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World in Pieces	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 16431 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 6
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Chapter Seven—Memories of Harry

            Minerva stepped back, panting, from the spell she had just cast, visible as a rotating mirror in the air with glimpses of blue sky and cloudy sky, rather like a smaller version of the Great Hall's ceiling. Severus kept his arms folded, his hands tucked down at his sides, his face calm and bored. He would not show how badly he wanted this spell, which could supposedly spy out someone from any distance, to succeed.

            The spell flickered twice, and flared up, reaching out long tendrils of light and color to the far sides of the Sunshine Room. Then it faded. Minerva spoke several sharp words, incantations even Severus did not know, her sleeves trailing her arms as she swished her wand, but nothing happened. The light crackled sullenly, like passing thunder, and then vanished.

            "Goddamn it," Black said without inflection.

            Severus would have said something about the honorable descendant of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black picking up Muggle oaths, but he was too weary for that. He leaned back on the wall and closed his eyes, wondering what scrying spells he could suggest that the others would accept. Weasley had already suggested sending for Trelawney, and been roundly rejected. The others had done spell after spell, ones that were supposed to pierce wards and the veils of air and earth and time. If they could not find Harry where he was at the moment, they might still see whether he would be alive a week from now.

            All of them had failed. Severus knew why--the boy was beyond the Dark Lord's powerful defenses now, and he would know how to keep him there--but he had not said the words. The Order was in the mood to despair, not support opposition.

            Severus could also have suggested several Dark spells, but he knew they would not be accepted, either. It seemed there was nothing to do but stand, and wait, and see if Albus would come up with a solution.

            Albus had not tried since his scrying jug went dark. He had a thoughtful frown on his face, and nodded now and then as if conducting a conversation with himself. But Severus knew the old fool well enough to believe that Albus would do such things whether or not he had any true idea of how to retrieve Harry, simply to comfort the Order and maintain his leadership without challenge. It was one reason Albus had been the one to devise the solution to find other Harrys, watch them through the Dream Mirror, and then summon them. He thought of his own world first and foremost, and not whether the boys they ripped from theirs would be safe.

            Severus stirred restlessly, listening to Lucius and Minerva trade barbs--exquisitely polite in Lucius's case, sharp in Minerva's--as to why her spell had failed, and wondered if he should offer the Dark spells after all. Some were obscure enough that only Albus and Lucius would know their origin for certain. And if they could find Harry, bring him back to safety and secure a way for him to return home...

            Surely that was worth the price of increased suspicion. Most of the Order already did not trust or love him.

            Severus glanced to the side. Draco sat in the center of the circle of chairs, his head in his hands. He hadn't moved or made a sound since the last of Black's attempts to locate Harry had failed.

            Severus frowned. I must teach the child to be more independent. But that will not happen if another of the boys so like the one he loved dies now.

            Weasley and Granger were still exhausted, still sleeping. They could not have helped even if they had wanted to, and their stumbling words and uncertain pauses had been less than helpful when they were still awake. Severus had gazed into their minds with Legilimency and seen little more than had been visible for all in the scrying jug. They had not been there when the Dark Lord snatched Harry; they had been reeling from the spells that banished their Patronuses, and their mental map of the Death Eater camp would be useful only if they managed to breach the protections.

            If we could send Patronuses again…

            But Severus ended up shaking his head as he thought about it. The Dark Lord would be ready for that trick, should they try it again so soon after they had tried it once. And the reason Albus had chosen Weasley and Granger for this strike relied mostly on the strength of their Patronuses. Albus could have sent his, but the Dark Lord’s defenses would have recognized his magical signature and tightened defensively, probably not letting the silver phoenix pass them. And it was difficult, in the past few months, for the other members of the Order to produce one.

            Weasley and Granger are the ones among us with the most faith left in this fight.

            That was a sobering realization, and Severus was still trying to come to terms with what it said about him, if nothing else, when the noise of a great bell rolled through the room. Severus jerked his head up. That alarm was one he recognized, but it had not been used since—

            Draco sat up, and his mouth was twitching with the force of his hope. “That means Harry’s returned,” he breathed, and he lurched to his feet.

            “It may not mean that,” Lucius said, taking a step forwards, his hand reaching out to rest on his son’s shoulder. “That alarm last sounded when the Dark Lord sent a golem of Potter at the wards, if you’ll remember—”

            “A golem with some of the last Harry’s blood and hair, I know,” Draco said impatiently, brushing aside his father’s effort to restrain him. He was transformed, Severus thought, his faith so bright it was hard to look at his face. Did I look like that when I was with Lily? “But this time, it means Harry is back.”

            “Or there is another golem,” Albus said. He was pale. Severus knew why. Either Harry was dead, in which case the Order would need to perform the draining spell a fourth time, after finding another universe in which that Harry Potter had defeated his version of the Dark Lord—

            Or Harry had escaped on his own, without the help of the experienced Order fighters behind him. Something the previous summoned versions of him had never managed, once they vanished into the Dark Lord’s hands, and something their first Harry had never had to endure.

            Do you see now? Severus asked Albus in silence. Do you see the ways in which he is different, the ways he will not listen to you?

            Actually, Severus had to admit, Albus seeing that could be the worst thing for all of them. It would increase his fear of Harry, his attempts to get him under control instead of help him. But Severus couldn’t help wanting to see the doubt on Albus’s face spread and crack his calmness like melting ice anyway.

            This is not productive. Severus shook his head and turned away. He would wait for the golem to emerge so that he could destroy it, or he would wait for Harry to come in that he might congratulate him and run interference between him and Albus as necessary.

            Yes, he wanted to see the Headmaster humiliated. But his goals had to focus on seeing Harry safe and free to return to his own world first, which might mean maintaining the alliances in the Order long past the point where he would like to rupture them.

*

            Harry paused to listen to the bell-like sound dying away. He didn’t know if that meant the Order now knew he was here or what, but at least the wards had let him pass through, so it couldn’t mean an enemy was approaching.

            Not that he would have set up a ward like that anyway if an enemy was approaching. It would be a stupid thing to let them know they’d been seen, or heard, or sensed however that particular ward perceived them.

            He shook a few drops of water out of his hair. He’d washed his face in the lake, and then slipped a bit, so more of him got wet than he’d meant to. He’d thought about casting a drying charm, but he didn’t know if it was a good idea to use the Elder Wand for such simple magic until he’d figured out more about how it worked.

            He could feel it even now, the power thrumming through it like a current, the way that that power seemed to shimmer beneath the surface as if thinking to itself. Harry smiled wryly and rubbed his fingers over the shining elder wood. He suspected that he’d have to negotiate with it whenever he didn’t want to cast destructive magic. It gave off a strong sense of a personality that was only happy when it got to break something or be used in battle.

            Well, we’ll have to talk about that. He hadn’t been able to bring the pieces of his broken wand back with him. All he had cared about was getting away before Voldemort killed him, and he knew that he wouldn’t have vanished through the wards as quickly if he had taken a moment to search.

            So. He’d have to cope with what was in front of him and stop wishing that things were different, or at least not allow that wish to distract him into a life of wishing.

            Harry walked up through the entrance hall, not finding anyone there. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been gone, but the sun hadn’t set, and he thought it was probably the same day. His main problem was that his time under Voldemort’s mental spell that literally changed his mind could have lasted longer than it seemed.

            He licked his lips and began walking up the steps towards the Room of Requirement. Well. Maybe that spell had lingering effects, too. Another thing he would have to deal with later.

            The door of the Room opened long before he got there. A small shape flew out, a whirlwind. Harry raised the Elder Wand before he thought about it and felt its magic nip his fingers, the same way Hedwig used to nip his ear.

            Then the shape grabbed him and swung him around and laughed in his ear, and Harry realized it was Malfoy. He sighed and lowered the wand, wrapping his arm around Malfoy’s shoulders. That ought to be high enough not to go anywhere dangerous.

            “I thought you were dead,” Malfoy said in his ear, and his arms grew so tight around Harry that he gasped for breath before he thought about what was happening. Malfoy moved back at once, biting his lip. “I thought you had to be.” His hands remained on Harry’s shoulders, and he looked into Harry’s eyes as if he could discover there the secret to how he’d survived. “All the others left me. All the others died.”

            Harry gave him a smile. He hoped it was polite and nothing else, but then again, Malfoy could probably take a polite smile and still get hope for the future out of it, so Harry wouldn’t worry too much. “I’m sorry. But I’m here now, and I got away from Voldemort.”

            The name made Malfoy drop his hands from Harry to wrap his arms around himself, apparently suffering from a slight chill. His gaze remained bright and pinned to Harry’s face, though. “How did you get away?”

            “We’d all like to know the answer to that question.”

            Harry looked up swiftly. The members of the Order were crowding the door, staring at him. Sirius had his mouth open as if he would laugh, but his eyes shone in a way that made Harry have to glance away and clear his throat. Ron and Hermione were wiping sleep out of their eyes and staring at him. Lucius started to applaud slowly, and McGonagall clutched her wand to herself as if it were a security blanket against the apparition that she must think Harry was.

            Dumbledore had a face like the cheese that Aunt Petunia had sometimes made. Harry had always been better at that than she was.

            And then there was Snape.

            Snape stepped out in front of everyone else and nodded to Harry as if he was nodding at a colleague. His tone was smooth and business-like. “You’ve returned. Good. Tell us how you did it and what the Dark Lord knows about you.”

            Thank you, Harry wanted to say, but saying it or even mouthing it could be suicidal in front of an audience as hostile as this one, he knew. Snape had deliberately tried to give the impression that they weren’t in alliance. He stood upright and said, “Voldemort pulled me there and tried to poison me with his snakes. Then he cast a spell that was meant to make me think his side was the right one and join it. I didn’t.”

            “What was the incantation for this spell?” Dumbledore had stepped to the side as though there was something in the Room of Requirement that he wanted to defend from Harry. Harry thought that was mildly funny, but he found it hard to care at this point. He needed all his strength to stay on his feet and think out his strategy.

            “Perversus.”

            “He wanted to have you join him, then.” Lucius sounded interested. “What was your response to the invitation?”

            “That I couldn’t buy what he was selling,” Harry said, and then Ron and Hermione broke free of the tangle at the door and raced over to him, throwing their arms around him. Harry accepted that with a slight grimace. They weren’t his friends, he had to remember that, but he reckoned they were allowed to be happy that the latest Harry Potter they summoned hadn’t become evil.

            “That was surely not the end of it,” Dumbledore said, and Harry rolled his eyes at the heavy sadness in the arsehole’s voice. Did he think that Harry should feel sorry for Voldemort, of all people? He was going to be waiting a long time, if that was what he was waiting for.

            “No,” Harry said. “He—” He hesitated, disguising it as a swallow. Let them think that Voldemort had tortured him to the point that he didn’t want to talk about it.

            He wasn’t sure that he should tell them about the Elder Wand.

            It probably wouldn’t make any practical difference. Voldemort hadn’t gone after the Hallows in the same way in this world, or he would have had an Elder Wand of his own to match Harry’s. They could look at his wand and not notice the difference. How would they realize that the power he wielded now came partially from his wand and not just what he’d always had inside him? They thought that he had some mysterious gift to bring Voldemort down, anyway. They’d probably attribute it to that.

            Snape would notice the difference in the wand, but he wouldn’t bring it up in front of anyone else. Dumbledore would, but Harry was done doing things that would oblige him.

            He braced himself against the hold of Ron and Hermione’s arms for a moment, and nodded to Dumbledore. “He would have killed me when he realized that he couldn’t corrupt me. I broke his wards and Apparated away.”

            Dumbledore recoiled a step.

            It was better than Harry ever could have hoped for, seeing that. He handed Dumbledore a poisonous smile and turned to answer the theoretical questions from Hermione. He had to be vague and impressive and nothing else. And if the questions got really pressing and he couldn’t answer them, then he would start yawning. They would remember that he’d just barely escaped death and feel bad for keeping him away from bed and a refreshing meal.

            He hated that he had to keep things from people. Lying had never been his strong suit.

            But sometimes you could tell lies by omission, and sometimes you had to lie to your enemies. Harry thought both those conditions applied here.

*

            The boy has been touched by power.

            Severus stood passively back and let them all question Harry, all those who pretended more interest in his fate than they actually had—Granger, Weasley, Black, Minerva. Draco asked sincere questions, of course, but he would be of little help to Harry, Severus feared, as long as he was still weakened by his grief. And so far, Draco had shown no inclination to overcome that grief. Of course, the rapid deaths of the boys who looked like the one he had been in love with hadn’t helped.

            Albus did not join the interrogation session.

            He remained in the background, and his lips looked pinched and blue, as if with cold. His hands sometimes rubbed themselves in front of his chest, apparently confirming that hypothesis. His gaze when it crossed Harry was dark and brooding, and he shook himself each time it did.

            He fears him.

            Severus did not know exactly why that should be the case. Albus had never feared the Harry born to this world, who had displayed such talents but also an independent streak that meant he didn’t do exactly as Albus expected of him, from the time he was Sorted into Slytherin. Albus had been exasperated with that Harry at times, but not afraid. He was still the stronger, and Harry had no ambitions to take the position of Headmaster, which seemed to be the only one that Albus valued.

            This time, there was the fear.

            Severus turned back to Harry. Perhaps that power lingering on him was something Albus recognized better than Severus did, and so might have a reason to fear. But even that was a stretch. If the boy had a link to the Dark Lord in his mind, or something worse, then Albus would not have hesitated to speak and make sure the boy was caged or Stunned.

            “Do you think that the Dark Lord will seek to take revenge for what you did to him?” Severus asked Harry, and did not have to raise his voice to earn the silence he needed. Weasley and Granger fell silent the moment he began speaking. Black didn’t, and in fact took a step forwards as if he had forgotten where they were, but then fell back with a scowl when Harry responded.

            “Yeah. But I don’t think it’ll be directly. He’s already tested himself against me a few times, and lost both times.” Harry yawned, and the yawn made it seem as if he intended to put his tonsils on display. Severus knew that was unlikely, however, and waited patiently until Harry could focus again. “He won’t want the Death Eaters to see him humiliated like that.”

            “Then we have some time,” Severus said. “And that means that we can accomplish the training that might eventually keep you safe from him.”

            “For Merlin’s sake, Snape,” Black said, the snap of a chained dog in his voice. “Can’t you let the boy have one day of rest? And since when did you start believing what he says about Old Snake-Face, anyway?” He rested a possessive hand on Harry’s shoulder that irritated Severus more than he had thought he could be irritated. “Live up to your reputation now and let Harry stay with the people who appreciate him.”

            “You mean, the people who dragged me to another world?”

            Harry’s voice was vicious, and sweet. Severus took a moment to appreciate the contradiction, and longer to appreciate the stunned looks that had come over Minerva’s and Black’s faces. Weasley and Granger backed away from him. Draco was the only one who looked distressed and ashamed at the accusation, instead of simply shocked. Severus did not turn his head to check on Albus’s reaction, because that would have made him obvious.

            “Harry?” Draco reached out as if he would touch Harry on the shoulder. Severus thought he had allowed Draco to embrace him before, but now he only turned his head and studied Draco with remote eyes. Draco looked down and swished his feet through the dust on the floor in front of him for a moment. “I just—I thought that you were becoming a little more comfortable here,” he muttered, and looked up at Harry through his fringe. “Understanding me better.”

            “I can understand why you did what you did.” Severus would have made a warning noise under his breath, or cleared his throat, or objected in some other way, but Harry’s voice had a flat undertone that told him the boy wasn’t truly excusing what these idiots had done, so he stayed silent. “I can even think that it’s laudable, in some ways, because you’re trying to protect people who won’t thank you for it.

            “But I can understand it, and still hate it. You had no right to snatch me away from my life. You had no right to take the others away from their lives.” Harry took a deep breath that made Severus think the calm tone was costing the boy more than he thought it was. “Besides, it’s a stupid way to fight a war.”

            “But it’s the only way we can.” That was Granger, as usual, trying to defend the stupid actions of the Order in any way she could.

            “Really? You use the exact same spell and the exact same tactics, or lack of them, over and over?” Harry shook his head, his lip curling. “That sounds to me like people who refuse to learn from their mistakes, not people who are learning from them.”

            “We have to take only certain kinds of you, those who have defeated Voldemort,” Granger said, and she had adopted her lecturing tone. Severus watched the expression on Harry’s face and tried to determine which way he should move. By his count, there were three people in the room who might need protection in the next few moments: Granger, himself, and Harry. “That means that we need to use similar methods to find you, and that spell’s the only one that works—”

            “Kinds of me,” Harry said quietly. “As if we were a dangerous species. Or an endangered one. The Harrys. All of us. All of us just means to an end for you. Tools. Something to be wielded.”

            “Harry, no!” Granger finally seemed to have realized that she might have said something wrong, a rarity in Severus’s experience. She took a step forwards, hand stretching out in what looked like appeal. She snatched it back again when Harry gave her a glare hot enough to scorch. “I only meant—I used the wrong words, but you’re different from everyone else because of the prophecy.”

            Harry nodded without expression. “It’s what I thought was going on. Only the first Harry, the one who was born and died here, was a real person to you. The rest of us are just—casualties. You don’t take time to mourn for them. You just find and summon another one. You’ll do it if I die.”

            I will not let them, Severus thought, but he saw no way to communicate that to Harry at the moment.

            “And if I live? What then?” Harry’s eyes were as hard as rubies. “You’ll expect me to fit in exactly where I left off? Your friend, and Malfoy’s boyfriend, and the Savior of the Wizarding World?”

            “My godson?” As always, Black made a bad situation worse, stepping in with a confident smile that was sickly at the edges. “Harry, you said that I didn’t raise you in your world. Or, I mean, the version of me there didn’t,” he hastily corrected himself, as Harry gave Black another of those glances full of fire. “Isn’t it worth staying here for, to have a loving parent?”

            Harry’s eyes were vulnerable for a moment before he answered. Severus saw that, and hissed under his breath as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

            That is it. That is the truth. He does want a family, and that lure might be strong enough for him to overcome his focus on survival—the extensive nature of which could harm him in turn.

            The problem was, as yet Severus did not know how he would use that longing to better protect Harry.

            “I don’t know you,” Harry said. “Not any of you. Not really.” His eyes passed over Severus, to lock on Albus.

            Albus had to respond to such a direct challenge, Severus knew, and so he was not surprised when the man stepped forwards and gave Harry a little bow. “I am not the same man who tried his best to protect and train you, I’m sure,” he said, adding a bit of emotional manipulation to the false sorrow that Severus already suspected him of throwing at Harry. His smile was so gentle and deep that someone else would probably have been fooled by it, and especially someone like Harry, who might have been ready to trust one version of this person.

            Not Harry. He waited, his hands clasped casually behind his back now, his posture so tense that Severus saw Albus’s jaw clench in annoyance.

            A moment later, Albus had recovered and was continuing in the same gentle, flowing voice. “Very well, Harry. Imagine that everything you have said is true, and we are the selfish demons you have decided we are.”

            “Albus!” That was Minerva.

            “Dumbledore!” Black moved in a step, as outraged as a dog who had had a juicy bone snatched from its jaws. “You know that’s not true—”

            “You’ve done so much!” Granger said, and looked as if she would have conjured flowers to present Albus with if she thought it would do any good. “The world would have fallen into darkness ages ago if you weren’t here!”

            It couldn’t have gone better if they’d trained for it, Severus thought. Because of course he understood what Albus was doing. He would provoke those responses on purpose, and make himself look more sincere and sympathetic to Harry by comparison.

            Severus did not know if Harry would be stupid enough, or desperate enough, to fall for it. He could only stand by his with his arms folded and look bored, and hope silently that was enough of a clue for Harry.

            If it was, it seemed that Harry had learned to interpret clues from the corner of his eye, without looking at or for them. He spoke to Albus with a small, grim smile that Severus thought he was correctly interpreting as bad news for Albus. “You haven’t the least idea what kind of relationship my Dumbledore and I had in our world. Things have gone so differently here. No Horcruxes, no murder.” He did look at Severus then, for a single moment, but his eyes jerked away so suddenly that Severus could not tell what he thought, or whether he thought of him as more than the version of Severus he had known. “No people who thought that I was the one who would save them.”

            “What do we need to do to show you that you’re the one?” Granger sounded frustrated. “Professor Dumbledore already explained the prophecy to you and why none of us can kill Voldemort.”

            Lucius, who had watched everything so far with the tranquility of a winter lake, couldn’t conceal his flinch at the name. Draco seemed to think that was his cue to press forwards, so insistent and wide-eyed that Severus couldn’t help mentally comparing him to a puppy.

            “Harry, you just got here,” he whispered. “We don’t know if you’ll live here. But I promise, I think you’re important anyway.”

            Seveurs watched the way Albus watched Harry watch Draco. If there was a trace of sentiment or weakness there concerning Draco, Severus knew, Albus would find some way to twist that into a bridle or a weapon.

            But instead, Harry just shook his head and said, “I’m sorry for what happened. But I want to be considered real by the whole set of people I’m risking my arse to save.” His eyes shone like the lightning bolt on his forehead as he glared at the Order again. “Why did you snatch so many of us and then discard us like toys? Answer me that.”

            “Desperation,” Albus said, voice smooth and soft and sad. It would bury all Harry’s sharp, pointed anger under a blanket like snowfall and soften the edges if it could, Severus thought. And with the other versions of Harry, it would have succeeded long since. They had been—not less desperate, but more willing to trust, more willing to make friends so that they would not be alone than focused on going home. From some of the things they had said, Severus thought they might even have welcomed the chance to try their strength against a new version of the Dark Lord. Troubles at home, perhaps, the kind of childish teenage quarrels with their friends or lovers that made them sure running to another world was the perfect way to get away from it all.

            This Harry didn’t think so. He had already fought too hard and long for those quarrels to mean that much to him.

            “We want to save our world, and we know that nothing else would suffice—”

            “I can think of half a dozen things that would suffice,” Harry cut in impatiently. “Time travel. Working some kind of powerful spell that would mean you could break the prophecy apart. Offering Voldemort a bribe of some kind. Getting allies to fight for you if you promise that the Ministry is going to treat them better. Lots of things. I want to know why you haven’t actually managed any of them.”

            Albus paused, and narrowed his eyes. It was a slight motion, but Severus was sure that Harry saw it, from the way his spine stiffened.

            “There is nothing known that can shatter the boundary a prophecy draws around two people,” Albus said, his voice unavoidably a bit brisker. “We could waste time searching for another solution and watch Tom damage our world and slaughter more of us, or we could try this.”

            “This isn’t working, is it?” Harry snorted. “You didn’t train the other Harrys well, either. You didn’t give them the information about Voldemort that would have meant they could defeat him. You just tossed them out in the field and expected them to work you a miracle.” He shook his head, and his eyes shone in a way that made Severus’s heartbeat quicken. This was a formidable fighter, a warrior someone could follow. A leader. “And as for damaging the world, I think Voldemort has already done that. The school’s closed down. You’re the only ones here. The Ministry won’t give you any help. You’ve lost. I think you might already have lost before the first Harry who was born here died, unless Voldemort has done everything in the last six months. You have to do something else to win, not just cower in the ruins of Hogwarts and wait for him like—like mice who see the owl overhead.”

            “We aren’t doing any such thing!” It made sense that it was Black who protested, and in a way that rendered his voice almost a yelp. His beloved godson was saying this to him, and not reacting in a way that rendered Black into an idol, instead, Severus thought. Worship is so hard to go without after you’ve become used to receiving it. That is an advantage that I do not need to overcome, at least, in dealing with Harry. “We’ve done the best we can, against impossible odds—”

            “And if it weren’t for the fact that other people are suffering for your stupidity, then I would say that I should just leave you to your misery,” Harry snapped. “But I know that others will suffer. People who have children and don’t have the strength to refuse Voldemort when he comes calling. People who have to feed themselves and work. People who will be encouraged to do stupid and evil things because the Death Eaters are telling them it’s okay.” He glared around at them all, his eyes so wide that Severus wondered what he was seeing with them. Not the chastened Order, he was fairly certain. “All the people you failed.”

            “We didn’t fail them!” Granger, strident. “We got you so that you could go on fighting for them, and we wouldn’t lose the war!”

            Harry snorted. “And in the meantime, you make it as difficult for me to succeed as possible. Evelina is the only one you’ve got training me. No one has made an attempt to sit me down and tell me an unbiased history of the war instead of the scraps that you keep hiding. You’re more interested in protesting that I’m selfish instead.”

            “And you seem to be more interested in blaming us than fighting,” said Weasley bitterly. “How can you—”

            “Fight when no one will give me the information I need?” Harry broke in smoothly. “I don’t know. I have to find a way. But I do know that it won’t be thanks to you.” His eyes briefly passed across Severus, but he was intelligent enough to realize that betraying their alliance in front of everyone else would be stupid. “And I’ll go and do it now, thanks.”

            He turned and stomped away from them. There was a heavy silence in the corridor when he was gone.

            It was broken by Granger’s sniffle and whimper. “We aren’t like that,” she whispered. “Voldemort is too strong, that’s all, and Harry is the only one who can kill him. That’s just the way it is.”

            Her boyfriend moved closer to comfort her, and the rest of the Order turned inwards, too, turning their backs on what they would have had to believe to acknowledge that Harry was telling the truth.

            Except Lucius, Severus noted, who had a pleased smile on his face. And except Draco, who had a desperate faith in Harry that no one could quash. But Severus would trust neither of them to offer the kind of unqualified help that Harry was asking for.

            “Severus.”

            Severus turned. It was Albus at his side. Of course it was. He raised a hand and motioned, and Severus obediently followed him back into the Room of Requirement. The rest of the Order didn’t make a move to come after them. They were all too accustomed to knowing when their leader wanted to be alone, and he didn’t even need to say it aloud.

            Severus concealed a snort. He knew that the kind of leadership Harry would exercise, should he ever get the chance to do so, would not be like that. He would expect challenges and loud explosions, and yell about everything until he was sure that the people around him were being honest, with both their objections and their support.

            Albus’s leadership, in his days of glory, was something else, something bright and shining and magnificent. Subtle, even, the way that the light of his phoenix Animagus could be until it flew into the room and made you notice it. It was the reason Severus had gone to him for protection. It meant that he could shelter in that radiance and no one would notice him, not as another shadow.

            Then Severus paused, startled.

            That’s not the reason.

            He had never thought about it before, not since he became deeply involved in the Order, but…no, that was not exactly it. He had gone to Albus because there was no other shelter. No one else powerful enough to protect him from the Dark Lord. It didn’t matter that he distrusted the man. Going to him was the only way that Severus might stay alive long enough to see more life, or revenge.

            His debt to the man was less than he had thought it, if that was true.

            Albus turned to face him. His face was older and sadder than Severus had ever seen it. However, since that age and sadness were in general convenient protections, Severus put himself on guard.

            “We need someone who can reach Harry,” Albus said. “You know it as well as I do. Someone who can work with him, who can offer him some of the things he asks for. It’s true. He should have received better training and support.”

            Severus knew what Albus would ask him, then, and for a moment joy leaped up in him like a shout, like a flame.

            He had to conceal it, of course, had to raise his eyebrows and shake his head. “You have your reasons for keeping it from him, Albus. If you wish to give it to him, then of course you might, but—”

            “He needs a mentor,” Albus interrupted harshly. “At the same time, he is not the Harry we trained and loved and supported. He is Gryffindor, too rash and too inclined to rely on brute force and think he can save everyone.”

            Severus bit his lip to keep from laughing. In a way, it was sweet, sweet revenge to listen to Albus abusing his own House, but he knew what Albus meant with it. Thinking of what that attitude could mean for Harry was enough to blow the amusement away like a winter gale.

            “So you want me to be that mentor,” he said. “Because he distrusts you too much to accept it from you.” He paused. “What makes you think that he won’t distrust me just as much, and push me away?”

            “Because you were the only one not showing either horror when Harry was protesting, or dark amusement,” Albus said.

            Severus felt his breathing catch. Dangerous. I must never forget how dangerous this man is, how ruthless.

            “I think he is right,” he said, telling part of the truth to conceal the greater lie, and caught Albus’s eye. Albus had never been able to pass through his Occlumency shields. Severus would have to trust that the same thing was true now. “I think we should have been honest with him from the beginning. But I am part of the Order that hasn’t been. If I come to him now and offer him training, I doubt he would believe me, no matter how skillfully I lie. Besides, as you made the point a moment ago, he is Gryffindor. He has no reason to trust a Slytherin.”

            Albus’s lips twitched once. “If you come to him not as a friend, but as a reluctant ally, agreeing with him, turning against me in secret…”

            The way that I already am? Severus would have to spend some time in his rooms that evening, puzzling out all the layers of deception here and laughing at the irony. Now was not a time for laughter.

            “Very well,” he said. “But I warn you now that it may not work. He is bitterly set against the Order, against our world. This could be the beginning of a large mistake, if I go to him now.”

            Albus reached out and rested his hand on Severus’s arm. “I have faith in you, Severus.”

            It is a good thing that irony does not inspire an allergic reaction in me.

*

            Harry walked through the Slytherin common room, all the while staring at the empty couches. This had been the place where students came to rest and relax, and now they were gone.

            He could almost hear what Dumbledore would have said to him if he complained about that. “Of course they’re gone, Harry. We couldn’t keep them in the way of such a dangerous war.”

            Harry snorted bitterly and slammed open the door of the bedroom that he’d been sharing with Draco. Hogwarts was silent and shut-up; the Aurors weren’t working, or wouldn’t come and help during the biggest fights with Voldemort unless they were rogue Aurors. Life in Diagon Alley, in Hogsmeade, in Ottery St. Catchpole and all the other little towns and villages where wizards huddled couldn’t be normal.

            That seemed a problem more worthy of solving to Harry than the notion of exactly how to yank other Harrys from their worlds and set them to fighting Voldemort. Of course, Dumbledore would probably say that one of the Harrys killing Voldemort would have the effect of changing everything else, but Harry probably would have cast a spell to throw the Headmaster down the stairs and make him bounce on the way if he heard that, so he banished the thought and jabbed the knob on the first Harry’s bed that concealed the secret journal.

            It tumbled into his hand. Harry studied it and shook his head. He didn’t know if he could break the code without help, but he would try. He didn’t want to betray the secrets here to anyone else unless he had no choice.

            He started to hit the gold knob that would close up the hole, then hesitated and reached inside again. He wouldn’t be returning—he would find somewhere else to sleep tonight—and it would be stupid to leave something hidden here that he just didn’t have the patience to pick up.

            There was only a book, or what felt like a book, small and fat and covered with cracked leather. Harry pulled it out and opened it, half-expecting another coded diary.

            It was crowded with pictures of the other Harry instead.

            Harry leaning on Malfoy’s shoulder, his arm around the other boy’s shoulders while he waved madly at the camera, such a contented expression on his face that Harry had to close his eyes before he could turn the page.

            Harry, looking maybe five or six years old, with Sirius, laughing at him as Sirius raced around in his huge black dog form and leaped and snapped at the bubbles that Harry was blowing. In the background behind them was a house that rambled comfortably around in walls of stone and wood. Harry reached out as if he could let his fingers soak in the warmth of that wonderful spring day where they played, preserved forever.

            Another page, another photograph. Harry riding a broom with a Snitch in his hand and his hair whipped crazily behind him by the wind. The smile that curved his lips had an edge of perfect contentment in it that Harry couldn’t stop looking at.

            Harry with Ron and Hermione, looking up from a couch in the Slytherin common room to stick his tongue out at the photographer. Harry with a few boys Harry didn’t know, but they all wore Slytherin ties, so they were presumably his friends. And Malfoy again, lounging against a tree and smirking at the camera with the arrogant confidence that Harry was used to from his own world. It took a few more pictures to let Harry see the way his eyes softened when he was looking at his boyfriend.

            Softened, but never with the crazy softness that ruled them now. Harry shivered and shook his head. Only now was he understanding how much Malfoy had lost when the other Harry died.

            He closed the book and dropped it carefully into the satchel he was going to use to carry the journal. He would keep them safe. He wished he had mementoes of the other two Harrys who had died here, but he thought that maybe they’d had journals and photo albums of their own, and so carrying both these books was like carrying the remains of all the dead.

            He stood up. The wistfulness in his eyes that had made them tear up was dry. He had flung his challenge, his gauntlet, at the Order. It remained to be seen whether there was anyone who would take him up on it.

            When he left the common room, Snape was waiting for him in the mouth of the corridor that twisted towards his quarters. Harry paused and stared up at him.

            “Albus wishes me to act as a mentor to you,” Snape said quietly. “A mentor who will really be loyal to the Order, but who can give you sympathy and the kind of training that you claim to need.”

            “But not really,” Harry summed up. He felt tired when he thought of the Order, but pushed the weariness away. He wouldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about them, then. He would concentrate on the people who would be able to help him, Snape and Evelina. “What is his motive for keeping so much of the history and the knowledge I need away from me?”

            Snape gave him a thin-lipped smile. “You are the most different version of his beloved boy that we’ve ever summoned. He doesn’t trust you.”

            Harry shrugged. He should have expected that answer. “Fine. What exactly are you going to tell me? Do you know every detail of the other two who came here?” There was the possibility that Snape had lied about the argument he had with the original Harry before his death, and Harry would keep that in mind, but he had to get information from someone, and Snape seemed the most willing to help.

            “I don’t know everything,” Snape said. He had a calm strength in him, or what Harry thought he could take to be a calm strength. It had never seemed that way, before. “I know enough to help you, and deceive Albus.”

            Harry let out a hard, wavering breath. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

*

            Zip: Well, if it helps, that spell doesn’t really get used in ItS. But I’m glad you like this one.

            I think gen stories in general just don’t get a lot of reviews here, which makes sense given the site.

            Kyandoru: I hope the descriptions were detailed enough.

            sarah: No problem. I mostly avoided writing chapters for this story for a while because the thought of making them so long exhausted me. Now that one of the my WiPs is done, though, I can probably update it more often.

            heartstar: Thank you. This one will remain irregular, but hopefully more frequent than before.

            helewisetran: Thanks! Harry would really prefer not to fight at all, as he says in this chapter, but he knows he has to for the sake of people who aren’t the Order.

            Alas, Harry getting involved with Draco would be unhealthy.
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World in Pieces