fic: Hysteresis | HPMOR

[justmcshane]

 For Otherstide this year, I challenged myself to write at least a few stories/ficlets for prompts that my friends had given me previously. I didn't manage to get as many of them done as I had hoped, but the few that I did manage to complete/slam together will be posted over the next couple of days! Fandoms will vary. Quality will also vary.

First up – (arguably) the most obscure!

Title: Hysteresis
Length: 5658
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Rating: Teen and up
Warnings/Notes: Some amount of torture directed at a 12 year old
Characters: Harry Potter, Professor Quirrell, some random NPCS (all HPMOR versions)
Summary: Harry had never been so glad to feel a wholly irrational sense of complete and utter doom welling up inside him.
Alt link: AO3

Notes: For Jaybird, who requested some HPMOR recursive fic with some Harry & Quirrell friendship ("or, you know, as close as 'friendship' gets with the messed-up dynamic that they're got") and hurt/comfort too. And a) it's been ages since I've read this fic, so most of this is based off Chapter 26, which was the main one that I reread when researching this and b) I am not entirely sure how to write MOR!Harry's character or inner dialogue, so this may be more than a bit off. Apologies for both of those, as well as any inconsistencies, and the paper-thin, nonsensical antagonists. Happy Otherstide!
 

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres tended to have a remarkable propensity for ending up in the most ridiculous, improbable situations, and this propensity was (of course) partially due to him actively seeking them out at every opportunity.

This current issue couldn't be exactly considered 'ridiculous', mostly because it was leaning dangerously close to 'out of hand' and maybe also 'terrifying'.

The issue on the table - or on the fourth floor-or-so of Hogwarts, literally speaking: Crowd Of Bullies, heavily armed (e.g., sixth years, wands at hand, and that's all the armament you need, really). Never a good thing, or hardly ever a good thing, maybe - he had never really considered the issue of 'is there, or can there be, ever a situation in which a crowd of heavily armed bullies facing you down with murder in their eyes is a good thing?', and there certainly wasn't enough time to put a decent amount of thought into it now.

The battlefield: fourth floor-ish of Hogwarts (see above) in the confines of an empty hallway that led to a dead end. No windows. No way out except past them (and that wasn’t going to happen, was it now?).

The inventory: Half-crumpled, half-empty packet of chewing gum (currently in the process of being consumed whenever he remembered its existence). A completely non-functional Time Turner, unless he happened to currently be between the hours of 9 PM and midnight (which he wasn't). A Muggle analogue watch.

The non-inventory, or however you referred to things that you didn't currently have in your possession: a wand. The Mokeskin Pouch. An explanation for why this was happening. A plan.

…although it was probably best to tack a hopeful-sounding 'yet' onto that last bit, because it was only seconds into this encounter so far and really who knew when a good plan would strike? (Sooner rather than later, hopefully.)

It really didn't help that he was on the ground and prone and they also had all their wands pointed at him -

One of the sixth-years said something that he couldn't quite catch, and then pain bloomed up within his chest like a flower, something dark and horrifying and full of crystal thorns. He screamed and screamed and writhed against the ground and felt the blood welling up and spilling down over the sides of his body, hot and dark and thick. And the other sixth-years laughed -

[freeze frame]

Okay, there's absolutely no way this can be real, said Ravenclaw. There's no such thing as pain this perfect. There's something wrong.

And what do we know about physical pain? This was Hufflepuff. We're young and experienced and in some matters really startlingly NAÏVE when it all comes down to it -

(Hello there, split internal model of personality and conflicting opinions, I did miss you so.)

- ding-dong, you're wrong, we're the very opposite of naïve. I mean, just look at us! Slytherin, ostensibly.

I am looking at us, said Hufflepuff. We're being tortured brutally on the ground for something that's not even our fault. We're in agonizing pain. It's not looking good.

We're going to die! opined Gryffindor.

Not helpful, said Ravenclaw.

Slytherin cleared its nonexistent throat. So we're all in agreement that this is a messed-up magical hallucination of some sort, and we shouldn't be overtly concerned about our physical condition, since it seems to be, for lack of a better term, only skin-deep?

There were various simulated noises of reluctant assent from everybody present, and then Gryffindor said, well, yeah, but also it really hurts and I feel like that's something that we should be focusing on -

Ravenclaw performed the mental equivalent of slapping Gryffindor over the head with a newspaper. We solve our way out of this, the pain stops! It's a simple enough cause-and-effect scenario.

(Arguing with himself? At a time like this? If he had any more issues, he'd have to take out a subscription.)

So, how to stop this situation?

Simple enough. Take out the enemy, whatever means necessary.

And how to do that without a wand? -

 - wait a second. There's something wrong here.

(I notice I am confused.)

…so what next?

[end freeze frame]

- Harry was actually choking up blood at this point, which was just as unpleasant to think about as it was to experience, and he really wished he wasn't doing either at this current point in time (or ever, come to think of it). And it was honestly quite excruciatingly painful, too, no matter how much of this could probably be chalked up to horrific magic hallucination. He tried for a few solid seconds to think his way out of the pain - to remind himself that it wasn't real, it was all in his mind; but it seemed that his body didn't think that was much of a cohesive argument, and continued processing the excruciating pain just as if it were actually there.

Come on come on come on. Think think think.

He managed to push himself up onto his elbows, squint through his cracked glasses enough so that he could see the forms of the five taller students more clearly, and some neurons in his brain that weren't currently dedicated to OH UNBEARABLE AGONY fired off some quick electrical impulses and drove him to one conclusion.

"Aha," he gasped, "you're not sixth-years, are you? You're - you're not even Hogwarts students."

"Give the traitor a gold star," said the ringleader.

"Traitor-? - no, uhm, ow, never mind that, you're - you're - actually no that's important - oh no." Realization hit, and his eyes went wide. "Death Eaters? How did you-?" His eyes scanned them quickly, realized, no, too young, and he said, "no, not - not Death Eaters, you're -" He struggled to come up with an appropriate word for a long second, and then settled on, "amateurs?"

Because that's what they were, of course. Wizarding Neo-Nazis - probably only one or two years out of Hogwarts, looking to make trouble – make their name – prove themselves, somehow. Apparently this ‘somehow’ involved torturing the Boy-Who-Lived with unspeakable agony, and not much else. Within the Hogwarts wards, no less – stupid plan.

And yet it was working.

"How dare you -"

Wand raised again. Pavlovian animal response inside his brain squeaked and squealed and generally made a lot of ruckus about likely incoming pain bad don't want that, which prompted him to do something ridiculous and impulsive.

"Don't!" he snapped, a lot weaker and a lot less ominous than he had intended it to be, and he held up a hand as sharply as he could, poising his fingers ready to snap them.

And incredibly, they actually stopped. For a second, at least.

Oh good. We've got a plan?

Actually, nope, Harry said, but only to himself. This is a bluff. A clever bluff. A very clever bluff -

A part of him that was like a watered-down, more vague version of Ravenclaw (his brain was super fuzzy at the moment) decided to point out that, threats are useless unless you actually have a way to follow through with them. Fun fact! You don't have a way to follow up on this. Even more fun fact! This can't possibly end well!

There is but one course of action to take here, intoned a badly-characterized Gryffindor. And I say we go for it. What's the worst that can happen?

There was a brief silence within the confines of his brain as every other part of him processed the implications of this.

Oh, come on. You're not nearly egotistical enough to think that you can actually control the whims of fate by clicking your fingers together, went some currently unidentified part of his brain that was probably derived from Slytherin, and then it paused uncertainly. Are you?

 I mean, not currently, Harry thought. It really does depend on how I'm feeling at the time. But as long as there's no other options -

Are you saying that you're just going to snap your fingers and see what happens WITHOUT a plan? That doesn't seem very logical and rational to me!

Hey, I'm in excruciating mental and physical pain right now! Cut me a break!

No, said Probably-Slytherin sulkily. I shan't. No breaks will be cut. Extreme pain is no excuse for irrational behaviour.

Listen, if I die/get hospitalized/lose my sanity/otherwise am terribly and irretrievably incapacitated here and now, it won't matter anyway! It's worth a shot!

Wait, maybe we want to preserve our reputation! went Almost-Certainly-Slytherin. If you snap your fingers, and nothing happens, and etcetera etcetera etcetera death, then this incident will go down in history as the one time our abilities failed us and our overwhelming air of mystique and otherworldliness will be torn down and irretrievably ruined and WE DON'T WANT THAT DO WE.

This argument almost gave Harry pause. Almost.

Oh well. Nothing ventured, etc, etc -

Harry raised his hand high, moving very carefully, aware of the uncontrollable tremor there -

- and snapped his fingers.

There was a moment of silence in the hallway, almost as if the nameless antagonists currently torturing him within an inch of his life were holding their breath collectively - as if they were actually wary that something might happen. And if Harry hadn't been currently wracked with shivers and convulsions, he might have been ridiculously pleased at the lengths at which his reputation had apparently preceded him, but as it happened, he was also metaphorically holding his breath, waiting for a Thing to happen. It didn't matter which Thing, especially - any Thing will do, and all that; he'd even have been content with Professor Snape walking into the hallway at this point, no matter how embarrassing that would be on so many levels.

Everybody in the hallway continued holding their breath.

And nothing happened, and it proceeded to happen until all of the people in the group currently holding the Boy-Who-Might-Not-Live-For-Very-Much-Longer-All-Things-Considered at wandpoint all relaxed and began laughing again, this time more awkwardly and directed at each other. Ha ha, see, why were we all scared in the first place; it's just some kid snapping his fingers, how could we be so stupid to fall for that one, and by doing so, they regained their bravado.

"See, nothing to worry about," said the tallest of them, turning back to Harry and raising his wand, apparently in preparation to cast yet another horrifying spell. "Now, let's see what - why are you smiling?"

Which was a very good question.

Despite the fact that he was slowly losing consciousness - could actually feel it swirling away from him like water down a drain - Harry was smiling. And he was doing so because of something that only he could perceive, which had started as a vague sensation of discomfort that was practically indistinguishable from the torture curses that had been laid upon him; and was now gradually growing stronger and stronger to the tune of a very specific John Williams tune. Because, of course -

"Why are you laughing? Do you think this is funny?"

- if you can't create your own miracle, pure coincidence is fine.

Except there was absolutely no way that this could be anything but entirely intentional, because there was absolutely no way that Professor Quirrell would be in this corridor, at this very moment, coming in this direction for no reason at all; although he couldn't quite think of a way that he could know where to be. But that didn’t matter, not right now - he could figure it out later.

He had never been so glad to feel a wholly irrational sense of complete and utter doom welling up inside him.

Aloud, he said, to the person who was about to curse him again, "I don't think you want to do that."

"Oh yeah?" sneered the unnecessary interlocutor. "You're going to get up, wandless, and beat all of us up? Right here? Right now? You and which army?"

Time seemed to freeze for a second because oh my gosh he actually just said that could this be any more perfect (and never mind that, yeah, it could actually be a lot more perfect if he wasn't being tortured and also if he wasn't in need of rescuing in the first place) but it was only a second, because that was precisely how long it took Harry, even the almost-unconscious state that he was in, to come up with quite literally the only comeback that he could have used in the current circumstances.

Harry paused, and then used the last of his strength to lever himself up the wall so that a) he could look his torturer right in the eyes for maximum impact and b) he could have a decent view of what was about to go down. He grinned.

"This one," he said, and like the gods of dramatic effect themselves had willed it, Professor Quirrell came sweeping around the corner, carrying along with him such an unbearable sense of WRONG that Harry had to actually fight back a wave of dizziness to remain properly conscious. Even through Harry’s cracked, fracture glasses, he could see it – Quirrell’s wand was out, his eyes were dark with… well, if not rage, something very close to it.

Dooms Ex Machina, some distant part of Harry's brain suggested, and was instantly grounded and stripped of all pun-making privileges for the rest of eternity.

"Hi, Professor," he managed, just before another wave of combined Doom and Unbearable Agony crashed over him, causing him to half-slip down from his propped-up position on the wall. His eyes fluttered shut, but through a combination of screaming no no NO we can't miss this, it's going to be the coolest thing we've ever witnessed, we CAN'T at himself and the pain keeping him aware and present (thank you, adrenaline and current lack of noradrenaline) he managed to stave off the blackness for a moment or two, although his eyes did remain closed for the time being.

That didn’t matter, really, because he could easily picture the cold expression on the Defence Professor's face, as well as the utterly disdainful glance that he was sending around to every other person in the hallway as he took in what was going on, before saying, "hello again, Mr Potter," as if Harry had just knocked on his office door to ask for advice on a particularly tough Defence charm. And then, to the other current residents of the hallway, "using Dark magic on a defenceless first year child, I see. How… objectionable."

"Hey," Harry gasped out, who personally objected to the use of 'defenceless' as an adjective applied to him at all and any times, and was a bit annoyed too at the 'child' descriptor, come to think of it.

"…no offense intended, Mr Potter."

"Turn around and leave," suggested one of the people that were surrounding Harry.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Professor Quirrell raised his wand, and his smile was sharp around the edges. "Shall we begin?" he asked.

This was not a multiple-choice question, apparently.

The next minute-or-so was a thing of absolute beauty, and it really was a shame that Harry was only partially-conscious for most of it. He caught various snippets of the action - flashes of bright light, the wannabe Death Eaters shouting indistinctly, Professor Quirrell's surprisingly cold, delighted laugh -

- and the next thing Harry was aware of was a rather insistent voice with an undertone of something that might have almost been concern repeating his name over and over - "Mr Potter. Mr Potter, wake up. Mr Potter." A short pause, and then - with considerably more irritation, "Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, open your eyes this instant, or I will not be held responsible for the consequences of your actions! Get. Up. Now."

The use of his full name, or the sudden venom in his voice, or the strange and disproportionate threat - or some strange combination of the three - was enough for Harry to claw his way briefly out of the darkness and pry open his eyes, immediately wincing at the light and at the feeling of blood in his lungs and thorns wrapping around him (although he knew neither of those things were real). His glasses were whole and mended, although slipping down his nose a bit – but he could see clearly. Professor Quirrell was crouching at eye-level, a safe distance away from him, with one hand bracing him against the ground. He looked tense and ever so slightly exhausted - which was especially evident around his eyes -  but he didn't look as if he were in zombie mode, or anywhere near close to dropping around it.

"Good," he said upon seeing Harry's return to alertness. "Now. Your belongings. Where are they?"

It took him a long time before he could even consider responding to this. His attention drifted away from Professor Quirrell, and along the length of the corridor - and he saw the five not-students who had been tormenting him all-but splattered along the floor and walls and ceiling - or as close as you could get without there being any visible blood. The shortest of them was dangling from the ceiling, bound by invisible ropes, eyes closed and face bone-pale. The fingers of his right hand were twisted and contorted in ways that seemed impossible to look at. And that was just the first of them.

The Defence Professor's gaze was apparently following his, because he said, almost immediately, "idiots, all of them. No plan - no clear goal, no direction - and they didn't even put up that much of a fight. Pity." When Harry looked at him again, he was wearing a horrible little smile, and that sense of Doom had increased just a bit more. But then that smile disappeared (although the doom did not), and he said, "Mr Potter, where are your possessions? Your Time-Turner?"

He tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He shook his head, angry at himself, and tried again. "The - blonde one. Took - took my pouch." Professor Quirrell was already moving; springing out of the crouch and rolling over the body of the person in question with a cursory kick, who was thoroughly bound in threads of some acid-blue substance that he didn't recognize. "I… I have the Time Turner. They, they didn't end up… end up - taking it -"

His mokeskin pouch, newly liberated, came sailing in his direction, and he couldn't keep control of his hands long enough to catch it, but that didn't matter because Professor Quirrell's aim was good enough, apparently, that it landed neatly in his lap.

"Take out your Invisibility Cloak, Mr Potter. And your Time-Turner."

"I -"

"Do NOT argue."

To him, his hands appeared to be sliced open; lacerated back and forth over and over again. Intellectually, he knew that it wasn't real, but he couldn't help from gasping and wincing a bit as he muttered, "Cloak of Invisibility," and retrieved it from the pouch. He managed to free the Time-Turner from where it was trapped under his robes by falling against the wall and kind of wiggling it out.

Professor Quirrell had his wand out again and was pacing angrily by the time Harry was finished.

"Put the Cloak on," he directed, instantly, "and hold the Time-Turner out, as still as you can."

He managed to get the Cloak over his shoulders by pure chance, but holding a fist-sized object steady proved beyond his current motor control. He resorted to trapping it between his arm and his knee, which Professor Quirrell seemed to find adequate.

"Now," he said, and levelled his wand right at Harry, who felt a wave of inexplicable terror and WRONG WRONG WRONG wash over him before he realized that the Defence Professor was aiming at the object in his hands rather than the person holding it - although that only dulled the sensation ever-so-slightly. "There are only a small number of things you will need to remember. One, get to my office as quickly as possible. Two, do not be seen. Three -"

The Professor raised his non-wand arm suddenly, and Harry saw that for whatever reason, he appeared to be wearing Harry's own wristwatch, which also happened to be on his wrist right now. Which could only mean…

"- I must arrive in this hallway at precisely one thirty-six PM; do not forget to tell me that - and give me this before I leave." He tapped the duplicate wristwatch with one finger, and then twitched his wand upwards, ever so slightly. Harry felt the inside of the Time-Turner shift in its protective shell, beginning to rotate backwards, and for a moment, all he could consider was, why didn't I think of that, but then his brain fully caught up to what was happening and he realized the full implications of what had just happened and what he had just managed to avoid, and -

"Thank you," Harry whispered, and for a split-second, Professor Quirrell paused.

"No thanks are necessary," he replied, and then the world dissolved into light and flashing colors.

--

The trip across the castle – invisible, disorientated and shaking – was more than just arduous; it was completely exhausting, both mentally and physically. So Harry didn't so much knock on Professor Quirrell's door as fall over onto it heavily, hands colliding with wood with a thump before he slid painfully to the ground. That thump gained an almost immediate response in the form of the Defence Professor saying, "Mr Potter, I am not in any mood to -"

And then his words abruptly cut off, and the sound of uncharacteristically hurried footsteps could be heard. Seconds later, the door to his office was all but wrenched open, and Harry raised his head, pulling down the hood of the Invisibility Cloak, to meet the dark, terrifying, but genuinely shocked gaze of Professor Quirrell.

"Er," he managed, fully aware of how exhausted he must look and of the tear-streaks still on his face, and of the constant, never-ending pain - and he had next to no idea how to open up this conversation, anyway -

"In," Professor Quirrell demanded, throwing open the door fully, and stepping out into the corridor to glance back and forth and let him through. "In, now; take off your Cloak - tell me what happened, Mr Potter."

Harry basically had to crawl past Professor Quirrell to get into his office, which was as painful as it was humiliating, and he ended up just laying against the wall, panting, Cloak still half-around his shoulders. Professor Quirrell shut the door, locked it, and then swung around to face him. "Talk," he demanded. He sounded angry.

Harry shook his head, gritting his teeth as he rode out another wave of agony, and then said, very quickly, "one thirty-six, fourth floor, far west corridor."

Professor Quirrell eyed him, and then said, "I'm not sure I quite understand. Are you saying -"

"I - I'm, I can't -" Harry nearly slammed his fist against the floor in frustration, but couldn't quite manage even that. "Time. It's - it's, time, you've got to - got to -"

"To be clear," he said, voice steady and smooth, "something in particular happens at one thirty-six in the far west corridor of the fourth floor that I must be there to witness. And either you have been coerced into delivering this message to me after being brutally tortured, and thus I must be on my guard when I do show up there; or you have already witnessed those events and this message is being delivered for the sake of the time continuum in general. One tap for the first, two for the second," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Harry knocked his hand against the wall twice, ridiculously grateful that the person involved in this mess was also the one person who could be practically guaranteed to be on Harry's near-exact wavelength at most times.

"And I'm responsible for you escaping whatever it is, and your consequent arrival at my office - one for yes, two for no."

One knock, then Harry recalled something, and pried off his wristwatch with shaky hands. He tossed it roughly in the Professor's direction, and it skittered and slid on the floor. “Take it,” he rasped. “You need, need to –”

Professor Quirrell didn’t argue, thankfully. He scooped up the watch, clicked it into place around his wrist with a faint little quirk of his mouth – Muggle inventions, how amusing, or something like that maybe – and said, “in order to arrive in the fourth-floor corridor on time, I shall have to leave immediately. Please answer honestly, Mr Potter. Are you in any immediate danger currently – physical or otherwise?”

I’m in lots of pain, definitely, but – nobody knows I’m here, so… Harry rapped on the floor twice.

“Can I safely leave you here for however long it takes me to accomplish my task?”

One knock on the floor, but then he felt compelled to add, “you – might be a, a, good idea to – lock. Lock the door.”

“Be silent,” said Professor Quirrell sharply. “Idiot boy, do not tax yourself any more than is necessary.” A pause, an intake of breath. “And I had intended to, anyway.”

Of course you did. What was I thinking – one knock on the floor, and then he clumsily signed ‘sorry’, swirling it awkwardly over his chest; knowing that even if the exact translation didn’t go across, the vague meaning would be there.  

The noise that Professor Quirrell made in response to this could have easily been described as ‘irritated’ or even verging on the edge of ‘infuriated’, but to say that would have been to discount the edge of something else that was there – something far more complicated and impossible to describe.

“Is there anything else that I need to know, or anything vitally important that you must communicate with me?”

Well, I haven’t discussed the innate possibilities of – no. No, stop that. Now’s not the time. Two knocks. More or less.

“Then I will depart,” Professor Quirrell said, rising up to his full height. “I will return soon, hopefully with a better grasp of whatever has been done to you. Please do not leave this room.”

Harry carefully managed to roll his eyes, and tapped once on the wall, pointedly.

“…yes, all right. Point taken.” Professor Quirrell paused, one hand on the doorhandle, and then drew his wand. With one quick swirl, the carpet that Harry was currently half-lying on neatly extracted itself from under the Professor’s desk, and curled up at the edge, sweeping him up. Before he could blink, he had been deposited onto the chair that Professor Quirrell usually sat at. The carpet shuffled itself back into place. “Better?”

The chair was high-backed and comfortable; with armrests he could prop himself up on, not-quite-as-difficult-as-expected, as he knocked once on the desk. It was obvious that it was the sort of chair that was made to be slumped in, and it wasn’t hard to work out why.

“Splendid,” said Professor Quirrell, although his tone didn’t indicate that he actually thought it was anything of the sort, and he turned once more. This time, as he exited through his office door – closing it behind him with a firm click - he didn’t look back once.

Strangely reassured by this, Harry let his head fall back and his eyes close. He could already feel his body deciding to shut down and force him into sleep, and for the first time, he didn’t fight it at all. He rather deserved a rest, he thought, and it wasn’t as if he needed to be worried about his wannabe torturers coming after him.

It was an absolute certainty that Professor Quirrell would take care of them – after all, it had already happened.

--

 

Harry was woken abruptly by a feeling of horror and doom that was far too close to him for the primal animal part of his brain to feel safe sleeping around. On pure instinct, he tried to sit up (tried being the operative word) and scanned the room around him, trying to sort out what was going on.

He was in the Hospital Wing. From the moonlight streaming in through the window right next to him, it seemed to be rather late at night. There were no other students in the beds around him; nor was there anybody seated in the visiting chairs. All of his possessions were on the bedside table, along with a conveniently-placed glass of water.

It took him entirely too long to notice that the figure leaning against the wall opposite him was there at all, and another few seconds to work out who it even was.

“Oh. Um,” Harry said, voice rasping slightly. “Hi, Professor Quirrell.”

“Good evening, Mr Potter.” The Professor’s voice was calculatedly low and soft. Unnaturally so. “Before I say anything else – I must confess that I did, in fact, enter this room with the express intention of disturbing your rest. I leave the matter of whether I should apologize for this or not entirely up to you.”

Harry’s brain took a moment or two to catch up to this as well. “I –” He cleared his throat, and then reached over for the glass of water. “– well, it really depends. Why are you here?”

“My motivations were half-selfish, half entirely altruistic.”

Harry laughed, a bit. He couldn’t help himself. “Altruistic? You?”

Professor Quirrell’s lips twisted upwards into a self-deprecating half-smirk. “Yes, I know. Dear me. I must be slipping.”

Harry smiled too, and managed to get himself into enough of an upright position that he could see his teacher more or less eye-to-eye. “All right. Selfish reasons first – if you feel like sharing?”

“Of course. I wished to see how you were recovering from your ordeal – and to pass on the message that the offenders behind it have been detained and are in the process of being brought to justice. The Headmaster’s words, not mine.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “That… doesn’t sound very selfish at all.”

“On the contrary. The reason I am checking in on you is only to ascertain the degree to which my lesson plans will be thrown astray due to this incident. At the moment, I am pleased to note that I will not have to make very many changes at all – and the passing-on of the Headmaster’s message was merely an obligation.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” That hurts a bit, but it’s entirely in-character, so. “And… the altruistic motive?”

“An apology.”

Harry blinked.

“An – apology?” he asked, not entirely sure if he was hearing him correctly.

“In a way.” The Defence Professor’s gaze shifted away, became directed away from him and at the ceiling, instead. “Please do not ask what for. You do not know, and – all things considered – I sincerely hope you never find out.”

Harry swallowed the instant surge of curiosity that this revelation brought on, and just nodded.

“‘Actions speak louder than words’ is the phrase, I believe,” said Professor Quirrell, and – so saying – raised his wand, performing a familiar yet completely incomprehensible incantation.

Harry’s mouth just about dropped open as the Hospital Wing vanished around them. He was still in bed, yes, and the Defence Professor was still propping himself up against the far wall; but

“No, you’re –” he began, objecting before he could stop himself. “ – you just fought off like ten Death Eaters for me; there’s no way you’re well enough for this –”

Incredibly, Professor Quirrell was laughing. “That was quite some time ago, Mr Potter,” he said. “I think you’ll find that you’ve been unconscious longer than you’ve expected. Do not waste your time worrying about me.”

Harry sunk back into the bed, exhaling silently as he stared upwards. The sky bled starlight for him – for both of them, and them only. The clearness of the apparent night was so very far removed from any light pollution at all. The universe was lay bare before him for one of very few times in his life, and – as always – he could do nothing but stare.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly.

Professor Quirrell sat, cross-legged, on the ground, and gazed upwards; and merely hummed in the affirmative.

They sat there in the darkness – amidst the stars and galaxies – for nearly half an hour before Harry’s eyelids began to droop and he had to prop himself up to keep himself from dropping off. It was barely working. He was simply too exhausted still – and it was far too late at night – for him to stay awake any long, no matter how much he wanted to do so.

There was an odd sort of smile in Professor Quirrell’s voice when he spoke. “Sleep, if you wish,” he said. “I promise I won’t be offended. Merlin knows you need it.”

“But –” said Harry, and he wasn’t really sure how he intended to finish that sentence, but it didn’t matter, because Professor Quirrell just shook his head.

“Sleep, Mr Potter,” he said. “There is a time to argue, and this is not it. I will recast the spell later if necessary.”

Harry lay back and looked at the stars and though that he hadn’t seen anything more beautiful in his life. And Professor Quirrell felt like doom and the death of a thousand dying suns, and he was sitting only meters away; but – irrationally – his presence was a comfort. And so was the presence of the universe, so close to him that he might be able to reach out and touch it if he tried – although of course he never would.

With this in mind –

– it was only minutes before Harry slept, and he did so soundly and deeply, as the silent stars hung around him like scattered dreams.