The day after Harry awoke, Ron and Hermione had been released from Madame Pomfrey’s care. So, they, Neville, and Luna had gone to the kitchens to collect food to bring back to the Hospital Wing for lunch. Unsurprisingly, Remus and Ginny refused to be parted from Harry’s side. For most of the night, they and the others had sat and tried to trigger a memory. This is how the three could be found that day as well.
“How about when you blew up your aunt in your third year?” Ginny was asking.
“I WHAT?” Harry yelped.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Remus hastened to reassure him, “it wasn’t the explosion blowing up. More like… inflation blowing up.”
“Which means you don’t remember… What about when you saved me from the Chamber of Secrets in your second year?” Ginny continued, the pain evident in her voice.
“What’s a ‘Chamber of Secrets’?”
“That would be a ‘no’,” Remus directed at Ginny.
Ginny sighed. “I know.”
“I have something that might work,” Hermione said as she, Ron, Neville, and Luna arrived with lunch. “I stopped at the dormitories on the way back.” She held up a photo album. “It’s the one Hagrid gave Harry at the end of our first year.”
“I doubt if it will work, but let’s give it a try,” Remus said, taking a sandwich from the platter that Ron was carrying.
Hermione opened the album and flipped through some of the pages until she found the picture that she was looking for. “Do they look familiar, Harry?” she asked, handing him the book.
In the picture were James and Lily Potter. Harry looked at the photograph and concentrated on its moving inhabitants. In the deep recesses of his mind, recognition just barely stirred. “Not really… who are they?” he asked, looking up from the book.
“Your parents,” Ginny responded softly, averting her eyes.
“Oh.” There was an awkward silence.
“Let’s try another,” Remus said after a few moments. He took the book from Harry and started looking through the pages. After a moment, he found what he was looking for: the picture from James and Lily’s wedding. “What about him?” he asked, handing the book back to Harry and pointing at Sirius.
The faint recognition was a bit stronger, this time accompanied with an unexplainable feeling of sadness and guilt. Harry remembered the girl named Hermione saying that his godfather had been killed recently and concluded that the man in the photograph must be him. “Is that… Sirius?” he inquired, remembering that that was his godfather’s name.
Hermione positively beamed at him and Remus choked on his sandwich. “You remember Sirius?” he managed to gasp after a minute.
“Well…” Harry began, unsure of how to put his feelings into words. “When I look at this, I don’t know why but… I just feel… sort of…”
“Sort of what?” Hermione prodded him gently.
Harry took a deep breath. “Guilty.”
“Guilty?” Remus inquired, not expecting this answer.
“Yeah. And… I guess you could say… sad. And I remembered you,” he gestured to Hermione, “saying that he had been killed, so I kind of just… guessed,” he finished lamely, shrugging. There was silence for a moment.
“But you felt something when you looked at him so you must be remembering something!” Ginny exclaimed hopefully. She looked at Remus. “Right?” She saw the flicker of hope in his eyes as he answered.
“It’s a start.”
Harry kept flipping through the book, seeing more pictures of his parents. As he did, he couldn’t help the wave of fear that suddenly hit him. All of these people knew him, but he didn’t know them from the lamp on the bedside table. What if he never remembered? What if he was like this forever? I won’t be, he told himself. I’ll remember… eventually…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later that evening, Ron decided to teach Harry how to play Wizard’s Chess… again. As they played, Remus, Hermione, and Ginny spoke to each other quietly. Luna and Neville, after some persuasion from the others, had gone down to dinner and were going to spend that night in their respective dormitories.
“Bloody hell, mate,” Ron was rather cheerfully stating, “you’re even worse at this than you were before!”
“Ronald!” Hermione and Ginny screeched together.
“What? It’s true,” he muttered as Harry snickered softly. “Aha! Checkmate!”
“You’re kidding!” Harry exclaimed in indignation. “We’ve only been playing for five minutes!”
“Told you! You lasted at least ten with your memory,” Ron joked. He and Harry began to reset the board as Dumbledore entered the Hospital Wing.
“Remus,” the older wizard said softly. “May I speak with you for a moment?”
“Of course, Professor,” Remus replied, following the headmaster into the corridor. He was a bit put out with the request as it removed him from Harry’s side, but knew better than to express irritation to Dumbledore.
“Has he remembered anything?” Dumbledore asked, turning to face the werewolf.
“Well…” Remus was unsure of how exactly to tell the headmaster about Harry’s observations. “He said he felt odd when he saw a photograph of Sirius.”
“Odd? How do you mean?” the headmaster inquired calmly.
“I believe he used the words ‘sad’ and ‘guilty.’ But he said that he didn’t know why.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Very well. Tell me if anything else becomes familiar to him or if any memories present themselves.”
“I will.” And with that, the two parted. As Remus reentered the Hospital Wing, he looked closely at the Boy-Who-Lived. Only, he wasn’t Harry anymore. He wasn’t the rather thin teenager who had escaped Voldemort five times. He wasn’t the same young man who had saved his friends, not to mention the entire Wizarding World, six times. As he inconspicuously looked into the boy’s eyes, he no longer saw Harry James Potter. This was someone else; a complete and absolute stranger that just so happened to be occupying Harry’s body.
He’ll remember everything soon, Remus reassured himself silently. He has to…
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Sometime around midnight, Harry awoke to find Remus and Ginny dozing in their chairs by his bed and Ron and Hermione lying in the beds on either side of his. He sighed, sitting up straighter and stretching.
Suddenly, he saw a slight movement along the floor out of the corner of his eye. What looked like a small ball of fur was quickly making its way toward his bed. Harry reached over and grabbed his glasses and wand from the bedside table. Why did I pick this up? he asked himself as he slipped on his glasses and looked at his wand curiously. A faint voice (if it could be described as a voice) spoke in the back of his mind, however, telling him that he shouldn’t put his wand down. So, he looked back at where the fur-ball was and saw a large rat sitting next to his bed.
Well, that’s disgusting, Harry thought in revulsion. But then, right in front of his eyes, the rat started to grow and began to take on the form of a small man. For a moment, Harry thought he must have been dreaming it. But then the man spoke.
“Hello, Harry,” Peter Pettigrew greeted him softly, a mischievous grin on his face.
Harry opened his mouth to yell for help, but Wormtail covered the boy’s mouth with his hand. With his free hand, he pulled a smooth stone out of one of his pockets and roughly shoved it into Harry’s hand. In a moment, the Portkey activated and both of them disappeared from the Hospital Wing as Harry’s friends slept.
Oh no! Evil cliffie! *insert evil cackle here* Kudos to anyone who knew it was Wormtail from the moment they saw the word “rat.” So, that was chapter four and I hope you liked it. If you have a minute, please review. Thank you for reading!
~Moony
Cruciatus Cursed by Moony 62442
Chapter Notes: *Fanfare* Chapter four, everyone! As I would rather not be faced with a lawsuit, anything you recognize from the HP books is not mine. And I don’t have the kind of money to buy it from JKR. What you don’t recognize, on the other hand, is mine and I hope you enjoy it! Please review as well.