ff.net appears down
Jan. 14th, 2005 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quillscribeWell, darn! It's a Murphy's Law that the day I post the site goes down. Of course, I shall be getting set up shortly on Phoenixsong.net, but until then, let me also post Chapter 2 of All That's Left Behind here as well.
As always, thanks for reading! Please let me know your thoughts! ;-)
Author’s Notes: Sorry for the delay in getting this out. It took a bit to get what was bugging me out on the page, but I’m pretty happy with it now. I hope you enjoy, and that the chapter was worth the wait. Thanks to both Nicky15 for her fabulous input (and very sensible points), and to Wishweaver for her input. Any mistakes here are mine, not theirs! *g*
For those of you who’ve asked – yes, I am intending to pursue this story. How large it ends up being, I cannot be sure, but it has an outline and there are clear goals in mind. Hopefully the journey will be worth it.
More action will begin occurring within the next few chapters, so bear with me if this seems a bit too introspective. It will not always be this way (and who know, you might even miss it! :-D).
Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Just for your information, I used to reply at the end of my chapters to everyone who’d left a review, but enough people got frustrated with how deceptive this made the length of my chapter that I stopped doing it. This does not mean I do not read and cherish every review. I do. It is deeply appreciated, and I thank you so much for taking the time to do so. Your words are most certainly heard.
Disclaimer: I wish I were the owner of Harry Potter, but alas, I am not. I am just borrowing him for my own personal enjoyment (but not like that, you pervos! *g*)
All That’s Left Behind
Chapter Two – Setting the Course
Several weeks later, as Harry sat in his bedroom, staring at chapter six of Practical Defensive Magic, and realizing he’d already read it twice yet still had no idea what it was about, he suspected he was going cross-eyed. The book was part of a set that Remus and Sirius had given him for Christmas, and it pained him that he hadn’t given them more than a cursory glance until this summer.
So far he’d been left mostly to his own devices – the constant drizzle that seemed determined to make up for last year’s draught in a month’s time left him stuck indoors (eventually he’d have to tackle the garden at least a little, but considered it would be a welcome reprieve from his usual routine) and, as he elected to no longer even participate with meals with the Dursleys, this kept him nearly the entire time upstairs in his room.
Education had never been a priority for him. Before Hogwarts, while his schoolmates dreamed of becoming doctors and firemen, Harry dreamt of getting out and finding a small apartment somewhere in London where he could people-watch to his heart’s content and leave dishes in the sink overnight.
He’d known the Dursleys would never pay for any schooling for him, of course, and had planned when he turned sixteen to start looking for full-time employment. He hadn’t been worried – he wasn’t afraid of hard work, and in fact was rather curious how his work ethic compared to those around him. He’d learned early on, after all, that his home situation contrasted greatly with everyone else’s, but in some ways was heartened by that rather than upset.
When he’d started at Hogwarts, ‘The Boy Who Lived’ title felt so familiar – so similar to ‘four eyes’ and ‘scar face’ – that he’d dismissed it as a label. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with him. It was something that happened, rather than what he was supposed to be. It was a not-so-funny nickname. Growing up as a Muggle, he’d missed seeing how many expectations the Wizarding world had wrapped up into him. People felt he’d saved them, Harry eventually realized, and thought ‘if he can stop Voldemort as a baby, imagine what he could do as an adult’.
I must be quite the disappointment, he thought dryly. He’d never believed the hype because he knew better. He’d thought it absurd and a little pathetic that everyone thought *he* was going to save the Wizarding world. After all, it had been his blood that brought Voldemort back in the first place. He’d always known better – and he held that truth close to his heart. People would eventually figure out that he was just a boy, and not a very talented one at that, and then everything would go back to normal.
To Harry, Hogwarts wasn’t about getting a good magical education; it was about experiencing life away from the Dursleys. It was an opportunity to do ‘fun’ things, and to discover how incredible friendships and freedom could be. Magic was still so new to him that he hadn't been able to wrap his mind around taking his place within the Wizarding community. He hadn’t been overly concerned about studying. After all, he had this whole new world to explore.
When Professor McGonagall had approached him last year, asking what he wanted to be when he grew up, he hadn’t given it much thought. Sure, he’d read up on some of the different Wizarding career paths with Hermione and Ron, but having Umbridge in his career counseling session had utterly distracted him from having any sort of meaningful conversations about it. The fact that his Head of House had nearly come to blows over his prospects as an Auror had been unsettling, to say the least, and only with hindsight could he look back a bit more fondly on how McGonagall had handled that beastly woman.
In her way, though, Umbridge had been quite right. Of course the Ministry would never have him - but more importantly, why would he want them to? He’d thrown out that day the possibility of becoming an Auror as a possible goal in much the same way, if he’d still been living as a Muggle, that he might have suggested being an ambulance driver. It sounded cool, but he had no true idea of what it entailed.
He’d seen how unfair the Ministry was in their dealings with Professor Lupin. It made his heart hurt to even contemplate what they’d done to Sirius. Poor Hagrid still wasn’t allowed to have a wand, and for what? He’d never been charged with Moaning Myrtle’s death – there had been only accusations. Harry had nearly been expelled and his wand snapped for defending himself against Dementors. No – he should have known better than to even think of being an Auror.
It was odd, but even as he had come to terms with being ‘The Boy Who Lived’, he’d still never truly internalized that he was destined to someday duel with Voldemort. Certainly he knew he’d have to face him again, but…
When he first had come to Hogwarts, for once in his life Harry hadn’t felt entirely alone. He’d had friends and mentors; people that looked out for his welfare. Learning of the prophecy shattered that illusion forever. Had Headmaster Dumbledore ever cared? Probably, although most of the time Harry was too numb to truly worry much about it either way. But all this time: learning with the others, pretending he was like everyone else… In a cruel way, the Dursleys were right. It had been nothing but a dream.
It sounded grand, someday being part of the Order of the Phoenix; on the side of Light, battling for good - but now he finally understood. He couldn’t be a *part* of anything. In the end, a teen-aged boy who didn’t even know magic was real until he was eleven would eventually have to duel the darkest wizard of his time and win. It was going to come down to him, and all these years at Hogwarts he hadn’t even been really *trying* to learn magic – not like he could have.
He held few hopes of surviving the encounter anyway, but five years of studying in much the same way as Hermione did surely would have helped. Manual labor was something he’d done all his life, but this intensive studying he was trying to do now… It was highly discouraging how much he tried to memorize and yet how little he retained a few hours later.
He was driving himself up a wall with the desperate need to study and yet lacking the energy to do so. He wasn’t a fool - he knew he was depressed - but as much as he missed Sirius and wanted it all to end, he still wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of dying. So much for career advice…
He’d made up his mind about what he was going to do, but kept getting overwhelmed with the details. How was he supposed to learn enough to challenge Voldemort in a duel? He realized he had to hunger for it. So how could he bypass his own reluctance to die? And what a thing to try to work around, he realized dryly.
For that’s what it came down to. As much as he wanted it to end, he wasn’t looking forward to dying. So what mattered to him? What was an acceptable goal he could work toward that would be incentive enough to relearn how to learn, and spend every waking moment at it?
Harry’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch as he suddenly knew what would. Sirius, of course. By stepping up to fight Voldemort, it put Harry in what would likely become a very public position at some point in time. So far, the Ministry controlled the information, but knowledge was power, and if Harry struck at the right moment, he could use public outcry (as his interview with Rita Skeeter in The Quibbler had done) in much the same way the Ministry normally did (primarily with The Daily Prophet). By ‘persuading’ them to properly investigate the events surrounding Sirius' arrest and inprisonment he might be able to force them to acquit his godfather – even if it was too late to do either of them any good.
To insure an investigation his best tool would be Wormtail… At this thought Harry suppressed a shiver of hate. Kill the spare. Pettigrew had casually murdered Cedric. His treachery had killed his parents and landed Sirius in Azkaban. Harry didn’t need to look for motivation to want to learn to duel – his palms itched for another shot at Wormtail. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. All he needed was the right circumstance, and this time when he faced Pettigrew - he intended to win.
Unfortunately, while he had lots of goals, he had no idea what to plan for, which in essence meant his goal should be to be prepared for *anything*. Towards that end, Harry had resolved to begin researching Ministry laws at the first available opportunity. How had Sirius been imprisoned without a trial? What obligations did a Minister of Magic have towards his constituents? Was Fudge already violating Wizarding Law? How did the Ministry trace underage use of magic – and was there any way he could get around it?
So far, Harry had always been the last to know: the last to know who Sirius even *was*, what had happened at Godric’s Hollow, what his father had been *really* like… All that information was available in the Hogwarts library, and it shamed him to acknowledge he’d never read up on it. That would change.
Hermione had the right of it. Knowledge was the key. Won’t Ron be disappointed? he wondered idly. He’d come to realize that Dumbledore and the Ministry didn’t know *better*, they just knew *more* – which was something he intended to change. He was done dancing to others’ tunes. He kept screwing up because either he didn’t know the rules or they kept changing on him.
The games others played worked because he allowed himself to participate in them, he realized. While he didn’t like to admit it, he could see the truth of it – especially with Snape. Since his first year, he kept giving Snape the club with which to beat him with by reacting to what he said… Harry gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue thinking his dilemma through. He wouldn’t dwell on the past. He couldn’t afford to. It was too painful.
Harry’s scar tingled constantly, but now that Voldemort was aware of their connection, he was no longer able to eavesdrop on him. His dreams terrified him for several reasons: first because Harry was no longer sure which nightmares were his own and which were being sent. The second reason, though, left him wanting to not sleep at all. It left him horrified and feeling paranoid, yet violated all at the same time.
There were moments when, even in the midst of desperate grief and despair in his nightmares, Harry felt as if he might not be alone. Was Voldemort able to see his dreams? Because if so, his unconscious was laying all his fears and pain bare. Harry tried hard to clear his mind at night, but found it nearly impossible to do so.
The closest thing to peace he felt was when he allowed his imagination to visualize his tumbling after Sirius through the Veil. Oddly enough, focusing on the faint rustling of the black curtain and soft whispers he’d heard drifting from the other side helped to keep his mind from wandering. He imagined an absolute stillness, like drifting in the deep of the ocean. – he hoped Sirius had found some sort of peace, even as his gut told him differently. Everything surrounding that Death Chamber felt *off*.
Perhaps remembering the Veil comforted him because he’d be where Sirius was now. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that soothed his desperate thoughts, but knew he could never admit it to anyone. He was aware that finding peace in that was probably *not* healthy, but… It worked, at least a little.
Bit by bit, he was tearing himself apart and trying to turn what he considered flaws into assets. He felt as if his mind had been stripped bare of any protections and was completely at Voldemort’s mercy. He was so utterly unhappy that he would have loved the luxury of being able to crawl out of his own skin, but since he could not, he had to find other ways to ease the ache and find the strength to go on.
He recalled a time in the early days of the Triwizard Tournament when Hermione had mentioned reading about permanent memory charms that could be used to aid in absorbing materials. She had said with disappointment that some of them were considered quite excruciating and had dismissed ever attempting them.
Well, he was ready to try them now – he just had to track them down and discover whether their side effects negated the benefits. He wasn’t worried about the pain. He suspected he had a different threshold than most and in a dark way almost looked forward to finding an opportunity to give them a try. Charms like those could certainly increase his learning curve, and he needed all the help he could get.
As a boy, when particularly depressed, he used to daydream about discovering his parents weren’t dead, but had somehow lost him. He would imagine they’d spent years looking for him, and when found, would whisk him away from the Dursleys and he’d live happily ever after.
When Sirius first came into his life, he’d thought, this is close enough. He’s my godfather, and he wants me to live with him! But that dream had quickly been squashed as well. Reality had never been particularly kind to Harry.
He had no hopes for a better tomorrow now. All he could do was wish with all his might that before it ended, he would be able to set things right. That was worth working towards. He’d see Sirius’ name cleared, and if it was at the Ministry’s expense – so much the better. At least I’m beginning to develop some obtainable goals, he consoled himself. It was a start.
As always, thanks for reading! Please let me know your thoughts! ;-)
Author’s Notes: Sorry for the delay in getting this out. It took a bit to get what was bugging me out on the page, but I’m pretty happy with it now. I hope you enjoy, and that the chapter was worth the wait. Thanks to both Nicky15 for her fabulous input (and very sensible points), and to Wishweaver for her input. Any mistakes here are mine, not theirs! *g*
For those of you who’ve asked – yes, I am intending to pursue this story. How large it ends up being, I cannot be sure, but it has an outline and there are clear goals in mind. Hopefully the journey will be worth it.
More action will begin occurring within the next few chapters, so bear with me if this seems a bit too introspective. It will not always be this way (and who know, you might even miss it! :-D).
Thank you to everyone who reviewed. Just for your information, I used to reply at the end of my chapters to everyone who’d left a review, but enough people got frustrated with how deceptive this made the length of my chapter that I stopped doing it. This does not mean I do not read and cherish every review. I do. It is deeply appreciated, and I thank you so much for taking the time to do so. Your words are most certainly heard.
Disclaimer: I wish I were the owner of Harry Potter, but alas, I am not. I am just borrowing him for my own personal enjoyment (but not like that, you pervos! *g*)
All That’s Left Behind
Chapter Two – Setting the Course
Several weeks later, as Harry sat in his bedroom, staring at chapter six of Practical Defensive Magic, and realizing he’d already read it twice yet still had no idea what it was about, he suspected he was going cross-eyed. The book was part of a set that Remus and Sirius had given him for Christmas, and it pained him that he hadn’t given them more than a cursory glance until this summer.
So far he’d been left mostly to his own devices – the constant drizzle that seemed determined to make up for last year’s draught in a month’s time left him stuck indoors (eventually he’d have to tackle the garden at least a little, but considered it would be a welcome reprieve from his usual routine) and, as he elected to no longer even participate with meals with the Dursleys, this kept him nearly the entire time upstairs in his room.
Education had never been a priority for him. Before Hogwarts, while his schoolmates dreamed of becoming doctors and firemen, Harry dreamt of getting out and finding a small apartment somewhere in London where he could people-watch to his heart’s content and leave dishes in the sink overnight.
He’d known the Dursleys would never pay for any schooling for him, of course, and had planned when he turned sixteen to start looking for full-time employment. He hadn’t been worried – he wasn’t afraid of hard work, and in fact was rather curious how his work ethic compared to those around him. He’d learned early on, after all, that his home situation contrasted greatly with everyone else’s, but in some ways was heartened by that rather than upset.
When he’d started at Hogwarts, ‘The Boy Who Lived’ title felt so familiar – so similar to ‘four eyes’ and ‘scar face’ – that he’d dismissed it as a label. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with him. It was something that happened, rather than what he was supposed to be. It was a not-so-funny nickname. Growing up as a Muggle, he’d missed seeing how many expectations the Wizarding world had wrapped up into him. People felt he’d saved them, Harry eventually realized, and thought ‘if he can stop Voldemort as a baby, imagine what he could do as an adult’.
I must be quite the disappointment, he thought dryly. He’d never believed the hype because he knew better. He’d thought it absurd and a little pathetic that everyone thought *he* was going to save the Wizarding world. After all, it had been his blood that brought Voldemort back in the first place. He’d always known better – and he held that truth close to his heart. People would eventually figure out that he was just a boy, and not a very talented one at that, and then everything would go back to normal.
To Harry, Hogwarts wasn’t about getting a good magical education; it was about experiencing life away from the Dursleys. It was an opportunity to do ‘fun’ things, and to discover how incredible friendships and freedom could be. Magic was still so new to him that he hadn't been able to wrap his mind around taking his place within the Wizarding community. He hadn’t been overly concerned about studying. After all, he had this whole new world to explore.
When Professor McGonagall had approached him last year, asking what he wanted to be when he grew up, he hadn’t given it much thought. Sure, he’d read up on some of the different Wizarding career paths with Hermione and Ron, but having Umbridge in his career counseling session had utterly distracted him from having any sort of meaningful conversations about it. The fact that his Head of House had nearly come to blows over his prospects as an Auror had been unsettling, to say the least, and only with hindsight could he look back a bit more fondly on how McGonagall had handled that beastly woman.
In her way, though, Umbridge had been quite right. Of course the Ministry would never have him - but more importantly, why would he want them to? He’d thrown out that day the possibility of becoming an Auror as a possible goal in much the same way, if he’d still been living as a Muggle, that he might have suggested being an ambulance driver. It sounded cool, but he had no true idea of what it entailed.
He’d seen how unfair the Ministry was in their dealings with Professor Lupin. It made his heart hurt to even contemplate what they’d done to Sirius. Poor Hagrid still wasn’t allowed to have a wand, and for what? He’d never been charged with Moaning Myrtle’s death – there had been only accusations. Harry had nearly been expelled and his wand snapped for defending himself against Dementors. No – he should have known better than to even think of being an Auror.
It was odd, but even as he had come to terms with being ‘The Boy Who Lived’, he’d still never truly internalized that he was destined to someday duel with Voldemort. Certainly he knew he’d have to face him again, but…
When he first had come to Hogwarts, for once in his life Harry hadn’t felt entirely alone. He’d had friends and mentors; people that looked out for his welfare. Learning of the prophecy shattered that illusion forever. Had Headmaster Dumbledore ever cared? Probably, although most of the time Harry was too numb to truly worry much about it either way. But all this time: learning with the others, pretending he was like everyone else… In a cruel way, the Dursleys were right. It had been nothing but a dream.
It sounded grand, someday being part of the Order of the Phoenix; on the side of Light, battling for good - but now he finally understood. He couldn’t be a *part* of anything. In the end, a teen-aged boy who didn’t even know magic was real until he was eleven would eventually have to duel the darkest wizard of his time and win. It was going to come down to him, and all these years at Hogwarts he hadn’t even been really *trying* to learn magic – not like he could have.
He held few hopes of surviving the encounter anyway, but five years of studying in much the same way as Hermione did surely would have helped. Manual labor was something he’d done all his life, but this intensive studying he was trying to do now… It was highly discouraging how much he tried to memorize and yet how little he retained a few hours later.
He was driving himself up a wall with the desperate need to study and yet lacking the energy to do so. He wasn’t a fool - he knew he was depressed - but as much as he missed Sirius and wanted it all to end, he still wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of dying. So much for career advice…
He’d made up his mind about what he was going to do, but kept getting overwhelmed with the details. How was he supposed to learn enough to challenge Voldemort in a duel? He realized he had to hunger for it. So how could he bypass his own reluctance to die? And what a thing to try to work around, he realized dryly.
For that’s what it came down to. As much as he wanted it to end, he wasn’t looking forward to dying. So what mattered to him? What was an acceptable goal he could work toward that would be incentive enough to relearn how to learn, and spend every waking moment at it?
Harry’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch as he suddenly knew what would. Sirius, of course. By stepping up to fight Voldemort, it put Harry in what would likely become a very public position at some point in time. So far, the Ministry controlled the information, but knowledge was power, and if Harry struck at the right moment, he could use public outcry (as his interview with Rita Skeeter in The Quibbler had done) in much the same way the Ministry normally did (primarily with The Daily Prophet). By ‘persuading’ them to properly investigate the events surrounding Sirius' arrest and inprisonment he might be able to force them to acquit his godfather – even if it was too late to do either of them any good.
To insure an investigation his best tool would be Wormtail… At this thought Harry suppressed a shiver of hate. Kill the spare. Pettigrew had casually murdered Cedric. His treachery had killed his parents and landed Sirius in Azkaban. Harry didn’t need to look for motivation to want to learn to duel – his palms itched for another shot at Wormtail. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. All he needed was the right circumstance, and this time when he faced Pettigrew - he intended to win.
Unfortunately, while he had lots of goals, he had no idea what to plan for, which in essence meant his goal should be to be prepared for *anything*. Towards that end, Harry had resolved to begin researching Ministry laws at the first available opportunity. How had Sirius been imprisoned without a trial? What obligations did a Minister of Magic have towards his constituents? Was Fudge already violating Wizarding Law? How did the Ministry trace underage use of magic – and was there any way he could get around it?
So far, Harry had always been the last to know: the last to know who Sirius even *was*, what had happened at Godric’s Hollow, what his father had been *really* like… All that information was available in the Hogwarts library, and it shamed him to acknowledge he’d never read up on it. That would change.
Hermione had the right of it. Knowledge was the key. Won’t Ron be disappointed? he wondered idly. He’d come to realize that Dumbledore and the Ministry didn’t know *better*, they just knew *more* – which was something he intended to change. He was done dancing to others’ tunes. He kept screwing up because either he didn’t know the rules or they kept changing on him.
The games others played worked because he allowed himself to participate in them, he realized. While he didn’t like to admit it, he could see the truth of it – especially with Snape. Since his first year, he kept giving Snape the club with which to beat him with by reacting to what he said… Harry gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue thinking his dilemma through. He wouldn’t dwell on the past. He couldn’t afford to. It was too painful.
Harry’s scar tingled constantly, but now that Voldemort was aware of their connection, he was no longer able to eavesdrop on him. His dreams terrified him for several reasons: first because Harry was no longer sure which nightmares were his own and which were being sent. The second reason, though, left him wanting to not sleep at all. It left him horrified and feeling paranoid, yet violated all at the same time.
There were moments when, even in the midst of desperate grief and despair in his nightmares, Harry felt as if he might not be alone. Was Voldemort able to see his dreams? Because if so, his unconscious was laying all his fears and pain bare. Harry tried hard to clear his mind at night, but found it nearly impossible to do so.
The closest thing to peace he felt was when he allowed his imagination to visualize his tumbling after Sirius through the Veil. Oddly enough, focusing on the faint rustling of the black curtain and soft whispers he’d heard drifting from the other side helped to keep his mind from wandering. He imagined an absolute stillness, like drifting in the deep of the ocean. – he hoped Sirius had found some sort of peace, even as his gut told him differently. Everything surrounding that Death Chamber felt *off*.
Perhaps remembering the Veil comforted him because he’d be where Sirius was now. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that soothed his desperate thoughts, but knew he could never admit it to anyone. He was aware that finding peace in that was probably *not* healthy, but… It worked, at least a little.
Bit by bit, he was tearing himself apart and trying to turn what he considered flaws into assets. He felt as if his mind had been stripped bare of any protections and was completely at Voldemort’s mercy. He was so utterly unhappy that he would have loved the luxury of being able to crawl out of his own skin, but since he could not, he had to find other ways to ease the ache and find the strength to go on.
He recalled a time in the early days of the Triwizard Tournament when Hermione had mentioned reading about permanent memory charms that could be used to aid in absorbing materials. She had said with disappointment that some of them were considered quite excruciating and had dismissed ever attempting them.
Well, he was ready to try them now – he just had to track them down and discover whether their side effects negated the benefits. He wasn’t worried about the pain. He suspected he had a different threshold than most and in a dark way almost looked forward to finding an opportunity to give them a try. Charms like those could certainly increase his learning curve, and he needed all the help he could get.
As a boy, when particularly depressed, he used to daydream about discovering his parents weren’t dead, but had somehow lost him. He would imagine they’d spent years looking for him, and when found, would whisk him away from the Dursleys and he’d live happily ever after.
When Sirius first came into his life, he’d thought, this is close enough. He’s my godfather, and he wants me to live with him! But that dream had quickly been squashed as well. Reality had never been particularly kind to Harry.
He had no hopes for a better tomorrow now. All he could do was wish with all his might that before it ended, he would be able to set things right. That was worth working towards. He’d see Sirius’ name cleared, and if it was at the Ministry’s expense – so much the better. At least I’m beginning to develop some obtainable goals, he consoled himself. It was a start.
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Re: ff.net going down
Date: 2005-01-17 09:50 pm (UTC)Anyway, I reread this...still an exceptional piece of fanfic. I like how Harry doesn't seem to have a real grasp of his abilities: "People would eventually figure out that he was just a boy, and not a very talented one at that". This makes me think that his lack of self-esteem is affecting his abilities. After all, when he *knew* that his Patronus would work, he managed to drive off a a hundred or so dementors at one time.
I do have a minor spelling nitpick though - I think you used "draught" when you meant "drought".
Re: ff.net going down
Date: 2005-01-18 07:18 am (UTC)*nods* Exactly!
*doh* I'm busted! Thanks for the nitpick! You're absolutely right!
*g*