FIC: What It Means.... ~ Chapter Three ~ PG-13

[batsutousai]

Title: What It Means...
Author: batsutousai
Beta: magickmaker17
Rating: PG-13/T
Pairings: None
Warnings: Harry-in-Azkaban, betrayal, angst, Dark-but-not-Evil!Harry, Slightly-Too-Powerful-To-Be-Realistic!Harry, character death
Summary: At the end of Fifth Year, things go as planned for some and not for others. When Harry is sent to Azkaban for killing his best friends, who will stand at his side and who will turn their back?

A/N: I find myself torn between adding the Horcruxes to this story or not. A random question of yes or no – my favourite way to get people to decide things for me – resulted in a 'no' from magickmaker17, so they won't make an appearance. (Which is probably for the best. I could work them in – Harry's got enough dead people on his side that he could probably figure out the status and hidey-hole of each of them – but it seems like too much trouble.)


-~/\~-
Chapter Three ~ ...To Have Friends
Written: 17/03/08
-~\/~-

With Luna and those in the afterlife's help, Harry was able to threaten seven more Death Eaters into creating evidence against themselves and turn them in to the Aurors. According to Sir Nick, Hogwarts was awash with rumours about both Harry's possible innocence and the mysterious Dorcha who was going around capturing Death Eaters for the mostly useless Aurors.

At times, Harry wondered what had ever possessed him to want to be an Auror. When asked, Luna suggested it was insanity.

Along with news, Sir Nick also brought the Bloody Baron and Peeves once school let out for the summer. Peeves thought it was great fun to fly around Azkaban, tormenting the other prisoners and harassing the stoic dementors until they started chasing him through the halls. He was careful to never let any of the human guards see him and if any of the other prisoners were to tell a guard, they'd just wave the comment off as too much time near the dementors.

The Bloody Baron was a great boon to Harry's side, as Harry was the only one among his various dead friends who was at all Slytherin, and he'd spent so much time suppressing that part of him that he almost didn't count. With the Baron around, Harry's captures of the Death Eaters became more cunning and sneaky and his demeanour more threatening.

Harry also found himself, with help from his various allies, with three sets of African-style robes, a thick African accent, two spare wands in holsters they couldn't be summoned from and a well-protected trunk on the island that he used for training just off the shore of Azkaban. Harry wasn't sure he wanted to know where Peeves and the Baron got the money for the extra wands, their holsters or the trunk. His own wand had been made by an African wandmaker that Harry had saved from some other humans in the jungle and gotten custom made as thanks, while the robes came from some hunters in the jungle who thought a napping panther would be a fine catch. The accent had been cultivated through hard work and an accent spell that James had taught Luna who taught Harry after he got the robes.

From what Sir Nick said, the Ministry wasn't quite sure what to do with Dorcha. The unknown African was helping the Ministry with the collecting of Death Eaters and hadn't used any illegal spells to their knowledge, but he was doing a lot of breaking and entering as well as threatening the people of Britain, Death Eaters or not. To top it all off, the only people who'd ever had any contact with Dorcha were those he caught when he caught them. The Ministry was quite flabbergasted.

Voldemort, on the other hand, was quite furious with the constant captures of his people and the various attacks he'd planned being turned to failures on his part because of the information leaks of his captured people. He couldn't even go and kill the captured Death Eaters before they gave the information up. Really, Voldemort would have loved to have Dorcha on his side, but, as far as he was concerned, Dorcha had earned the right to either be killed on sight or tortured to death.

Dumbledore, according to the two Hogwarts ghosts, was rooting for Dorcha just as much as the Aurors, who were suddenly finding their jobs much easier. The lone African, according to Dumbledore at the End of Year feast, was a symbol of hope in their time of need and a wizard worthy of Britain's respect and thanks. Apparently, he'd commented to Fawkes in what he thought was private, that even though he genuinely liked Dorcha and respected his bravery, he wasn't sure he approved of the African's immoral way of doing things. Harry wasn't quite sure what to think of the old man, especially since he was one of the ones who firmly thought that Harry was still guilty, no matter what the rumours going around the school said.

Harry spent the night of July thirtieth hunting a rat, which he then sent to Auror Headquarters at exactly midnight with a short note that said, 'The British justice system is full of holes. You may wish to caulk this one sooner, rather than later. Sorry for the lack of tape, I figured you should all earn your money for once.'

The next day, Sirius and Remus were later than usual, but since Sirius was a human and not Padfoot, Harry forgave them.

"Harry! Harry!" Sirius started, running up to the bars ahead of an amused Remus and an irritated guard. "Look! I'm free! There's this wizard guy running around – you won't of heard of him, unless the guards here were prone to talking to you, which they're not – anyway, this guy is catching Death Eaters all over Britain and sending them in to the Aurors to question and arrest! And he caught Wormtail! It was a beautiful trial!"

Remus shook his head at Sirius and looked over at where Harry was watching them with a faint smile in a dark corner. "How are you, cub?"

Harry shrugged, then croaked out, "I'm glad for you, Sirius."

Sirius' face fell. "Oh, Prongslet..."

Harry shook his head. "It's not so bad here, now. The dementors mostly leave me alone, and all this free time has me working on my Occlumency, so Voldemort isn't mind-raping me any more."

Remus frowned as the young man inside the cell while Sirius seemed to droop with the weight of Harry's imprisonment. "We'll keep trying, cub. I promise."

"Save your worthless attempts for someone who deserves it, werewolf," the guard sneered as he came back over to the two visitors. He glanced into Harry's cage and saw a thin boy with drool coming from the corner of his mouth and insanity dancing in his eyes. As he turned away from the sight that was so common in Azkaban, he said, "Come on. Time's up. Don't know why you waste your time on this monster anyway..."

Only Luna saw the fury on Harry's face as the guard led his godfather and Remus away

-~/^\~-

In the week following Harry's birthday, six Death Eaters ended up in the hands of the Ministry. A seventh showed up dead the following Monday and the tape revealed that a fight had occurred and one hell of a lot of magic – Light and Dark – had been cast by both Dorcha and the Death Eater – Amycus Carrow. To the current Minister, Rufus Scrimgeour, that was enough of a reason to put a price on Dorcha's head.

It was probably for the best that Harry's wounds from the battle – a broken arm and leg, a painful cut across his torso and aftershocks from the Cruciatus Curse – kept him stuck in Azkaban with Peeves for entertainment and his three ghost friends for conversation. His ability as a metamorph, as weak as it was, had probably saved his life, as he was able to mostly heal the wound from Carrow's severing curse that had hit him hard in front. A normal metamorph, like Tonks, would have been able to fix their bones as well as healing a cut without too much help from spells. But Harry wasn't that strong a metamorph and bones were largely beyond him.

It took almost two months, even with the potions Peeves stole from Hogwarts and, later, the spells Harry cast outside of Azkaban, for Harry to be healed enough to consider going out to take on more Death Eaters. By then, most of the dust raised by Scrimgeour and Voldemort's people for Dorcha's arrest had calmed and popular opinion seemed to be that he'd died.

Even though he was feeling better, Harry stayed near Azkaban. He refused to be caught unawares like he had with Carrow. To help him, he called on the knowledge of the Bloody Baron as well as three other ghosts that the Baron found who had been duellers in their lives. The four of them trained him hard – well, as hard as ghosts could train the living.

Despite his duties at Hogwarts, the Baron spent more time at Azkaban with Harry than he did watching his Slytherins. Peeves also took a break from terrorizing the students to continue his summer adventures of tormenting other prisoners and the dementors. When Harry asked the poltergeist why he'd chosen to stay, Peeves simply said, "Baron doesn't make rules for naughty prisoners other than telling Peevesy to give them hell."

Hallowe'en was a dreadful day for Harry that year. Normally, Voldemort would spend the holiday razing Muggle villages for Harry's "enjoyment", which he would gleefully push through the bond. Harry's Occlumency was strong enough now that the bastard couldn't torment him like that any more, so Voldemort instead chose to go for the killer. He decimated what was left of the Weasley family – minus Percy, whose estrangement from his family had probably saved his life. So it was that Harry woke up on the first of November to the painful news that five Weasleys had joined Ron, Hermione, Lily and James in the afterlife.

After playing with his connection to death a little, Harry found himself back on the other plane and surrounded by sobbing Weasleys. "Hey."

Mrs Weasley immediately jumped forward and enclosed Harry in a crushing hug. Mr Weasley followed her, looking devastated. The eldest male Weasley met Harry's pained eyes and said, "Harry, we're so sorry."

Harry shrugged uncomfortably, knowing Mr Weasley meant that they were sorry for not believing in him. "It's not your fault. Voldemort had all his bases covered. Even if he hadn't been possessing me at the trial, I'm not sure I would have had a chance."

"That's not the point, mate," Fred offered.

"Yeah," agreed George. "We knew about Sirius–"

"–hell, he and Remus never stopped believing you were innocent–"

"–but we didn't even consider a set-up."

"It was personal to you guys," Harry tried. "I mean, Ginny was the sole witness–"

"Not everything is always as it seems on the surface, though," Bill cut in, eyes sharp. "That's one of the first rules of cursebreaking. None of us thought to look past the surface. Not even after the sorrow had faded as the years passed."

"You were family," Mrs Weasley agreed with tears still making tracks down he face, "and we left you to rot in Azkaban of all places!"

Harry felt his face get hot. He'd always thought of the Weasleys as his family, but he hadn't thought that they'd felt the same way. He bit his lip and looked over at where his birth parents stood off to the side. Both Lily and James were smiling at him.

Ron stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Harry's shoulders, then smiled at his parents and siblings. "What Harry can't quite bring himself to say is, 'thank you.' And he also, I know, never really blamed you for your actions."

"He was too busy blaming himself," Luna agreed, appearing next to Harry. She glanced around quickly, then frowned. "I though you said Ginny was dead too?"

The simple statement caused a minor panic as everyone realized that they hadn't seen Ginny at all since they'd arrived. Luna let them all panic and turned to the bemused Harry, who had spent enough time with the dead Ravenclaw to know she was up to something. He leaned over and whispered, "All right. Where is she?"

Luna smiled. "A ghost."

Harry's eyes went wide. "But... why?!"

Luna shrugged. "Ask her." Then she disappeared to return to the world of the living.

Harry watched the chaos for a long moment, then followed Luna down. When he opened his eyes, he found that the Bloody Baron and Peeves stood on either side of a semi-transparent Ginny Weasley. Luna was doing cartwheels on the ceiling.

Harry took a moment to look this elder Ginny over. His best friend's sister had gotten thinner as the war progressed, it seemed, and her eyes were haunted with horrors only she knew. Her robes were slightly tattered and Harry could see a few minor wounds and bruises through the holes.

"Hey, Harry," Ginny whispered after a long moment of only Harry's breathing and Luna's happy cartwheels.

Harry closed his eyes against the vicious memory of him cursing her. "Why did you stay?"

Ginny wrapped her arms around herself. "Before they killed me, they removed the block on my memory of that night. They taunted me with the knowledge that you were rotting in Azkaban for a crime that wasn't yours. And, well, I owe you a life debt, remember? From my first year? I can't go on until I can pay you back for that."

Harry shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does! I wasn't strong enough to fight off Malfoy in the Department of Mysteries and now you're stuck here–"

"It's not that bad here!" Harry shot back.

Ginny bit her lip. "The Baron said you've been training and that you're really Dorcha. That you're behind the lessening in Voldemort's troops. But now you've stopped. Why?"

Harry stood and winced as his legs got a shot of pins and needles. "It's complicated."

"Tell me. It's not like I'm going anywhere," Ginny replied, seating herself in mid-air. Luna settled into the same position next to her. The Baron floated out of the room, but Peeves settled himself next to Luna, his face painted comically with curiosity.

Harry sighed and leaned back against the wall, feeling tired. "I'm tired of fighting," he offered, forcing his thoughts on the matter to organize into something that would make sense. "I'm tired of fighting for people who could care less if I lived or died, as long as they're safe. I'm tired of trying to please such a fickle public, where one moment I'm their knight in shining armour and the next I'm their scapegoat. It doesn't matter who I am, who I appear to be, it's always the same."

"Then what's the point of training?" Ginny asked once she was sure Harry had finished unloading.

Surprisingly, it was Peeves who answered, "Harry knows that as long as he lives, Moldy will be trying to kill him. And Harry isn't the sort to kill himself just to end the wait. He's training so that when Moldy finally does come for him, he can at least die knowing he tried. For himself, and those Moldy has killed. But not for the rest of the world."

Harry and Ginny gave the poltergeist incredulous looks while Luna tumbled over backwards, laughing.

Peeves smiled mischievously and zipped out of the room to, no doubt, irritate some dementors.

Ginny turned to Harry. "What have you been teaching him?"

Harry shrugged, just as thrown off balance by the poltergeist's words as she was.

Luna calmed herself and settled back into her spot next to Ginny. "You can't expect him to have lived though all these wars and not have picked up some understanding of human nature. Never mind that him being serious is almost as good a joke as tormenting dementors."

Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I'm beginning to think you're working together to drive me spare."

"Neither of them need help for that," Ginny teased, smiling.

Harry grimaced. "Good point."

The two girls fell backwards in giggles and proceeded to roll around in the air. Harry smiled faintly as he watched them, glad that the horrors they had all faced hadn't destroyed them completely.

The footsteps stopping in front of the cell froze both girls in the air. As one, the three occupants of the cell turned to see two gob-smacked Aurors standing at the door to the cell. Behind them, Peeves was floating with an evil smile on his face.

Harry groaned and covered his face with his hands. "Bloody hell."

-

-

A/N: Sorry. Had to leave the cliffie. I just couldn't resist! *cackles madly*

So, what do you think will happen next? Will Harry be caught? And if so, how caught will he be? Even better, will he ever forgive the wizarding public?
Find out all this and more in the next chapter!
~Bats

Chapters:
Pro - To Watch / 1 - To Hope
2 - To Learn ||| 3 - To Have Friends ||| 4 - To Know Death
5 - To Touch Freedom ||| 6 - To Have Morals ||| 7 - To Taste Victory
Epilogue - To Live

.