, hunched over form. A floppy-eared thing wringing his hands, looking furtively away from him. Dobby the house elf. Harry’s brain had never been more conflicted between ‘that's cute’ and ‘get away from me.’ It was like a green stop sign.

I hate fake Halloween.

“Come now, Harry,” Dumbledore called for him to follow, pulling his wand with a wave that materialised a chair out of nowhere. “Here, sit.”

Harry quietly climbed into the chair that Dumbledore conjured. It was comfy. And in the middle of the room. Where everyone could stare at him. Harry didn’t remember ever feeling so small and ganged up on. He’s messing with me, right? Even during Harry Hunting he could at least run away. It didn’t always work, but at least he had the option.

Madam Bones stepped forward. “Mister Pot-“

The blaze flared. The fireplace doubled in height. The flames burst up. They turned from red to green.

Malfoy scowled. “Expecting someone else, Dumbledore?”

“Not to my-“ The fire turned from green to gold. “- Ah. I believe I know who it might be, though I couldn’t speculate on the why.”

Sparks flew out of the flames to flick all through the room, alighting on shelves, tables and clothes without going out or catching fire. They’re not sparks, Harry realised when one of them managed to somehow miss everyone to land on his sleeve. It’s a golden flake of... something.

With a final surge that made the golden flames shimmer violet, Nicolas Flamel stepped forth in a billow of purple and gold. The caduceus hung from a silver chain around his neck. Hooded robes cast sharp shadows over light skin and eyes that seemed to glow with an inner light. A massive phoenix-embossed grimoire hung from thick twined ropes around his waist, clasped tight with a crow’s skull. Holly staff in one hand, its head a gimbal slowly spinning around a glowing gem. At his waist hung a stick of black wood, covered in glowing runes. Tall. Blond hair. And…

“Nicolas!” Dumbledore rose to stand behind his desk. “This is a most unexpected surprise. To what do we owe the honor? You timing is most curious, I will admit.”

“Albus. Strangers.” Nicolas nodded in greeting and then proceeded to walk up to Harry while ignoring everyone else.

“You cut your beard!” Harry said stupidly. When had he hopped off the chair?

“Hardly,” Nicolas scoffed. “‘Tis barely a trim, little one.” The man struck the ground with his staff, causing it to morph into a cream-colored wand – was that apple wood? – which he then gave a negligent wave. Harry’s chair grew proper-length legs and twice as wide. Nicolas sat down on it and lifted Harry from under the arms to sit next to him.

Harry literally melted from relief. He was there. Nicolas was there. He was real!

“Now, let me check you over. One always wants to be at their best for an interrogation.”

“Dumbledore, what is the meaning of this?” Lucius demanded in the background.

“This is hardly an interrogation, Mr. Flamel,” said Madam Bones.

“A detained felon, a potion master standing by to have his expert opinion recorded for the veritaserum questioning that clearly just took place, the Head of Law Enforcement and two aurors at her side, plus the chief overseer of the venue where today’s events took place.” Nicolas waved his wand over Harry’s body. “All of you gathered together, at ten past ten at night, in the place of power of the leader of the International Confederation of Wizards, around a twelve-year-old child who has been denied all due representation, to say nothing of a grace period or even proper healthcare.” Nicolas frowned and waved and flicked and turned his wand a few more times around Harry’s head, the tip leaving pale streaks lingering in the air. “And it seems you even timed it so the boy’s judgment would still be impaired by a calming potion. How very devious of the Hogwarts leadership and the Ministry both to collude on this.” Nicolas sent Dumbledore a disappointed look identical to the one Dumbledore used on students. “I will be instructing Harry here in the right procedure for filing a complaint about that.”

The auror woman visibly rethought what she was planning to say. “A calming potion, you say?” She passed her gimlet eyes to the rest of the room. “It seems certain parties have proven reluctant to part with all relevant information in defiance of law. Rest assured I will address that issue. How long will the potion last?”

“Madam, if you insist on addressing me as if I was born yesterday, I’d rather you not address me at all.”

Auror Robards scowled and opened his mouth to say… nothing at all because he’d been silenced. How? When? And why was Nicolas upset with her question?

Nicolas snapped his fingers and a globe of purple light wrapped in white runes shrieked to life in his palm before it disappeared just as quickly, leaving a gold-colored metal ribbon wrapped around his fingers, hand and forearm. “Tsk, wrong artefact.” He snapped his fingers a second time, exchanging the ribbon glove for a gold-framed disk that looked like a squished tomato with wrinkles. “Not that either.” Snap the third, and now Nicolas was holding a pistol. The man looked at it flatly, then disappeared it up his sleeve, no, don’t go, come back! “Right, Hogwarts is one of the funny ones.” Nicolas frowned and didn’t snap his fingers this time. The globe of light bloomed white and hummed like a pipe organ before fading. “Finally. This will take care of your addled wits, Harry.” Nicolas motioned with the golden teaspoon invitingly. “Say ‘ah.’”

Somewhere to the right, Dumbledore breathed in sharply. “Nicolas, what are you-?”

It didn’t taste like anything, but it went down his throat like maple syrup, and the next thing Harry knew, he was having a highly detailed and exceptionally vivid dream as if he was in one of the Hogwarts paintings come to life. Nicolas was leading him around his cluttered laboratory, which was bathed in golden light, and showing exactly how to make the Philosopher’s Stone.

He came back to himself feeling his skin buzzing, full of more energy than he ever remembered feeling, and clear-headed like he never remembered being at all. Harry looked around the room with new eyes, immediately realising he’d been out of it longer than he’d thought. Enough to miss an entire conversation. One that left the woman, the aurors and even Dumbledore dissatisfied. And Snape outraged.

Nicolas was, as Harry fully expected, the best.

“Surprising,” Nicolas said, watching Harry thoughtfully. “Your hair is still red. I’ll add metamorph practice to the plans, just in case.”

Meta-what?

Madam Bones snapped closed the folder she’d been reading for… however long and handed it to Nicolas with pursed lips. “Everything seems to be in order.”

Harry eyed the paper as it vanished somewhere or other. “What’s that?”

“Oh, just a little something to persuade the not entirely good people here that I’m fully entitled to be your advocate whenever it suits me.”

“Oh.” How did he manage that?

“Please, Mr. Flamel,” Madam Bones said curtly. “Your points were raised, made and addressed. Insults become none of us now.”

Flamel eyed her dryly. “The Ministry’s hypocrisy is noted.” Then ignored her bristling and turned back to Harry. “Harry. I want to use legilimency to pull the memory of the night’s events from your mind. Do I have your permission? Please think of any questions or clarifications you might want before you answer. Either way, you don’t need to go ahead with the travesty of this interrogation unless you really want to. I’ll handle things whatever happens.”

“Oh,” Harry was really starting to sound like a broken record. “Will it hurt?”

“No.”

“… Can I choose what you see?”

“Not without training, I’m afraid.”

“Right.” Really, he just wanted to say yes, but Nicolas had asked him to think about it. And the last time he didn’t cling to Nicolas like a barnacle, he up and vanished. “Pettigrew didn’t petrify Mrs. Norris, did he?”

Nicolas turned to Dumbledore expectantly.

“Not according to his veritaserum testimony,” Dumbledore said.

"And do you presume he could have beaten it?" Flamel asked. Harry hadn't even thought about that – wait, the magical world had actual working truth serum!?

Out of Harry’s line of sight, Snape sneered. “Not unless the simpleton has advanced his potions skill beyond mine while living as a rat for the past twelve years.”

That simpleton hoodwinked every one of you, Harry thought unkindly. “… What does it mean? That he’s alive?”

Nicolas leaned back with his arm around Harry’s shoulder – Harry might have cuddled a bit there – and inspected the items on Dumbledore’s desk. Then he snapped his fingers and wandless geminio charm deposited a parchment in his hand.

“Mister Flamel-“

“Informed consent, madam. The Ministry may not insist on it, but I do.” Nicolas scanned the sheet top to bottom. “It says here that Sirius Black was only a decoy for the real secret keeper of your parents, Harry, which is the same rat man in yonder manacles. The wretch promptly proved his cowardice by betraying your parents to Tom Riddle. Then he proved his cunning just as promptly by framing your godfather for the crime and his death, which he faked by screaming accusations at Black and blowing up a gas main in a crowded street, then cutting his own finger and escaping as a rat through the sewers. He then spent the years in his rat form, hiding from the Death Eaters he was convinced would blame him for Tom Riddle’s suicide by vicious parents. I assume he chose the Weasleys to freeload off of because they would be the last place anyone would look that also provided him a direct ear into the ministry. The questioning doesn’t seem to have been thorough enough to touch on that, unfortunately. Here.” Nicolas rolled up the scroll and gave it to Harry.

Harry blinked and accepted the scroll, even though everyone else in the office felt like they were trying to burn him with their eyes. “He spent twelve years as a rat? Just like that?” Harry then felt a bit ill. “He slept in Ron’s bed.” And his brothers’ before him too. “Ugh.”

“I’m afraid so.”

This was horrible! “I want to go.” Harry blurted. “But only if you won’t vanish this time!” It didn’t take a genius to realise that this time fell like an even bigger bomb than Nicolas showing up to begin with. “You won’t, will you?”

Nicolas turned to look at Dumbledore expectantly again.

“Temporary quarters can, of course, be arranged. Pitts!” A house elf popped into the office. “Please have the purple guest room on the seventh floor prepared for habitation.”

“Yes, Headmaster sir!” The elf vanished.

“What even are house-elves?” Harry muttered to himself.

“Cursed pucks,” Nicolas explained anyway. “Hobgoblins. They went around doing chores for people just so they could pretend offense at the spooked residents, whom they would then torment viciously and without end, often to injurious or outright fatal consequences. A fair few people they even drove to suicide. They eventually switched one too many babies with their changelings – their glamored offspring – so Merlin worked together with the ancestor spirits of all the British Isles to give them a place in man’s household like they always wanted. Now they go suicidally mad if left alone, which is precisely the sort of ironic fairy logic that made the curse work on them to begin with. Well, unless they earn their freedom by human standards. Merlin was harsh, not heartless. All the same, though, don’t give them clothes unless you’re absolutely convinced they’ll be better off. Or you want to punish them, spirits know plenty of them continue to earn it to this day.”

Harry was very clearly the only human being in Dumbledore’s office that appreciated Nicolas Flamel wasting their precious time explaining common knowledge to an ignorant as-good-as-muggleborn, but that only made Harry love him even more. “You can do it.”

“Hmm?”

“You can read my mind. You’ll teach me how to stop it, right?”

“That and more.” Nicolas tipped Harry up by the chin and stared into his eyes for a few seconds. “And that’s that.”

Harry blinked, feeling like his brain had just been combed through with a loupe and torch. “That’s it.”

“That’s it. Now, would you like to go or stay?”

Harry made a show of pretending to be conflicted about being in a situation he never wanted hide or hair of to begin with. “I’ll go.” But he hesitated. “Can…” Harry bit his lip. “Can I tell Ron and Hermione about you? And… all the other… stuff.”

“Oh little one,” Nicolas said sadly. “Of course you can. Why would you ever think I’d make you choose? They’re your only friends in this world.”

Harry felt like he wanted to curl up under a rock. “Right. Sorry. Thanks.”

“Thank me by being a good friend to them in return. And maybe by making some more.”

“Right.” It should be illegal to make someone feel so bad and then so much better so easily. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“And the day after, and probably many more times before the end of your school year here. Speaking of which.” Nicolas pulled out again the documents that Madam Bones had been looking at. “You will want to go over these as well.”

Harry blinked and accepted them automatically. “Alright? What are they?”

“Custody papers, at least until the end of the year, signed and filed. You aunt and uncle aren’t the worst of people but they’re down there, they sold you for a bar of gold.”

Harry’s brain stopped working.

Nicolas rose, put Harry on the ground and walked him to the door. “Go on now. I’ll handle matters here.”

Harry went.