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“-. February 14, 1993 .-“
He tried to move until he couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe because his own chest felt like a rock pressing down on it. He’d begged and pled and screamed without screaming until it felt like screaming out of a coffin, that’s what his body had turned into. How did he get himself into this mess? Why the bloody hell did he just stand there gawking at the snake? And why was he just petrified instead of dead? That’s not how basilisks worked! And who was that in Ginny’s body? Was it even really her?
Maybe it was someone polyjuiced, Harry thought in despair. That would be a riot, why wouldn’t our biggest win be stolen and turned to shite?
Or maybe Ginny was possessed instead, it would explain why his name on the Map was always an unintelligible letter salad, but then where did all these possessing creeps come from? It's Voldemort again, isn't it? Harry thought bleakly, except it made no freaking sense. Whoever spoke from Ginny's mouth sounded nothing like the dark lord, Harry had heard him just weeks ago when he jumped out of the diadem at him, whoever this was wasn't even a full grown man! It was like a teenager trying to sound all grown up and failing! And where was the sibilant lisp? What kind of plan was killing all the muggleborn in Hogwarts anyway? Harry wasn't even one, and why didn't Voldemort do this last year if it was him? I'm in denial, aren't I?
Why was this happening to him? What had he done to deserve this? You weren’t supposed to be conscious after being petrified, it wasn’t possible, everyone said so. Had they lied? Were they wrong? Was he not petrified after all? Was this death, then? Was he really dead after all? Was this what awaited when the body failed, an eternity trapped inside your corpse without being able to move or breathe or scream in horror? If he knew what was going to happen, if he knew everything that was going to happen next – if he knew in advance the consequences of his own actions – he’d have turned his back on every mystery and chased the secret of escaping death the same as the thing inside his head. He’d be an empty shell, cowardly and weak. He’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. He’d never love anyone, he’d never dare to. He’d be as ruined as Voldemort.
But Voldemort could at least float around and drain every creature dry that stood in his path. Everything that thought to try and stop him from outrunning the breakdown of his soul as his awareness crumbled and stretched and clawed at itself in desperation. Latched desperately on the one thing left when hope and will failed him. Memories of good. Memories of bad. Memories of worse. Memories of everything he’d left unfinished. Over and over as his consciousness rewound itself all the way back to the moment when Ginny came back half an hour after leaving. Then she ordered the basilisk back inside Slytherin’s mouth, closed it and left the Chamber of Secrets, taking all sounds and motion and the light of the braziers with her.
Thinking about Ginny made Harry want to bang his head against the wall. Wishing for help only made it worse. Thinking about Nicolas made him want to cry. Thinking about Ron and Hermione made him want to scream all over again, were they even safe? Shite, he’d sent them the messenger Patronus just before he went in half-cocked, didn’t that mean they might have been in the bathroom when the basilisk came out? Harry didn’t want to think about it, but he couldn’t help but think about it until he didn’t even know which way was forward anymore. It seemed like he could see in all directions, all the better to watch himself strain his will trying to move his body. The harder he tried the more he failed. The harder he willed magic to free him, the more his mind ground at the weaker and weaker tethers holding it and his body together. Any moment now something would break and his thoughts would stretch outwards in all directions. Life was flashing before his eyes, getting stuck on the biggest and stupidest things. His visions. So wonderful.
So dumb! War that happened on a different earth so it didn’t matter. Ancient fake gods that might be aliens, as if he cared about that instead of seeing something actually useful to not ending up where he was now. Ectoplasm in his eye, spelling a secret – a Secret keeper’s secret! He could see the other end of that secret, and there was nothing there but an old skull sitting on a plinth in the darkness. And that cosmic vision about a board game, that was the worst! He could literally see himself flying to the other side of the planet just to watch some old man jotting down rules for how to kill monsters with dice games, why was he still here? Just to suffer?
I don’t want to die, Harry thought desperately. I don’t want to die. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair, I don’t want to go, I don’t want-
Two ancient snakes twitched in their sleep on the Atlantic floor. The skull’s eyes came alive with the green of death. Far across the pond, a jolly-faced man raised his head in surprise and looked right at him.
Harry crashed awake back in his stone paralysis. I’m going mad, aren’t I? Harry could feel his body tight like a dead shell, as hard as it was weak. The only thing left now was the drip by drip by drip of the water seeping from outside, make it stop, make it stop. It hadn’t rained. There were no streams on the Hogwarts grounds. The Hogwarts plumbing didn’t even use much water, the magic vanished all the waste as soon as it was out of sight. Where was the water from? Am I under the lake? Drip by drip by drip was his only answer, make it stop, how long has it been, it feels like years, is nobody looking for me, make it stop make it stop make it stop-
“Beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle illuminated.”
Harry crashed awake all over again.
“I hope you don’t mind me dropping in. Turnabout is fair play. A trespass for a trespass, you understand.”
There was a man there. A man right next to him. Tall, strong and old. Venerable-old, not decrepit-old. The man. The man from the dream he’d just crashed out of. The… American?
“I live in Canada actually.” The man said mildly, looking from Harry to where Harry was stuck looking for… for- “Four days, looks like.”
Four days!? But it felt so much longer! If this was just four days, what will he be in a week?
“Oh how you don’t know, that beyond the lake you call home, there lies a deeper, and darker ocean green, where waves are both wilder and more serene. Would you like to travel there? To its ports? I’ve been there, you know.”
No, he didn’t want to die! Who was this man come to…?
…. Was this death?
“No.”
Oh. That’s… good? But then what-
“Who.”
… He was hallucinating, wasn’t he?
“A hallucination, am I?” The man walked around to stand in front of him. “Think that’s a nice thing to say to someone, do you? Hallucination, hah!”
Well sorry, Harry thought snappishly. It’s not like I just imagined snakes in a jar and screamed my head off at a dead man’s skull down in London or anything!
“You saw Bran?” The stranger balked delightedly. “Imagine that! Something brand new under my sky!”
Saw who? His what?
“Don’t worry about that, it hasn’t been literal in a while,” What? “What happened to you, Little Homebody?’
Harry was instantly reminded of where and what he was and felt like he was about to break down again.
"That's it?" The man exclaimed, nonplussed. He absently tugged at his long beard, like a befuddled grandpa mistaking it for platinum and trying to spin it into thread. "You mystics are so spoiled these days. Used to be you actually had to train to see what you were doing, grow a whole new soul part to even see the aether, never mind grabbing it to weave your spells with your rambling minds. Now look at you, going crazy just from a bit of sensory deprivation. Wizardry was supposed to be a force multiplier, not crippling training wheels!"
What was he talking about?
“You think magic’s supposed to be so simple? You think that tools are all the same? Not all of them are meant to make things easier, some are supposed to teach. To train. You don’t think it’s strange that wands are given to children? You think it’s a coincidence that wands can’t do jack shit for the hardest magics out there? That ancient magics don’t even notice when they’re there?” The man moved around him until he stood behind Harry, back to back. Looking at the wall. His lips curled in a smirk. “Think it’s your eyes seeing me now?”
Harry was startled. He felt like he almost fell out of his body for a moment there. How did he see behind him? Through the man even?
“That’s it, now you see. Don’t mind the pun, I’m literally their father you know.” What was he talking about? “Now, can you look anywhere else? I don’t mean here and there, I mean inside. What do you see?”
Harry could, in fact, look in. It was actually pretty easy. There wasn't much though. Other than all the points of light dashing in and out from outside through space and the planet, and there was all the… missing electricity? Were those nerves? And the things around it, muscles and bone, they looked so strange made of stone. He didn't remember ever seeing them anyway else, but somehow he knew what they were supposed to look like. This wasn't it at all.
“There we go, you finally got it,” the stranger said from where he’d sat down at some point to draw. “Call me Ed.”
How long had he stalled out there, wait, call him Ed? That didn't narrow his actual name down at all!
“That’s nice,” Ed said distractedly, charcoal sliding across the paper. “Now look at your forehead.”
Harry looked at his forehead from behind his forehead. The golden light under his skin backlit a flayed and mutilated baby.
…
WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?
Prongs came alive inside him, roused by Harry’s panic and shock. It saw what Harry was looking at and charged the freakishness like a comet of starlight. The world erupted in ripples in his path. The pearly waves washed over and through the darkness within, illuminating blackened tendrils spread from head to foot. When the mighty antlers gored the monster, Harry’s whole being shook like he was about to come apart. The black coils were grown right through his seams, pull wrong just once and he was going to fall to pieces. Flesh might endure but stone was brittle.
Prongs backed away, standing between Harry and the creature, braying angrily. Unhappily. Digging grooves in Harry’s soul with its hoof.
“What is that?” harry thought hysterically. “What the hell is that, what’s happening, what am I seeing, what am I supposed to do!?”
“Have you done all you could with the things you already have?”
Harry’s panic faltered. Those were the Flamels’ words.
“Sleep paralysis is itself a dream.”
Nicolas’ words.
“I believe you can do it.”
The Patronus is a messenger! Harry finally remembered, his entire being filling with a mad surge of hope. Prongs, get help!
Prongs brayed victoriously and erupted from his flesh-turned-stone, lighting up the Chamber of Secrets for one glorious moment before he vanished through the walls.
Harry could still see it. Could see through it and around it as it blitzed through the wall, hundreds of feet of ground, then a dozen more walls straight into the Purple room where Nicolas abruptly stopped pacing. Harry said something, or Prongs said something, or maybe didn’t. It was strange, the farther away Prongs got, the less Harry recalled even though he was perfectly aware of what was happening in the moment. Nicolas somehow understood, though. Used his own patronus to summon help and immediately commanded the stag to lead him where Harry was. Dumbledore caught up half-way to the bathroom. Ron and Hermione were already there when they arrived, looking tired with bags under their eyes next to the place where the defective sink used to be. No words were exchanged, the four just watched as Prongs spoke in the tongue of snakes for the passage to ~OPEN!~
The wall behind the used-to-be-sink vanished, opening the way.
Barely ten minutes later, there was once more light in the Chamber of Secrets.
“Harry?” Nicolas called, his voice hushed but urgent and relieved to his bones. “Harry, where are you?” His calls were soon echoed by three others, hopeful and desperate behind their Lumos lights. The braziers came to life, but still nobody found him.
Oh, I’m still under the Cloak!
Harry guided Prongs over to where he stood.
Ron made it first, pawing at the air until his hands found the cloak and pulled it off. “Harry!” His voice was hoarse, just like Hermione’s. “Shite!”
“He’s been petrified!” Hermione gasped, wiping eyes wet with tears.
“Oh you foolish, lucky child!” Dumbledore breathed, a wand of elder wood held tight in his hand. “That’s why none of our patroni could find you. Even with all my spells, the work of death yet confounds the living.”
“It’s not his fault,” Ron cried angrily, hesitating to touch him, before turning to Dumbledore accusingly. “He wouldn’t even be here if he didn’t have to do your job for you!”
Nicolas was walking around Harry’s statue-like frame, his rune stick glowing in his hand as he gazed upon him with eyes glinting golden beneath his great blue hat.
“How did a basilisk even do this?” Ron demanded. “That skin out there’s huge, but it’s definitely a snake! It can’t be anything else!”
“Colin saw the basilisk through his camera,” Hermione mumbled. “Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick. Mrs. Norris… she must have seen its reflection in the water on the floor! And I gave Neville my mirror so he could hide in the stall. That’s it! A direct gaze kills, but no one saw the eyes directly!” This time, she turned on Dumbledore. Triumphantly. “Do you see? The Cloak saved his life!”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Justin was – wait, Ginny got Neville!?
“Who!?” Nicolas called sharply, stepping forward to look down right in Harry’s eyes as if he’d just heard- “Harry, are you… are you conscious in there?” Yes, yes, yes, yes, please- “By the stars, child, have you been aware this whole time?”
Yes, Harry screamed mentally. It sucks!
Hermione breathed in horror. “Oh, Harry…”
“You mean the patronus wasn’t just accidental magic?” Ron was just as horrified. “First you get petrified by accident and now you can’t even turn to stone properly? What the bloody hell, mate!”
“Ron! How could you say that?”
Dumbledore turned from the rest of them and began to steadily walk around what parts of the chamber weren’t underwater, waving his softly glowing wand with every step, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
“Harry,” Nicolas said, eyes flicking between him and Ron so fast that Harry probably wouldn’t have seen it with his… well, eyes. “You should know Miss Weasley is in the hospital wing, unconscious and fading from no discernible cause.”
Shite. So they still didn’t know who the heir was? But she was possessed, why weren’t they using the spirit binding spells on her? Was it too dangerous for the host soul?
“Possession?” the thought appeared from nowhere, and Harry recognised its foreign nature as easily as he had Gryffindor. “You can hear me even with your brain turned into rock. I did not expect this.” Nicolas was looking into his eyes intently. The world slowed to a crawl as their conversation occurred at the speed of thought. “Harry. I’m going to do something. Tell me the moment you want to stop.”
Eh?
Nicolas Flamel drew his wand, pointed it at Harry Potter and cast an animation charm.
Harry’s mouth opened. What?
Nicolas then made Harry bite on the rune stick and put his great blue hat on Harry's head.
Harry suddenly knew all the answers to all his questions, knew where everyone was on the grounds of Hogwarts, could see thirty meters in all directions and five meters into the ground, and knew what everything and everyone in Hogwarts was talking about. He knew what his dead father’s spell had done. He could see exactly how a prank spell had been adapted to trigger Harry’s latent metamorphmagus ability like a huge flaming sign. He knew what thoughts were. He knew what memories were. He knew dreams were. What they weren’t.
Dreams weren’t fancies of the brain. The brain was just part of the body, and the body was just one part of everything else. One of eight. Dreams were the mind leaving the rest to see and do and will and dream things with everyone and everything else. And sometimes, very rarely, they stood in for memory. Memory of everything outside his body’s memory. Things happening far off. Everyone else’s dreams he ever touched. Lives he never lived. Except he did.
All his dreams of past lives carried by his soul settled into his mind with full and crystal clear recollection, up to and including every hindsight about how he’d have done things properly.
Prongs. We’ve one more ride to ride.
His spirit companion emerged from within him, alive with light. He glowed out of Harry’s eyes, then from all of him like a nimbus with a crown of light. But this time, when he charged into battle, Harry grabbed tight onto its antlers and rode his spirit animal away from body, chamber and company straight up.
The earth was dark, but Harry didn’t need light to see. The lake was barely brighter, but the patronus cast its shine like a rising star as Harry Potter rode his mighty steed up through seaweed, merpeople, and schools of curious fish whirling excitedly around him and past the giant squid’s enormous, startled eye.
Like the moon rising out of the sun’s reflection, Harry Potter rode the White Stag out of the water and turned to where he could sense the darkest, foulest dream.
They crossed the castle grounds in a trail of radiance, soaring over the gawping fliers around the quidditch pitch, over the greenhouses and the magical creatures class, straight through the wall of the hospital tower to find the Weaseley family screaming in shock at the sight of him all around Ginny bed. Harry stopped in place, but Prongs didn’t, lowering his head and barrelling right through a dumbstruck Arthur Weasley and into his daughter’s tiny, prostrate form. Harry Potter’s ghostly feet touched the ground just as Ginny Weasley arched in her bed, moaning in her sleep and then gasping awake as Prongs gored Tom Riddle Junior’s unliving shade right out of her.
The leech choked on blood that didn’t exist, because he wasn’t so much mind or soul as it was just a memory, hands clutching at the gaping wounds in its form, bleeding green smoke and ichor. It had fed well, though, and recovered from the shock of its sudden expulsion fast enough to run out the infirmary before the Weasleys could react, Prongs made chase, but its form dispersed into white gossamer before it reached the door. Harry could already feel his spirit weakening, struggling under the sudden load of too much too quickly. There were good reasons why the diviner’s path took years to walk, and Harry knew all of them now too. Not from any memory, but from the stick of glowing runes between his far-off teeth, and the hat now on his head, neither of which was made by human hands. But he still had strength. He still had time.
He had allies.
Prongs manifested beneath him this time, growing out of the floor to bear him forward, past the chaotic babble of the awestruck living without losing more time. As they gave chase through classrooms and corridors, Harry clung tight to Prongs’ antlers and reached out with his mind. Hogwarts didn’t stir for him this time, but it didn’t have to just to share a dream. Hogwarts had already done more than enough for him, Harry didn’t need it to do anything, he just wanted the ghosts.
It was mid-way through their charge through the potions classroom that the Bloody Baron emerged through the wall right in the shade’s path and stabbed it with his sword.
“Nooooooo!”
“Phantasma Claudo,” Harry intoned, chains sprouting from Draco Mafloy’s wand that was conveniently forgotten on the desk, when the Slytherin drew back screaming like everyone else in the classroom. The spell caught the shade mid-scream, tying it in spectral chains whose loose ends were caught by the headless hunt. They burst on horseback through the walls and ran the creature down, trampled it, circled it, clapped its chains to the saddle of the horse belonging to the Headless Knight in Black.
Harry glanced at the wand, amazed at holding it aloft for all that he was unsurprised. Wands had spirit. Enough for a ghost and even a memory to touch.
He dropped it back on the table and looked around. The mixed Slytherin-Ravenclaw Potion class was staring at him in open-mouthed shock. Even Snape. Harry smirked at the sight and felt his spirit grow just a bit stronger.
Then he nodded to the Black Knight – even though he had no idea what the Headless Hunt was even doing here – held his hand out and grabbed Prongs by the antler mid-charge because he had little time left before he broke apart under he strain. Little time to do the one last thing he needed that was even more important than saving Ginny.
They blitzed through walls and corridors towards the one other thing he knew would have enough spirit for him to grasp even without flesh hands.
There was still a dozen or so students of all years camping at the sport where the Sword of Gryffindor was still stuck in the wall. Every day people would try and fail to pull the sword from the stone. Harry hadn’t tried. He did now though. Walked up to the wall while everyone was staring in complete dumbfounded disbelief and took the sword hilt in his spectral hands. It didn’t budge, but he could feel it. He let go and looked up at the portrait. Gryffindor stood proudly in his frame, watching Harry encouragingly.
Harry walked past the sword and put his hand on the canvas. Gryffindor mirrored his gesture. Harry could feel his own spirit like roots drawing power from the aether, sustaining his soul and memory and his wandering soul-mind, just like the physical body took in food, water and air to sustain itself and the emerging identity of the conscious mind. Harry could also feel the rune stick pulling hard on his spirit, diverting that energy to weave and reweave the connection between his mind and soul and memory. He was too young and untrained for this, but needs must, and though the two objects were blatantly not a good fit for anyone but their winner, they held all the memory of when and why and how Nicolas did what Harry was about to do next.
For the first time, Harry pulled on the power of his spirit deliberately. His grasp on his memories frayed, and he was sure his body would have suffered if it wasn’t a statue. I won’t remember any of this, will I? But he did it anyway, extending the connection into the portrait. When he pulled his hand away, Gryffindor came out with it, his image in the painting pouring out like paint into an orb of light that Harry shoved into his chest.
“You are unwell, little shaman,” Godric Gryffindor murmured in his mind. “Your enemy is a parasite become a pulsing sore inside your bone. I will help you lance it.” Harry’s feet moved back, his back straightened, and his hands grabbed the hilt on their own, the right hand near the guard, the left hand on the pommel. “Watch and learn now the Two Horned Guard of the Taurus.”
The Sword of Gryffindor thrust even deeper for a moment, then back to wrench free of the stone with a ringing song.
Harry Potter turned away from the wall and marched past the awestruck onlookers that had tripled in number at some point since his own arrival. They felt shocked, amazed and embarrassed. Why would they – ah. They’d looked at his disappearance and took it to mean he was the Heir of Slytherin. Lovely.
Harry scowled at the lot of them and decided that his father had the right idea.
Prongs returned to him but did not ask to be let out again. The strain was almost overpowering now. Harry walked as quickly as he could without losing his shape. Gryffindor flowed apart from him to walk on his right, his hand on the sword hilt to share the load. On his left, the Headless Horseman cantered up, the bound and gagged memory of the teenage dark lord dragging on the floor behind his horse. The tide of gawkers felt almost overwhelming behind him, but the headless hunt streamed forth through the wall to bar their path. The brave few who pushed through the riders were called to halt by the House Ghosts, and those who chose to ignore even them were left behind when the staircase moved away from their path the moment Harry was on it.
When he finally reached the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets again, Moaning Myrtle looked one gasp away from babbling awkward invitations to share eternal unlife together and fainting. Also, Headmaster Dumbledore was just coming out of the pipe. When he saw them, his grip went so tight that the paper drawing in his hand creaked – wait, where did that come from, it looked like a weird tentacle ship, wasn’t Ed just a – no, not important.
“Headmaster,” Harry said, not pausing his step and thankful that wizards could hear Ghosts without him having to put effort into that too. “It was Voldemort’s diary horcrux. The Black Knight can take you where it is.”
Right?
The Black Knight inclined his shoulders in agreement, though Dumbledore didn’t take him up on the offer. At least not immediately.
Harry didn’t have it in him to pay attention to his surroundings anymore. He left the Hunt to wait and paid no mind to the headmaster turning to follow him back in. Feeling his growing distress, Gryffindor gave back what he still had of Harry’s life force and surrendered his shape to overshadow his sword outright. The sword seemed to lose all weight and Harry was grateful. The strain was easing the closer he got to his body, but it was still worse than when he started.
“Harry!” His friends cried on seeing him, but they stopped before they could run up to him when they saw his face and the thing he was carrying. The green of death shone from the once red rubies ever stronger.
He walked up to his body, paused, and turned to look at Nicolas meaningfully. Beseechingly.
Nicolas clenched his fists and thinned his lips. He obviously had no idea why Harry was asking what he was asking, and he felt this had already gone on too long to risk. But all the same, the immortal alchemist nodded sharply and turned, raising an arm to halt the others as Dumbledore drew near. “Come away, children. You too, Albus. We need to get out of the way.”
“Nicolas, explain.”
Harry ignored everyone, turning instead towards his own body. He looked terrified like this. But he wasn’t surprised. He felt terrified too.
Reaching forward, he felt a surge of gratitude at finding that Nicolas had prepared for all possibilities and animated his fingers loose enough for him to pull his wand free. It was much gladder to see him and serve its purpose than Malfoy’s. It was a shame he couldn’t spend more time like this, but he had a meeting with death to narrowly miss.
Sticking the sword tip-first into the floor, Harry Potter pointed his wand at himself and cast an animation charm. Then he tossed his wand up, let go-
And caught his wand with his stone hand.
This is so weird, Harry thought as his joints ground like millstones with his every move of his walk to the middle of the chamber. But waste not, want not. Harry raised his wand, closed his eyes, excluded them from the animation magic, and called all he could remember of this incident, and all the lessons and experience in magic he collected in the other two lives he could remember.
Influunt Sicut Ego. With a jab and wave of his wand, the flood water rose up off the ground, like a crashing wave in reverse that then spun like a whirlpool in front of him until he thought Glacius. The water became a sloping tunnel of shimmering ice that spanned the distance from Harry to the mouth of Slytherin’s statue. Caligo. A jab to the side raised a massive wall of smoky fog between him and the rest of the Chamber.
Harry holstered his wand, pulled out Gryffindor's sword, paused at the suggestion Gryffindor gave him, pulled his wand back out and cast a second, smaller Glacius at the floor beneath him before holstering it again. The Sword of Gryffindor was in his hand. The rune stick was in his other hand. On his head was a dwarf's hat.
I really wish I had a rooster right about now, Harry thought. But it would be useless without the basilisk being out in the sunlight.
He hoped and dreaded that the two most powerful wizards on Earth really would stay out of this just because a twelve-year-old said so – oh, they weren’t. They had wands out and supersensory charms up and were ready to intervene at a moment’s notice. Harry’s fog wasn’t hindering them at all.
Gonna have to take them by surprise, Harry thought with the wry patience of a different life. But that’s for later.
~Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!~
The ceiling groaned. The ice creaked like a hundred rusty hinges in front of him. The stone slab concealing the statue’s mouth started descending as he heard the same ominous snarling from inside. Prior experience didn’t seem to have put a dent in the fear Harry felt, but he had no flesh throat to go dry or lungs to start hyperventilating as the basilisk shrieked “Hungry!” from within just like before. He put the stick of runes back in his mouth and braced himself. The stone slab concealing the statue's mouth stopped descending. A split second afterwards, the Basilisk emerged from the darkness. The creature was still a monster, a gigantic serpent of titanic size, dark green scales, and only its deep yellow eyes cast any light before it now as it spotted him at the other end of the icy tunnel. Harry could literally feel dark magic on his face, but the windows to his soul were shut and he could see through walls.
This is it, Harry thought.
“This is it,” Gryffindor agreed, his serious tone at odds with a deep-seated sense of absolute irony. “Observe and learn now the Short Guard of the Serpent.”
Harry laughed as the basilisk lunged straight at him.
Harry's knees bent, his back stiffened and his hands moved on their own, the right on the hilt and the left grasping the blade, then he stomped on the ground. The basilisk smashed into the floor where he'd just been, mouth agape. Harry Potter's backwards slide on the ice ended in just the perfect place for him to stab the monster in the snout.
The blade barely pierced. His momentum was all backwards and the basilisk's hide was strong. But the Sword of Gryffindor flashed and filled the Chamber of Secrets with the green of death, shimmers reflecting off the ice as the unforgiveable curse was released.
The monster fell dead with nary a death throw. The king of serpents slid bonelessly out of the icy shaft, naught but its sheer weight pushing it forth until its sightless eyes stared at Harry’s face from its place at his feet. Even then, the head alone came up to Harry’s chest.
Silence.
Now that he was paying attention, Harry realised there had been shouts and screams behind the fog. He only noticed them now because they stopped. Even that was getting hard.
I’m pushing it.
“Hurry and claim your prize,” Godric urged.
“I claim this beast as spoils.”
He could practically feel when 'deadly beast' became 'mighty trophy' in the eyes of Magic. It didn't really feel any less dangerous, but he had a Hogwarts Founder and at least two lifetimes that said claim was important. Hopefully he was right because otherwise this was going to be the stupidest way to end the day.
The others were calling his name again, but Harry ignored them. He stepped forward and found himself absurdly grateful for the unexpected strength of his statue-like body. He doubted he’d have been able to pry the basilisk’s jaws loose without it.
“Before you let go, that palate looks mighty soft.”
Harry stabbed the sword through the roof of the basilisk's mouth and decided to leave the sword there for Gryffindor to enjoy since he liked the idea so much. If the sword absorbed more venom than the last time he did this, it would probably be even more helpful later. Maybe Gryffindor liked eating brains when he was alive?
Harry’s joints creaked reaching out. The basilisk fang came loose with a loud SNAP just as Nicolas emerged from beyond the fog and froze in horror as Harry Potter stabbed the basilisk fang into his forehead.
“Harry, NO!”
CRUNCH.
A pinpoint flash from Dumbledore's wand sent the fang blasting out of his hand the opposite way, but it was already too late. His scar erupted in pain he didn't need a body to feel. He felt like his head was melting, like malice was a tangible thing slithering over his soul. Harry would have fallen to his knees if the basilisk venom hadn't destroyed the animation spell on him along with so much else. All else that had been sheltering the flayed and mutilated splinter of a mad soul than now tried to crawl away from the venom deeper in him. It found no way. Flesh might endure, but stone just chipped away.
An unholy scream shattered the silence as a black cloud burst out of Harry’s lightning bolt scar trailing blood and ichor black as pitch. It burst and sizzled as pale moonlight from his guardian spirit blended with the golden glow on Harry’s skin to sink deep into every crack and tendril, pushing the corruption out like an infection finally lanced open. The foul blood mixed with the basilisk venom still eating through his skull like acid and washed it away.
Not all of it, though, and not fast enough. He was on his back now, Harry noticed. Nicolas had animated him again and was desperately holding him in place. Dumbledore was casting freezing and stasis and summoning charms as fast as he could wave his wand, but the venom just ate every spell. Harry tried to reach out mentally to someone, to say-
“FAWKES! TO ME!”
Dumbledore pre-empted him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. Completely bonkers of course, but Harry didn’t have a leg to stand on there, especially with what he was about to do now.
Drawing inward, he looked at his forehead from behind his forehead, past the golden light to the traces of his father’s spell and followed them all the way back to the latent metamorphmagus talent beneath his red hair.
Change, change, change.
Stone turned to flesh.
Harry James Potter's last memory before darkness took him was of a phoenix crying while everyone he loved called out his name.