Night eventually gave way to day. Tonks began to stir as the first weak rays of sunlight began to filter into the silent corridor. She realised that her fingers were still intertwined with Remus’s, and her head was resting comfortably against him. She gently extricated her fingers and sat up slowly, feeling the stiffness invade her muscles.
Remus looked exhausted, dark circles underlined his eyes, eyes that were filled with worry. Tonks shook him gently to bring him out of his reverie. “Has there been any update on Harry’s condition yet?” she asked quietly.
Remus slowly shook his head and replied, “Dumbledore was here again around five in the morning. He insisted on seeing Harry even though the healers didn’t feel it would make any difference. He is still with him now.”
Tonks looked at her watch. It was 6.15am. Seeing Remus like this was devastating. After all, he was normally the calm dependable one, the person to find a solution and solve their worries. She wondered had he seen Harry yet, but assumed that he hadn’t considering that she had been asleep on his lap for the last few hours. “Remus, you should visit him,” she said calmly, “it may not help but I am sure you would feel a little better if you visited him.”
Remus looked at her slowly, “And what good would it do Tonks? I didn’t get there in time. I wasn’t at Grimmauld Place to protect him. I’m partly to blame for this. Harry had to single handedly fight off Dementors once again. I let him down, Nymphadora, I let him down. We both know that he was so much weaker emotionally this time around. I don’t know how he managed to summon that Patronus at all,” he whispered in a broken voice.
“Well, Harry is always surprising us isn’t he?” Tonks replied, “You shouldn’t be surprised Remus. Lets not start apportioning blame. None of us could have predicted something like this happening. We all thought he was safe at headquarters. Harry doesn’t think you let him down, and neither do I. Go on Remus, I’ll get you some coffee, you go in and visit Harry,” Tonks finished, physically pushing Lupin out of his seat and towards the door of the ward.
Remus opened the door and quietly approached the bed with the curtains drawn tightly around it. Taking a deep steadying breath, he pulled aside the curtain and stepped inside. Dumbledore was standing beside the bed, his face creased with worry, gently holding Harry’s hand in his. For a moment, they both stood in silence staring at the pale teenager with the messy hairy and scarred forehead.
Dumbledore sighed deeply and raised his eyes to look at Remus, “He seems further away than before. I can’t seem to reach him. His mind is darkened with some deep woe and I can’t seem to fathom exactly what it is. If I can’t recognise what is bothering him, it’s going to be very difficult to bring him back Remus,” he said quietly.
“But surely we know what it is that the Dementors made him relive Dumbledore. Obviously it was Sirius’s death, wasn’t it?” Remus asked.
Dumbledore shook his head slowly. “That’s just it. I don’t think that was the memory that plagued Harry when the Dementors attacked. Using a little-known form of Legilimency, I have located that memory in Harry’s mind and have found that it has been untouched for a number of days. That is to say, Harry hasn’t been forced to relive that memory recently. It is another memory that has affected him so badly. Unfortunately, as he is still not conscious, I cannot discern which memory is Harry’s worst. Like you, I would have assumed it was Sirius’s death, or indeed his parent’s death, but this is not the case. We need to pull him back from the darkness if he is to have any chance of surviving. His chance of survival diminishes as time goes by.”
Remus looked at Harry desperately. His death was not an option. It simply couldn’t happen. He tried talking to him, calling to him only to find his efforts frustrated. There was no reaction from Harry. Tonks eventually came to get Remus and bring him to the café for breakfast. He was exhausted from lack of sleep and worry and allowed himself to be led from Harry’s side.
Ginny had been forced to return to Grimmauld Place by her mother to get some rest. She found that despite how weary her body felt, her mind refused to allow her to sleep. It was quiet in the house. A member of the Order was patrolling the third floor.
Dumbledore had removed the mirror from the upstairs bedroom and powerful charms had been added to the house to reinforce it against further attack. Ginny felt safe there. However, sleep still eluded her tired mind and body.
Ginny eventually gave in and rose from her bed, she wandered into Harry and Ron’s room and found herself sitting on the edge of Harry’s bed, gazing around at his belongings. She thought back to their shared kiss. It felt like years ago now. So much had happened in the meantime. She remembered how she had somehow assumed that one day, she would kiss him again. She could never have imagined the turn of events of the day before.
She pulled back the blankets from Harry’s bed and lay down, knowing she needed sleep if she wanted to return to the hospital later.
As she lay her head on the pillow, something hard and cold was protruding from beneath it. She lifted the pillow and slowly pulled out an old, metal photo frame from under Harry’s pillow.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her mind started racing as she saw the inscription at the base of the frame. Circus Ultima. She felt stunned as she looked at the collection of people in the frame, and remembered seeing Harry with a photo frame in the library on the third floor. That must have been where he had found it. She found herself staring at his parents, looking impossibly young and all the others gathered in the magical picture. She imagined how surprised Harry must have been to see such a picture. Her heart constricted when she thought of how he had been sleeping with it under his pillow.
She dragged herself from her reverie and rushed downstairs, hoping that this might in some way help them to understand Harry’s condition.
Poor Mrs Weasley shot out of her seat where she had been resting, pulling out her wand when she heard the commotion. Ginny understood that she must have thought there had been another attack. She reassured her mother as quickly as possible that everything was fine, but that she needed to get to Dumbledore.
Under normal circumstances, Mrs Weasley would have sought to dissuade her, but she could see the urgency in Ginny’s face. She did not waste any time, anything that could help them save Harry had to be acted upon.
She grabbed some floo powder and her cloak and they both set off for the hospital once again, Ginny clutching the unusual photo frame close to her.
As soon as they arrived they had a hurried discussion with Remus who was just returning to visit Harry. Within moments Dumbledore came striding powerfully down the corridor, having been magically summoned by Remus.
Ginny explained what had happened the previous day, how she had remembered Harry muttering the words ‘Circus Ultima’ and how he had requested that she find a latin dictionary before he had charged upstairs to the third floor. Dumbledore pondered Ginny’s words carefully while studying the unusual picture.
The others sat in silence, waiting for him to speak. After some time, he rose and told the healer that he needed to visit with Harry again.
Lupin, Ginny and Mrs Weasley anxiously paced the corridor, waiting for him to emerge. After what seemed like hours, but must have been a much shorter period in reality, Dumbledore emerged from the ward, looking old and weary.
He shook his head as he sat down, as many emotions seemed to flit across his lined face. “I now know the memory that afflicted Harry when the Dementors approached. I’m still unsure how such a memory comes to be in Harry’s mind but to say I am surprised and shocked is an understatement. It does however adequately explain the extent of the effect that the Dementors had upon him,” Dumbledore said slowly
The others waited with bated breath for him to explain.
“Using this photo here, and more precisely, the inscription that is borne on the frame, I have located the memory. I hardly know how to explain it to you, so I will just tell you what I have seen and allow each of you to make up you own mind as to what it means,” he said gently, his eyes resting on each of them in turn, before continuing, “Harry seems to have had a vision if you like, in which he was visited by his Godfather.”
Lupin looked up quickly in surprise.
“This vision however, was particularly disturbing and upsetting to Harry,” Dumbledore continued. “Sirius, it would appear, squarely accused Harry of being the sole cause and reason for his death.”
This revelation was met by a shocked silence by the assembled group. There was an audible gasp from Mrs. Weasley. It was Lupin who came to his senses first.
“No. It is not possible. Sirius would NEVER have said such a thing, ” he said vehemently, rising from his chair.
“And yet, in this vision, that is exactly what he DID say Remus,” Dumbledore continued, “I have seen the full vision through Harry’s eyes. It was extremely real and very disturbing. We all know that Harry did blame himself for Sirius’s death, as did we all blame ourselves to some degree, but for him to have been confronted by his godfather and have his worst fears confirmed must have been devastating.”
Lupin had begun to pace back and forth, raking his hand through his hair in a distracted manner. “I don’t understand Dumbledore. Harry must have had that vision sometime prior to the Dementor attack, yet he never spoke of it to me, nor to any of this friends,” Remus said.
“Based on my conversation with Ron yesterday about Harry, I believe the vision came to him while he slept in Grimmauld Place, soon after arriving. You are correct Remus, Harry did not speak to his friends of what he had seen. However the vision had both a negative and positive outcome,” Dumbledore said calmly.
Remus snorted, “How on earth could there be anything positive about being told by your dead godfather, the one person in the world that you felt safe with, that you are the reason he is dead? ”
Dumbledore nodded kindly. “I understand you are shocked by this Remus, but you have got to understand. This vision of Harry’s had a ripple effect. It led him to go and investigate the third floor, where I believe he came across this interesting picture,” Dumbledore added, nodding to Ginny. “If he had not, Harry may never have put together the pieces, and realised that Hermione and Ron were in imminent danger. You must all realise that had he not got there in time to prevent Hermione finishing the spell, Grimmauld Place and its entire inhabitants would be no more. Voldemort would have infiltrated the one cell that was actively resisting him. In one foul swoop, he would have not only destroyed the Order, but he would have had the perfect opportunity to murder Harry and so sentence the entire wizarding world to doom.”
Everyone sat quietly digesting what Dumbledore had just said. The reality of how close they had come to losing the war was suddenly all too obvious. Dumbledore, however was looking a lot more content than previously. He looked around at the others, noting the worry and tiredness on their faces.
“Let us not lose all hope. We now have the source of Harry’s malaise; we can surely begin to remedy it. Remus, I want you to look at the picture that Ginny gave to me. If you recognise the young lady that is standing beside Sirius, I think Harry will need to know about her. Please go to him and speak to him, he may be able to hear you. Tell him all you know of the raven-haired girl,” Dumbledore said.