Seeking the Star

Ch.7.

It was barely light when Poppy Pomfrey left the hospital wing for Albus Dumbledore\'s office. When she arrived, Albus was sitting at his desk, still in his bathrobe, reading the Daily Prophet with the WWN murmuring in the background.

\"Ah, Poppy. Would you like some tea?\"

\"Thank you, Albus.\" She settled into the chair as the Headmaster folded his newspaper and conj her her a cup of tea.

\"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?\" Albus\' eyes twinkled as if he already had an idea.

\"I saw Harry yesterday.\"

\"As I\'d expect you should have. It was his first healing lesson, was it not?\" Poppy nodded, but pressed on.

\"Albus, what happened to him the the summer? More specifically, what in the name of the Gods did you do to him? He said he had practiced on you, Albus. And on himself.\"

\"Over the course of his summer training, there were injuries, Poppy. And you know as well as I that direct experience is required for Sanos training. Incidentally, your idea of taking him to St. Mungos is rather unwise. I would prefer that his Sanos abilities remain something of a secret for as long as possible.\"

\"Of course they require training. And how do you expect him to have it without going to St. Mungos?\"

\"I\'m sure something will work itself out, Poppy.\" She tried to bring him back onto her track.

\"If he practiced on himself, which also means that you hurt him. Was that really wise, Albus?\" Poppy searched his eyes, but they never lost their twinkle. She did get the idea, though, that it was a carefully maintained artifice, and their topic of conversation was deadly serious.

\"It was necessary, Poppy.\"

\"But...to make it this far in three months, you must have...you must have destroyed him.\"

\"One needs fire and hammer to temper steel. And further, I did not destroy him. He did that quite thoroughly himself. He took the first step on the path to rebirth alone, too, Poppy. I\'ve just guided him from there.\"

\"Molded him, you mean.\" Her eyes flashed with something akin to anger. Then she sobered. \"That poor child.\"

\"I think, if you were to ask him, Poppy, that he\'s satisfied with where he is now.\"

\"Oh, mark me, Albus, I most certainly will.\" She stood and, without waiting to be dismissed, walked out of the Headmaster\'s office. Albus stared into her half finished cup of tea, his hands steepled under his nose, deep in thought.


Severus Snape made his irritable way to the Headmaster\'s office after lunch. He had manifold reasons for being annoyed at Albus Dumbledore, and they all seemed to infernally center on Harry Potter. He swooped into the room, not unaware that this effect was lost on Albus, and sat down without being invited, an effect which was not.

\"Why didn\'t you tell me that his Occlumency had progressed so far?\" he snapped without preamble. \"I have half a mind to hex you into next week!\" Dumbledore appraised the annoyed Potions Master, his face an inscrutable mask.

\"Did he hurt you?\" Dumbledore\'s voice was soft, and lacked any trace of his usual joviality.

\"Yes he hurt me! And he was so damnably apologetic about it afterwards it was sickening! All Gryffindor promises and justice! And you, you codger, you should have warned me!\" Snape\'s voice was rising dangerously.

\"Severus, be still.\" The Potions Master blinked and snapped his mouth shut abruptly. The subtly playful tone was back in the Headmaster\'s voice. \"Harry didn\'t know any better. He\'s been practicing Occlumency with me. I\'m sure he just overestimated the force necessary for blocking you.\"

\"He reversed the spell, Albus. He shut me from his mind and probed into mine instead. And what I saw in his, the first time...\"

\"What did you see, Severus?\" There was that serious tone again. It brought Severus\' hackles up.

\"Nothing good. As if I would break my word by telling you.\" At this, Dumbledore sat back in his chair and chuckled.

\"Ah, Severus.\" Snape scowled darkly at him. As far as he was concerned, nothing about this was amusing whatsoever. \"Harry and I are bonded through Sanos. I assure you, it is mlikelikely that I already know whatever you saw.\"

\"Nonetheless.\" Severus was now resolute. \"I am a man of my word, Albus.\" But truly, even more than being a man of his word, he had felt the magic that swirled about them as Potter had sworn never to tell anything that he saw in Severus\' head. Potter had given him a binding oath, and his sense of honor dictated that he do his best to return the favor, whether or not he actually liked the boy. Dumbledore sighed.

\"Very well, Severus. Anything else, then?\"

\"No, Headmaster. But I don\'t like what\'s happened here, with Potter. And I\'m going to keep watching.\"

\"As you will, Severus.\" Dumbledore turned his eyes down to his papers, and Severus Snape swept out of the room. His scowl was so deep that even Professor Sprout, who was on her way up to the office when Snape stalked past the gargoyle, jumped out of his way.


That evening, Harry begged and pleaded the password to the Prefect\'s bathroom out of Hermione after convincing her that he really needed a bath and a quiet place to think. Eventually, she agreed, and walked him down to the bathroom. She walked inside with him, and spoke to the mermaid in the picture over the enormous tub.

\"He\'s invited. You hear?\" she spoke sternly to the mermaid, who giggled in response. Harry raised his eyebrows at her. \"She\'ll have the house elves come steal your clothes and towel, otherwise. Well, they always take your clothes, but usually to clean them, and then they return them. If you\'re not invited, they\'ll just take your things and leave you to somehow get back to your common room starkers.\"

\"Ah. Well, thank you then, Mione.\" He rewarded her with one of his rare smiles, and she beamed in response.

\"Don\'t stay down here forever, Harry. Filch will be out in the corridors after ten.\" She gave him a quick hug and left so he could get down to his bath. Harry quickly examined the Schema of each of the faucets on the tub, and turned on only the ones he wanted. He undressed, and then slid slowly into a steaming bath smelling of mint and lavender that blurred the parts of his body underwater in an effect similar to clouded glass, and muttered a spell to keep the water from turning tepid. He needed time to enjoy this bath before getting down to what he was really there to do.

Harry spent some time just floating on his back in the middle of the tub, staring up at ceiling, which was barely visible in the dim. the sensation of being surrounded by warm water, his ears filled with the sound of liquid moving, and steam playing softly over his exposed belly and thighs was incredibly relaxing. He had spent many nights over the summer floating just like this, staring up through the sght ght at the stars. Water seemed to help rid him of his negative thoughts, and helped along the processes of his subconscious. Many conclusions had been drawn somewhere between his tub and the stars, and it was in fact in the tub that he had ultimately come to peace with who he was, what he was, and why he must let himself be shaped into the tool that he was becoming. It had only been four days, but Harry missed his tub. He missed his rooms, really. He decided to start looking for a back passage to the corridor behind Dumbledore\'s offices.

With his mind sufficiently calmed, Harry settled on the bench that was part of the wall of the tub, and focused on his own Schema. All the threads that connected from Harry to other people and objects came into focus first, and then the tight knot that was Harry\'s vision of his Schema emerged. In Harry\'s vision, people\'s Schema looked like knots, but those knots could be zoomed in on, looked at very closely, and revealed themselves to be more like three-dimensional spiderwebs, with strands overlapping and interlocking in all directions within itself, and strands shooting out to other people and things. When he touched people to read their Schema, what he felt was that web. The translation between vision and touch and just touch was one he couldn\'t explain, but could only execute. Much of Schema and Schemata reading was very hazy and innate within the reader.

Harry zeroed in on the thread that tied him to Ron Weasley. Specifically, he wanted to look at the accompanying threads, which would show him how Ron was tied to him, and how Ron felt about him. What he saw boded ill. Ron was jealous of Harry, and Harry guessed that he probably purposefully remained ignorant of the reasons for the changes in his best friend. He came upon a complicated little snag that took him long minutes to decipher. Ron was jealous that Hermione was being oddly warm towards Harry. He made a short snort of mirthless laughter. Oh, if only Ron knew. Harry felt utterly no sexual feelings towards Hermione, and that feeling was entirely mutual, from what he\'d gathered of Hermione\'s Schema the night before. Oh, the ridiculousness of it all. But there was a pattern of threads there that indicated that Ron would continue to be unresponsive to Harry\'s atte to to explain things to him. The only thing Harry could do was wait.

Harry sighed and sunk down to the bottom of the pool. Laying on the marble bottom, he stared up through the cloudy water, watching bubbles of air slowly escape his lips and burst at the surface. It was so very calm and quiet under the water. He could hold his breath for a surprisingly long time now. He pressed his palms into the bottom of the tub, and pushed up, propelling his body to the surface. Stepping carefully out of the tub, Harry put on his glasses and went and looked at himself in one of the full length mirrors, which were charmed to keep the steam of the bathroom from condensing on them. Over the summer, Harry had put several charmshis his glasses to keep them from breaking, getting wet, or fogging up.

Even soaking wet, his hair stuck out oddly. He ran his fingers through it, feeling the tingle he was finally getting used to when his fingers brushed his scar. Somewhere along the way, he\'d gone from being simply skinny to being a construction of taunt muscle and sinew. The physics of every movement was visible under his skin, which was graced with several new scars from his summer experiences. He didn\'t mind the scars. They were reminders of lessons learned, and each one hummed with its own sort of subtle power. His shoulders were straight now, as was his spine. He had lost his adolescent slouch and stood always at his full height, which wasn\'t considerable. He hadn\'t grown at all over the summer, despite his frequently ravenous eating habits. More than ever before, Harry was comfortable with his body, and, for once, its contents. He turned from his reflection, picked up the fluffy towel that had been left for him, and quickly dried himself. ressressed, and headed back to Gryffindor tower.

What worried him now were the things beyond his skin.


a/n-
two of swords- difficult choices must be made, however, no decision resolves the problem. indicision resulting from lack of satisfactory choices.