"I'm not always going to get it right, Harry," Sirius admitted, "sometimes I'm going to decide something and get it wrong but…I just hope that I get enough right that one day we both might not need to keep seeing a mind healer."
Harry gave another huff of laughter at Sirius's dry tone. "That's why you moved my appointment with Healer Allen?" He had disliked his early morning appointment being changed to a later time when he might be spotted going to the infirmary.
Sirius rubbed his back. "You've just been told that rather than a vague threat of Voldemort trying to get you into the tournament, there is an actual real threat with a whole nasty ritual involved that already has him kidnapping pregnant women and digging up the bones of his father. So yes, I moved your appointment so you can talk to Healer Allen if you want to about it."
"Do we know more about the ritual?" asked Harry, easing back finally to look Sirius.
"We do but…" Sirius sighed and put his hands on Harry's shoulders, "Bertie is still researching to see what the effect would be of us screwing with it. If I tell you any more of the details than I already have…it may screw with the ritual."
Harry frowned. "Don't we want to screw with it?"
"Say the ritual is like a potion that involves you stirring a cauldron five times," Sirius explained, "so you know you need to stir five times but you purposefully think you can screw up Voldemort's plans by stirring three times or two times. Only three times means that the potion explodes and takes you with it and two times means that the potion not only works but gives the user superpowers. Do you think it was wise to stir less times now?"
Nope. Not at all.
Harry sighed and decided to focus on something else. "What's happening about Travers?" Because it certainly hasn't been reported in the press. The Prophet had run a piece on the tribunals the day after stating all four had gone to Azkaban.
Sirius dropped his hands and nudged Harry back into the chair. "The Rat Squad's been given the task of chasing Travers down and we know Travers was switched the day before by someone pretending to be his solicitor. Identification checks haven't been performed on Ministry visitors to date only Ministry employees – that'll change as of tomorrow. We had everyone in the courtroom swear a vow of secrecy and released a cover story to the press because the guy who was switched said he'd been told they'd kill his sister if he didn't pretend to be Travers. He's actually staying in a safe house now."
"They?" questioned Harry, concern beginning to creep along his spine again.
"Our mystery attacker, Pettigrew and Voldemort." Sirius listed.
Harry nodded. He rubbed his upper arms, feeling suddenly chilled.
"We know the Polyjuice Man is clearly in and out of London – both pregnant women were taken from the Market Place and…and he knows what's going on in the Ministry so he's still getting in and out somehow, although the identification checks on visitors will hopefully eliminate that. He picked Travers who is the only one who didn't denounce Voldemort or say something to the Aurors. We think Voldemort and Pettigrew are hiding out in the countryside somewhere remote where they can keep the women locked up. Travers may have been sprung to help guard them." Sirius said.
Harry shivered. It didn't sound very positive.
"Amelia is doing all she can." Sirius said.
But was it going to be enough, mused Harry. It was a thought that stayed with him as he walked Sirius out, knowing his father was stealing more time with Harry by walking to the gates, rather than simply leaving through the floo like Lord Nott had done.
By the time Sirius had hugged him near to the end of the path, it was almost time for his rescheduled Healer appointment, and Harry made his way to the infirmary as soon as he got inside the castle, managing to avoid being seen by taking a short cut that he'd found on the Marauder's map the year before. The room set aside for mind healing was warm and cosy; a small office with comfortable chairs at one end next to a hearth and a table set up with therapy activities at the other.
Harry greeted Healer Allen quietly as he entered and took a seat. He really didn't want to talk; he'd barely had time to think about what Sirius had told him.
The greying older wizard watched him with kind brown eyes. "Would you like to draw this morning rather than talk?" He asked gently.
Harry poked the floor with the toe of his shoe and nodded. He made his way over to the table and picked up a sketch-pad and pencil. His drawings weren't that good but the process of focusing on trying to get the lines on the paper right let his head clear, his thoughts drifting over everything Sirius had told him.
When he finally came back to himself, the paper was filled with a remarkable resemblance to a certain artefact in his past.
"May I see what you've drawn, Harry?" Healer Allen asked.
Harry walked over and gave him the sketch. He sat and burrowed into the cosy chair opposite the healer.
"Would you tell me about the drawing?" Healer Allen invited softly.
Harry rested his head back on the cushions of the chair and stared at the ceiling. "It's the Mirror of Erised."
"What do you think prompted you to draw it?"
Harry sighed. "What do you think prompted me to draw it?"
Healer Allen hummed in agreement ignoring Harry's surliness because it was fairly obvious that Voldemort threatening his life was the easy connection between what Sirius had told him and the Mirror.
"All my first year here Voldemort tried to kill me." Harry said out loud. "And now…"
"And now he's doing it again." Healer Allen stated gently. "What did you see in the Mirror when you looked the first time?"
"My parents." Harry said with a lump in his throat. It always hurt to think about the nights he'd spent in front of the Mirror just looking.
"What do you think you'd see now?"
It was a good question, though Harry taken aback a bit. He'd wanted so desperately to have a family back then and his parents had been mythical creatures that he wished would ride to the rescue and save him from the Dursleys. But he hadn't known about Padfoot then or Moony; hadn't realised his stern Head of House had once changed his nappy and babysat him when he'd been a few months old. Harry didn't yearn for his parents anymore and, while he was sad about that, he knew it was because Padfoot loved him and Padfoot was who his parents had wanted to take care of him; he had a family. He might wish occasionally that his parents were alive to be part of it but…he loved Padfoot.
But despite the fact that he had a family now, one thing hadn't changed…
"I want to be able to have a life without thinking about Voldemort, without him trying to kill me." Harry said out loud. He shifted position to look at Healer Allen. "Every time something good happens to me, he's there screwing it all up again."
Neither can live while the other survives.
"It feels inevitable." Harry said slowly.
"The prophecy?" prompted Healer Allen.
"Like I can't stop it and I can't get what I want until…" Until he vanquished Voldemort for good with some power that Harry didn't even know about but which might or might not be the Hallows, or might or might not be the family magic. And everything had a price, Harry thought again tiredly. The prophecy didn't actually say he would live in the aftermath.
Wasn't that part of the reason why he'd drawn the Mirror? Because in the end the Mirror had been destroyed.
"And what you want is to live without Voldemort constantly threatening you."
And the people he loved because his parents had died to protect him from Voldemort and he didn't want that to happen to Padfoot. And Padfoot would do it; he'd step in front of Harry to protect him and…
Harry couldn't bear the thought of losing Padfoot.
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