A Stolen Past by nuw255
Chapter Notes: Harry finally gets to experiment with the spells he dreamed about during the Christmas holiday.
For the first three days after the Christmas holiday, St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys was a flurry of activity. Just as had happened when classes began in September, the professors began the new term with large assignments, and the guard staff took extra care when patrolling the corridors at night.
Because of the staff’s renewed vigilance, Harry was unable to risk sneaking out at night, for fear of being caught out of bounds. The confinement, coupled with the already depressing atmosphere of St. Brutus’s, began weighing heavily on him after only a few days, and it seemed that the only thing keeping him sane was the calming presence of an unknown girl’s face in his dreams. He had been dreaming about this same girl for months now and, even though he was no closer to learning her identity than he had ever been, she had become a symbol of hope in this dreary place.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the students’ apathy to rub off on the St. Brutus’s staff. By the end of the second week back, the professors were once again content as long as no fights broke out during class. Around the same time, nighttime patrols diminished until they effectively disappeared altogether, the guards apparently trusting the alarms to awaken them if something really serious happened.
On a more personal level, after the first two weeks of term, Harry was once again free to roam the grounds after the other students had retired to bed. On the second Saturday night after returning from the Dursleys’, he decided that it was finally safe to sneak out onto the grounds. After donning his hat and coat to shelter him from the cold, he moved silently through the darkened corridors and out the large front doors of the ancient building.
Once outside, Harry headed directly for the large tree that he had come to think of as belonging to Snowy, the large snowy owl that had befriended him back in September. He whistled softly, and the owl responded with a low hoot as she circled the tree and finally came to rest on his outstretched arm. Harry’s daily exercises seemed to be paying off, for he found that his muscles had recovered to the point that he was now able to support the large owl without much difficulty.
“Hey there, girl,” he said softly. “Did you miss me?”
Snowy gave him a look that clearly meant, “Do you really need to ask?”
Harry laughed. “I’ve got some new spells to practice. Want to watch?” The owl responded by flying up to a low branch of the tree, where she would have a clear view of Harry’s attempts.
Stimulated by the excitement of trying out new spells, Harry gathered an armful of large stones not unlike those that Big Tom and his gang had pelted him with back in October, and arranged them in a row near the outer wall. Nodding his approval, he took out the parchment with his scribbled list of spells and read the first one aloud: “Petrificus Totalus.”
Satisfied that he was pronouncing the magic words correctly, he pointed at the first rock and said, in a firm voice, “Petrificus Totalus.” Nothing happened.
Hoping that this wasn’t all a waste of time, he moved on to the next spell and, still pointing at the rock, said, “Incendio!” Immediately, flames engulfed the rock, melting the snow around it. Harry jumped back in shock and watched, fascinated, as the flames died.
“That was a good one,” he whispered aloud as his mouth widened into a grin. Checking his list, he moved on to the next spell. As the fire did not appear to have damaged the rock, he pointed at it again and said, “Diffindo.”
For a moment, Harry thought it hadn’t worked, and he prodded the rock with the toe of his tattered shoe. Half of the rock fell away; it had been cut neatly in two. Harry stared in disbelief at the finger he had used to cast the spell, then tried it again on the next rock. Once again, the rock was sliced in half. Harry let out a low whistle and made a mental note not to mess around with that particular spell.
Snowy hooted her approval, and Harry looked at his list to find the next spell. Protego was one he already knew, so he moved on to the next one. Pointing at a rock, he said, “Impedimenta.” Nothing happened. He prodded the rock with his toe, but still it didn’t react. Shrugging, he moved on; it was getting cold, and he knew he would have to head back inside soon.
The next spell on his list was called the Four-Point Spell, and the bushy-haired girl in his dream had written Point Me next to the name. Puzzled, as this was the first time he had encountered a spell that was in English, he stood for a moment wondering what it could possibly do. Finally, he pointed to a rock and said, “Point Me.” Nothing happened to the rock, but Harry’s hand twisted around involuntarily until it was pointing behind him.
“That was weird,” he said aloud. “What use is something like that?” On a whim, he turned around, pointed at the old stone building, and said, “Point Me.” This time, his hand only shifted slightly to the left, so that it was pointing in the same direction as before. He tried the spell twice more, and each time his finger ended up pointing in the same direction.
Suddenly, the sound of Snowy clacking her beak caught his attention, and he looked up to see the owl swooping toward him with a small twig in her talons. She dropped the twig into Harry’s still-outstretched hand, and returned to her vantage point in the tree. Harry looked from the twig to the owl and back again.
“What is it, girl?” he asked. “What do you want me to do?”
She only hooted in reply, and watched him expectantly. For what felt like the thousandth time, Harry found himself wishing he spoke Owl.
Still holding the twig, he decided to try the Four-Point Spell one more time. This time, however, instead of his fingers twisting around to point toward the school, it was the twig that pulled his hand around. Intrigued, he laid the twig across his open palm and said, “Point Me.” It spun around once, and ended with the narrow end pointing in the same direction as before. Harry grinned at Snowy. “Thanks,” he called. She puffed out her chest importantly, causing him to chuckle before returning to his list of spells.
After a quick consultation of the list, he pointed at one of the rocks he had brought out for practicing spells on, and said, “Reducto.” The rock exploded, showering Harry with dust and bits of debris. He was thankful he wore glasses, or he was certain his eyes would have been damaged by the flying bits of rock.
“Need to be careful with that one, too,” he muttered as he brushed the dust from the front of his coat.
The last real spell on his list was Stupefy; the only one after that was just for removing the effects of some of the other jinxes and hexes. As he raised his hand to cast the spell at one of the remaining rocks, Harry heard a twig snap behind him. He froze. Who could have followed him out here this late at night? Was it possible that somebody was still out patrolling the school grounds? He cast the thought aside as quickly as it had come; if a member of the staff had seen him, they would have shouted at him immediately. His muscles tensed as it occurred to him that it must be someone who had seen him do magic before, but still wasn’t afraid to approach him. Three members of Big Tom’s gang remained at St. Brutus’s, and all of them had seen him use magic to block the bullets from their leader’s gun. If an attack was coming, it would come any second.
Deciding that it would be unwise to waste any more time, Harry spun and dove to his left. He pointed to the dark shape that was moving toward him and yelled the first spell that entered his mind: “Stupefy!” A jet of red light shot from his fingertip, illuminating the intruder’s face as it collided with his chest. Harry watched in horror as Tyler Stevens was knocked to the ground, where he remained, motionless.
Harry ran to his friend’s side and began shaking him. “Tyler!” he whispered frantically. “Tyler, wake up!” Tyler didn’t stir. As panic rose within him, Harry felt for a pulse, and breathed easier when he saw that Tyler’s chest was slowly rising and falling, as though he were simply in a deep sleep.
The parchment! Harry thought suddenly. There was a counter to the spell he had used on Tyler, and it was written on the slip of parchment. He felt in his pockets for it, but came up empty. Finally, he realized that he must have dropped it when he thought someone was coming to attack him. He began frantically searching the snow-covered ground, but the night was dark and it was difficult to see much of anything, especially a tiny slip of parchment.
“If only I had a light,” he muttered, and immediately slapped himself across the forehead for his stupidity. Of course he had a light! He had one with him all the time. A second later, a narrow beam of light was shooting from Harry’s fingertip, allowing him to quickly locate the parchment.
“Rennervate,” he read. “Right.” After walking back to Tyler’s still form, Harry touched him on the forehead and whispered, “Rennervate.” Tyler’s eyes snapped open, and he gaped at his friend.
“I don’t know what that was,” he began as he sat up and rubbed the back of his head where it had hit the ground, “but it was seriously cool!” The last statement was accompanied by a wide grin.
“I didn’t realize it was you,” Harry explained, although Tyler didn’t seem to mind the mistake at all. In fact, he appeared excited at the idea of having been knocked unconscious by a magical spell.
“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” Tyler said dismissively. “How’d you learn to do that, though? I mean, until now, all the magic you’ve done has just been to move things.”
“I dreamed about this girl giving me a list of spells.” Harry replied. “She must be a witch too, because she’s the one I saw using the unlocking spell in one of my dreams. Anyway, when I woke up, I wrote down everything from her list.”
“Excellent,” whispered Tyler. “So, what do the others do?”
“I’m not sure about all of them,” Harry began. “Incendio starts a fire, Diffindo is some sort of cutting spell - I cut a couple of rocks clean in half with it - and Reducto made a rock explode. There was also this one called the ‘Four-Point Spell’ that will make a twig I’m holding in my hand point that way.” He pointed in the direction that the spell had directed his hand and the twig.
“North,” said Tyler.
“What?”
“That’s north. Look, there’s the North Star.” Sure enough, high in the sky in the direction Harry was pointing was Polaris, the North Star. “That must be some sort of witch compass. Handy, but not nearly as cool as knocking me out or blowing stuff up. Which ones haven’t you tried?”
“I’ve tried them all,” Harry said. “Well, all of them except for Finite Incantatem, which is just supposed to remove a jinx or hex. Petrificus Totalus and Impedimenta didn’t do anything to the rocks. I wonder if they’re even real spells.”
“They’ve got to be real if the others were,” Tyler insisted. “Maybe they just don’t work on rocks; I mean, that one you just used on me probably wouldn’t do much to a rock. It’s hard to knock an inanimate object unconscious, isn’t it?”
“Okay,” agreed Harry, “suppose you’re right. How do I test the last two?”
“Try them on me, of course!” Tyler replied. He was grinning widely and his beady eyes shone with excitement. Harry was suddenly worried that his friend had hit his head against the ground a little too hard.
“Tyler,” he said reasonably, “we have no idea what those spells do. I don’t want to do something that’s going to hurt you.”
Tyler looked at him as though he were missing something that was very obvious. “I’m no Latin expert, Harry, but I’m pretty sure Petrificus means ‘petrify’ and Totalus means ‘totally.’ So, Petrificus Totalus should just freeze me in place until you use that other one to release me. And Impedimenta is obviously an impediment, like it would stop me getting close to you or something. Come on, let’s try it.”
However much he didn’t want to admit it, Harry couldn’t deny that Tyler’s explanation sounded reasonable. Still not wanting to risk hurting his friend, though, he suggested a compromise. “How about if you throw a snowball at me, and I’ll try stopping it with Impedimenta?”
Tyler thought about this suggestion for a moment, and then nodded, scooped up a rather large handful of snow, and backed away several paces as he packed it into a tight ball. “Ready?” he called.
Harry extended his arm. “Let’s do it!” Tyler lobbed the snowball toward Harry in a graceful arc, giving him plenty of time to say, in a clear and firm voice, “Impedimenta.” The snowball’s progress almost came to a halt. It hung in midair, continuing ever so slowly along its path toward Harry.
“I told you!” shouted Tyler.
“Keep your voice down,” Harry warned, causing Tyler to look around suddenly, as though Harry’s warning would immediately call forth the school’s staff. Harry plucked the hard-packed snowball out of the air and tossed it back to Tyler, who caught it with ease. “Throw it faster this time,” he instructed.
“You got it.” Tyler’s eyes gleamed in the sparse starlight, and he launched his snowball like a missile aimed directly at Harry’s head.
“Impedimenta!” Harry hadn’t meant to shout, but the snowball was coming so fast that he had done so instinctively. Once again, it was as if someone had pressed the ‘slow motion’ button on a remote, and the snowball inched its way forward. For no reason at all, other than to test out another spell, Harry pointed at the snowball and said, “Finite Incantatem.” Instantly, its former momentum returned and, before he knew what had happened, it hit him squarely in the face. Tyler’s laughter echoed over the empty courtyard, and Harry couldn’t help but join in; it had been rather funny, after all.
“Let’s try the last one, Harry,” Tyler called between fits of laughter.
Harry began wiping the snow from his glasses. “How?” he asked.
“Just cast it on me! Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Harry shook his head. Sometimes, Tyler could act so much like a little child. “Not happening, Tyler. I have to know for sure what it does before I go trying it on someone.”
“I’m telling you, it will freeze me in place, and then when you say, Finite whatever, I’ll be unfrozen. It’s not that complicated,” Tyler insisted.
“Alright,” Harry agreed, relenting at last, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you. And if this does anything to hurt you, you can forget about ever watching me do magic again.”
“Agreed.” Tyler couldn’t have kept the excitement from his voice if he had tried.
Reluctantly, Harry pointed to his friend and said, in an unusually quiet voice, “Petrificus Totalus.” He watched in fascination mixed with a bit of fear that something would go wrong, as Tyler’s arms snapped to his sides and his body went rigid. “Tyler?” he called, but there was no answer. Stepping closer, he pointed again, and muttered, “Finite Incantatem.”
“That was brilliant!” cried Tyler.
“You’re sure you’re all right? Nothing’s wrong at all?”
“Stop worrying; I’m fine,” Tyler said, dismissing Harry’s concern with a wave of his hand. “It was a bit creepy, though. I was just frozen there, but I could still see and hear what was going on around me. I wasn’t even breathing, and I couldn’t feel my heart beating, but I wasn’t getting lightheaded like when I hold my breath. It was like- Well, I was going to say it was like magic, but it was magic.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Tyler, but we’d better head back inside; it’s really late, and I’m getting bloody cold.”
Tyler nodded his agreement and, after bidding goodnight to Snowy, the boys trudged back through the front doors of the school and down to the places they slept: Tyler to the dormitory, and Harry to his secluded little cell, where he made sure to lock the door before settling in for what remained of the night.