Harry Potter and the Knife of Klingsor, Part 20

The wind had died down as the storm had abated. Very cautiously, Ron, Darby and Seamus made their way out from under the great ash tree to join Harry. All four of them were standing there with Hagrid between them and Fenris, eyeing the huge black Norse dog with just a bit of suspicion. Draco Malfoy was still lying on the ground behind the tree, unconscious. Fenris cocked his head and looked at the boys, his tongue lolling out in a canine sort of smile.

“Uh, Hagrid,” Ron finally said, his voice squeaking a bit and his ears going pink as they usually did when he was under stress, “Exactly WHAT is that thing?” He pointed at Fenris. Then he looked at Seamus and Darby.

“Wha’?” Hagrid replied, confused, then his eyes brightened and he leaned over to scratch the dog’s ears. “Oh, this is Fenris! Yeh know, one o’ the Guardians to Odin? He’s jus’ a big puppy is all!”

Harry was reminded of Fluffy and let it slide. Hagrid DID have a penchant for monstrous pets, anyway.

All four boys shrugged, but seemed to relax a little. Then Harry remembered what Ollivander had said was at the core of the Wands that Seamus and Darby used.

“Whiskers from the Guardians of Odin,” he said, “Tha’s whut Ollivander told us!”

“Oh, right,” Ron agreed, glancing nervously at the huge dog.

About then, a whooshing sound coming down from the sky got their attention. They all looked up to see two Broomsticks circling overhead. One was heading down towards them. Harry smiled, knowing who one of them was.

“That would be part of our ride home,” he said happily, as Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, landed and immediately ran to Harry. He was soaking wet and a bit bedraggled looking. He dismounted, threw back his cloak, and straightened his kilt. Harry raised an eyebrow, wondering if Scots wore underwear with them. He took in the sight of the four boys – all alive and well – and swept Harry up into his arms, spinning him around.

“You did it!” He cried happily. “You found him!”

“I had help,” Harry replied, as Wood finally sat him back down and began glancing around.

“Hullo, Hagrid,” Wood said casually, ignoring Fenris as if Hagrid’s presence simply explained THAT one.

“Whut brings yeh here, Wood?” Hagrid asked, shaking his hand and beaming at him.

“’Arry ‘ere tol’ me ‘e might be a’needin’ a ride home fer some ‘o his friends. Thought I’d come o’er an’ offer,” he replied in his thick accent.

“Hell uv a fight, from whut I seen,” Hagrid told him, winking. “No Firs’ Year boy coulda pulled off some ‘o the stuff ‘e did!”

Wood blushed a bit. “Well, I did give ‘im a few pointers when he stopped by the Shoppe…”

Harry was just getting ready to say something when the next Broomstick came down from the sky, after it had made several more circles over the cemetery. A very old man in a brown leather bomber jacket with a fuzzy collar and goggles dismounted, shaking himself a bit to adjust his puffed out black pants over his high leather boots. His long beard was thrown back over his shoulder, and he looked a bit travel-weary. He threw his scarf back and raised his goggles over his snug leather cap, revealing the small spectacles beneath them. For a moment, Harry was reminded of a World War II fighter pilot’s picture that he’d seen in History Class while at Muggle school some years back.

“Well, I haven’t had to dress up like this in YEARS,” he grumbled, glancing around at the odd little group and shaking his head. “Hell of a storm. Quite a ride. Haven’t had one so exciting since I flew over in Berlin in 1945. I trust that you are all well and the immediate problem is past?” He asked in an even, calm tone.

Hagrid stepped forward as Harry’s jaw dropped. “Professor Dumbledore, sir,” the overly large man greeted him, shaking his hand. “Glad yeh cud join us.”

“I believe I have Mr. Potter to thank for that,” Dumbledore replied, in that same tone, looking at Harry with that stare that made the boy feel as if the old man were looking right into his soul. He was familiar with that look, and stared down at his boots instead, unable to meet his gaze.

Oh, I am sooooo expelled, Harry groaned inwardly, not daring to look up. Hedwig hooted at him from Harry’s shoulder and the old man nodded to her.

And then Seamus was there beside him, slipping up under his arm and putting his own arm around Harry’s middle to encourage him. “This is all MY fault, sir,” he offered.

“YOUR fault?” Dumbledore replied, cocking an eyebrow. “I think not. Being kidnapped is hardly a fault. I am just glad to see you FINALLY safe and sound again! Or is it again?”

Seamus nodded. “Thank you,” he said softly, not looking away from Harry and smiling up at him. He’d grown some over the summer, but not nearly as much as Harry had.

“No thanks to me,” Harry mumbled, glancing over at Ron and Darby.

“And where is young Master Malfoy?” Dumbledore then asked, looking around again and spying the ruined Rolls. “I am a bit concerned for his well-being, having taken the liberty of contacting The Division of Wizarding Family Services on his behalf.”

Harry gulped. “He…he’s over there,” he said weakly, gesturing at the ash tree, “Out cold. I sort of … well … I … I knocked him out cold, sir,” he finished, his face going red.

“Stunned?”

Harry flinched, and rubbed the toe of his boot in the mud. “No, sir. I kicked him in the head.”

“Wit’ THOSE boots?” Hagrid exclaimed.

“YOU told me to,” Harry retorted guiltily.

Hagrid opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

“I think we should see to Draco now,” Dumbledore said, strolling over to the ash tree with interest. “Hello, Fenris, I trust your Master is well?” He greeted the huge black dog.

Fenris wagged his tail and barked once.

“Excellent,” the old man replied, bending down low over Draco and examining him very carefully. He then pulled his Wand and waved it over the insensate boy. A faint smile crossed his lips. “I am not nearly as skilled as Madame Pomfrey,” he declared, “But I’d say a good sized goose-egg and a headache, nothing more. We should all head back to Hogwart’s, however.”

“Why?” Ron asked, looking around and shrugging. “I’m ok. You OK, Harry?”

“Mr. Weasley,” Dumbledore explained patiently, as he always did, “Despite your fine appearances, judging from the looks of what’s left of this graveyard, it is entirely possible that some of you may or may not be damaged in ways that only a trained Medical Witch can find. Poppy will no doubt be a bit annoyed at having her holiday interrupted AGAIN,” he added, glancing at a furiously blushing Harry, “But she’ll get over it, I’m sure. Now, if you don’t all mind,” he told them, gesturing for Hagrid.

Hagrid came over and scooped Draco up in his arms as if he were a doll. The Slytherin boy moaned and opened one eye, wincing in pain. “Whuh-herr-um-I?” He groaned.

“You’ve been hurt, Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore told him, “Just lie still. We’re going to get a doctor.”

“Nooo,” Draco moaned, “No, don’. I wan’ go home! I wan’ my Mum!” And then the normally cocky and swaggering bane of Harry’s and Ron’s existence burst into tears, burying his bruised and dirty face in Hagrid’s sleeve.

Despite how much he disliked Draco Malfoy, Harry couldn’t help but feel ashamed of himself. He was just getting ready to say something about it when Dumbledore’s gaze fell upon him.

“Then perhaps you’ve not done yourself any lasting damage after all, Harry,” he said mysteriously, as if knowing what the boy was thinking.

Then he looked around again, waved his Wand a few times, and the shattered gravestones and uprooted turf all flew back into place with a great WHOOSHing sound. When he was done, it looked as if nothing had happened there at all.

“This is what I get for vacationing in the Azores,” the old man sighed, gesturing for them to all follow him.

“Well, then, who’s ridin’ with who?” Oliver Wood asked.

“Before you all go,” a new voice then spoke up, as everyone stopped to look back in the direction of the ash tree, “I must have a word with Professor Dumbledore.”

They all stopped and stared at the stranger who had suddenly appeared beneath the tree. No one moved, except for Fenris, who trotted over with tail wagging happily.

He was dressed only in a short, plain tunic of peasant brown and low, soft leather shoes. His near-white hair, much like the color of Malfoy’s, came down to his shoulders in loose curls. His face was soft and beardless, and he spoke in a boyish voice that belied his age, despite his height. His sparkling blue eyes were full of mischief, however, and his smile was inviting. “Well done, Fenris,” he told the Hound of Odin.

“Hello, Loki,” Dumbledore greeted him, “What brings Odin’s boy to Ireland?”

“Loki?!” Ron piped up, staring.

“Namesake only, sir. I’m not THE Loki, no! He’s very busy, you know. My Master liked the name, though, and gave it to me. He’s sent me with a very special request, Professor, sir,” the boy stated, scratching Fenris’ ears and looking a bit disturbed.

“We anxiously await the words of Odin,” Dumbledore replied, “As I’ve invited him for tea several times, but he’s always too busy.”

“He sends his apologies, sir,” Loki replied, “But the summoning of Fenris here has very much caught his attention. He bids me inquire as to whether you’ve enrolled the boy, Darby O’Gill, at Hogwart’s as of yet, or not?”

The small Irish boy, recently orphaned by Voldemort, moved close to his friend Seamus. Harry looked at him and nodded, and Seamus went to his side. The very faintest of a cyan glow hovered about him, surrounding Darby as well.

“Darby has been accepted, yes,” the old man replied quizzically, “But one wonders why Odin has taken interest in him? Surely there are plenty of Wizarding boys in the Norse regions to fulfill his needs? Why come as far as Ireland?”

“Surely, sir,” Loki replied, looking as if he didn’t want to ask what he had to ask. “But the boy was chosen by the Wand … and … he and the Finnegan, boy, sir, they … they were able to summon Fenris to defend them against a Dark Lord. Such has not been done in many, many years, sir, and certainly not by children! And there are problems to the North as well.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Go on,” he encouraged.

“My Master has requested that Darby O’Gill be transferred, sir. He wishes for the boy to come North with me. He wants him.”

“And?” Dumbledore prodded.

Loki sighed. “A great many young Wizards are taking up with the Dark Arts, sir. My Master is greatly concerned over this and is taking steps.”

Even Albus Dumbledore’s mouth fell open at that statement. For a long while, no one said a word. Then, finally, the silence was broken by a faint whimper. Darby was shaking his head and clinging to Seamus. “I don’ wan’ta go,” he choked, “I wan’ta go ter Hogwart’s with Seamus! Tha’s why ‘e taught me tuh be a Wizard, so I cud go too!”

“No one taught you, Darby,” Loki replied softly, his eyes full compassion as he realized that he was separating two best friends. “You’re either a Wizard, a Magical being, or you’re not. It’s something that is born within you, part of you, and not something that one can learn to be.”

And then Loki’s glittering eyes grew distant. He cocked his head, as did Fenris, listening to some voice that only they could hear. Then he nodded. “So be it,” he said. “Darby,” he added, “My Master says he will understand if you do not wish to go. He has no desire to hurt you, separating you and Seamus, but he offers this: you may come North and see if you like his Realm. If, at the halfway point of Term, you find that you cannot stay, you may return to Seamus at Hogwart’s. What do you say?”

“Can Vlad come too?” Darby asked.

“I am sure that Master Odin can accommodate your bat, yes.”

Darby looked lost. He looked from Loki to Seamus, from Seamus to Dumbledore, and then finally to Harry. He was still shaking his head, his mouth open and his eyes full of tears.

“B-but why m-me?” he faltered.

Loki looked down at the ground, seemingly ashamed of something. “This part of the world is not the only place with Dark Wizard problems,” he explained. “The Wand which chose you has been in Mr. Ollivander’s Shoppe for a long time, Darby, awaiting the right boy to come in and pick it up. My master had me to deliver it to Ollivander myself, long ago. We had thought, when we heard of the Dark Lord’s fall, that it might be picked up by Harry Potter. But it found YOU, Darby. Through Seamus, yes, but it found you.”

The small blonde boy looked around helplessly, imploringly, as if hoping that someone would try and talk Loki out of it. One by one, he looked at them all, but no one had a thing to say.

Until Seamus looked up at Professor Dumbledore.

“He’d be at Odin’s Court, then?” Seamus asked, looking somewhat awed. Dumbledore nodded.

“And you would be a fool to pass up this opportunity, if I may be so bold, young man,” Dumbledore informed him. “You will find, in your coming career as a Wizard, that not all mythical beings that Muggles talk about are truly mythical.”

“So…so…this Odin fella, ‘e’s a great Wizard, then?” Darby asked, moving closer to Seamus and taking his hand, as if afraid to let go for fear that he’d be swept off with no warning.

“He is beyond ‘Wizard’,” Dumbledore told him, with a great respect in his voice. “Of course, the choice is YOURS, and no one will force you to go. Master Odin is wise, however, and he will understand if you say ‘no’.”

Seamus then squeezed his lifelong friend’s hand and looked him straight in the eye. “You HAVE to go!” He said excitedly, “It’s unbelievable! You cahn’t pass this up!”

“But … but what about … y-you?” Darby faltered. “I … I hated it when … when you went a-w-way ter Hogwart’s last year. I wuz all alone!”

“You needn’t worry about being alone ever again,” Loki assured him. “And rest assured, Master Odin’s Floo and his owls work as well as any around here. I’m sure he’d arrange for Seamus to visit on holidays, or vice versa.”

“Oh, indeed!” Professor Dumbledore agreed heartily.

The words ‘being alone’, however, seemed to strike a nerve in Darby. They’d been so busy running here and there and so caught up in their search for Seamus Finnegan that the small boy hadn’t had much time to dwell upon what had happened since the day that he’d called Harry at the Weasleys’ and popped out of their Floo.

His home had been destroyed. His family had all been murdered by Voldemort, if not by Lucius Malfoy. And if he’d not been at Seamus’ house calling Harry, he would be just as dead as well. His eyes brimmed over as the enormity of it all hit him, and Seamus took him in his arms as he finally began to cry over his shattered life.

A life that had been destroyed, simply because the boy had witnessed the kidnapping of his best friend.

As tired as he was from the fight, Seamus made the moment last as Darby finally wept.

And there in a deserted cemetery on the far side of Ireland, crying on that best friend’s shoulder as his little heart broke, Darby O’Gill made up his mind. He raised his closely-cropped blonde head up just enough to look Seamus in the eye. He didn’t say a word; he simply stared. Seamus nodded back, then leaned forward and kissed him goodbye. His face was strange, but he still didn’t speak as Seamus’ lips closed over his. Other than childhood hugs and playfully mugging for the camera on rare occasions, Seamus and Darby had never shown any kind of affection for one another in a such a way.

So, as if trying to make up for almost twelve years of lost time and not being able to voice how he felt, he simply kissed him as tears began to run down his own face.

It went on for a very long time.

Then he simply nodded again and let go of Darby’s little hand, after their long goodbye was done.

And then the boy who was more than a friend – but not quite a little brother – turned and walked away from Seamus.

They all watched as the small boy with the large bat on his shoulder took Loki’s outstretched hand. The pale boy who bore the namesake of the God of Mischief then led Darby and Vlad back towards the ash tree, with Fenris prancing happily at their side. He took the opportunity to soak the side of Darby’s face with his long, wet tongue.

“Not you too!” Darby moaned, grinning in spite of himself, as Hagrid waved to him, nodding.

“Fang’s sure tuh miss yeh,” he called, as Darby waved back and then turned to look up at Loki.

But then Ron spoke up. “What about all his stuff we bought?” He asked, “Fer School?”

“Oh, I’ll forward it North when WPS arrives,” Dumbledore supplied helpfully. “Master Odin can pay the bill.”

“WPS?” Loki asked.

“Wizards’ Parcel Services,” Wood replied helpfully, brushing off his kilt and shaking a boot. He was still quite damp and a bit mussed.

Loki nodded and smiled, and then as if making ready to board Platform 9 ¾ at Kings’ Cross Station, he lead Darby straight at the tree and they vanished right into it with Fenris on their heels. The last thing that they heard was Loki talking about some Rainbow Bridge that led to a place called Asgard.

Seamus Finnegan then walked over to the great ash and touched the rough bark, staring at his own Wand of red and black Ash, cut from The Tree of Life with The Knife of Klingsor. It had bled real blood when it had chosen him, and the Irish lad was sure that he’d certainly not seen the last of Darby O’Gill and Loki. He sniffled once though, ran his hand slowly down the trunk of the tree, and turned to find Harry Potter directly behind him.

“Guh’bye, Darby,” Seamus whispered, patting the tree and bowing his head.

“A’right, Seamus?” Harry asked softly, laying a hand on his shoulder and not quite sure of what else to say to the boy who’d just let go of his only childhood friend.

“No,” Seamus replied in a choked whisper, his cheeks wet with tears, “But I guess I will be,” he managed, letting Harry take him in his arms and hold him. He then looked up. “Ya growed a lot,” he observed.

“Blame Hagrid,” Harry offered, pulling him tighter.

It was what Harry had been striving for all summer long; longer, in fact. He’d gone back in Time not once, but thrice, with his only goal being to rescue Seamus and hold him in his arms again. As he stared into those teary eyes, just above that splash of freckles across his nose, Harry felt a great weight fall from his shoulders. He dropped to his knees then, closing his emerald eyes as his mouth closed over Seamus’ in pure bliss. As if exploring, looking for unseen injuries, or just making sure that he really DID have him in his arms and wasn’t dreaming it, Harry’s hands moved over Seamus’ back, his arms, around to his front and up his ribs. When he finally broke the kiss, he held Seamus by the face, one palm on each cheek and just stared as his own eyes filled.

He then took his chin in one hand and lifted it, much as Oliver Wood had done with him so many times before. “Don’ e’er do that AGAIN!” He ordered him, smiling through his tears, and kissing him again. The pain in his leg was gone. The pain in his scar was gone. The sick, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach was gone as well. He shivered in delight as he drew Seamus close again, odd sensations spreading throughout his body and making him tremble. He longed to be alone with him, to hold him, to touch him – unseen by anyone else – to touch him everywhere and to just …

And then Harry’s mind skidded to an abrupt halt. A familiar sensation of frustration rose up within him then, and he sighed very heavily. That’ll ‘av ter be enough, he thought, realizing that there wasn’t much else that two young Eunuch Wizards could do with one another. Hell, iz gon’ta HAVE ter be enough!

From behind them, Hagrid sniffled loudly and blew his nose on a huge hanky with a free hand. He balanced Draco Malfoy, who had passed out again, on his other arm. Due to Hagrid’s immense size, Draco looked more like a babe in arms than a twelve-year-old boy. “Ohhh,” Hagrid managed, as Dumbledore cleared his throat and conjured him another hanky.

“There, there, Hagrid,” he reassured him. “It’s not really goodbye, you know.”

“I seem ter recall yeh sayin’ that eleven years ago, sir,” Hagrid replied, still gazing at Harry and Seamus as they simply knelt together, staring at one another.

“And was I wrong?” The old man asked. Then he cleared his throat again, louder this time. “Oh, boys?”

Dumbledore’s voice was like a bucket of ice water being thrown on them. Harry and Seamus both gasped, looked up sharply, and immediately got to their feet to stand at rapt attention. Ron snickered.

“If you two are QUITE finished for now, I’d like very much to get us all back to Hogwart’s so that Madam Pomfrey can give you all a clean bill of health before the summer is ENTIRELY over with!” The old man informed them. “I trust Mr. Finnegan can aid us along on the way back, if he’s not too tired out?”

Harry and Seamus both nodded quickly.

The flight back to Hogwart’s, which should have taken well until morning, didn’t take long at all – thanks to Seamus’ ability to bend Time. Comfortably riding his Nimbus 2000, with Seamus’ arms wrapped about his waist as the Irish lad concentrated hard, Harry flew right behind Professor Dumbledore. Tucked inside of his cloak, and hanging on for dear life, was Hedwig. The snowy owl liked to fly, but flying at such ludicrous speed was not for her. Behind Harry, with Ron riding with him, came Oliver Wood on his Broomstick. Hagrid brought up the rear on his very loud motorbike, with Draco Malfoy being Magically propped up in his lap. Hagrid was shaking his bushy head and watching Draco carefully.

“’Ow hard didja kick ‘im, fer pity’s sakes, ‘Arry?” He called out to Harry, who shrugged and kept his gaze upon the cloud of mysterious, shimmering cyan light issuing from the tail bristles of Professor Dumbledore’s antique Broomstick. Below them, the moonlit landscape shot by a nauseating rate of speed. Seamus groaned as if constipated, and suddenly Harry saw the Battlements of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry rising up just on the horizon.

“Wicked ride!” He congratulated Seamus, who murmured quick thanks and slumped over his shoulder, exhausted.

When they landed, still well before dawn, Wood offered to carry Seamus up to the Hospital Wing while Hagrid carried Draco up. About halfway up the first flight of marble stairs, with Dumbledore shooing them all along, Ron and Harry finally gave in to how tired they were as well. It had been an exciting night, and neither one of them argued as Madam Pomfrey handed them pajamas and ordered them to bed with a simple, “I’ll deal with YOU two in the morning. And what are YOU, Potter, the Grim Reaper? Look at you!”

Harry glanced down at his black clothing and turned with an unintentional flourish of his black cape. His heavy boots KLUMPED on the floor as he and Ron made their way towards their assigned beds.

“You looked like Snape when yeh did that,” Ron informed him, grinning.

“Shut up!” Harry retorted, smiling despite the dreadful insult.

Behind the screens that separated the beds, Ron and Harry were just getting into their pajamas and turning back their blankets when they heard her exclaim, “Oh, not him again!”

THAT made Harry realize that NO ONE – except for Hagrid and Seamus – knew what he’d done to himself that summer! He quickly turned his back to Ron, made sure he wasn’t watching, and put his pajama bottoms on over his snug briefs. I need to replace some of Seamus’ wardrobe, he reminded himself, having remembered raiding his closet.

“Be nice, now Poppy,” he heard Hagrid tell her from behind the shielding curtains, “He don’ know no better.”

“He looks like hell,” she exclaimed, “And after all I did this summer!”

“I’ll get ‘im changed an’ in’tuh bed fer yeh,” Hagrid offered, “Poor little thing.”

“You do that, Rubeus,” Madam Pomfrey snapped at him, “I’ve got a LOT of Potions to cook up, I can see, for tomorrow.”

Harry gulped, very afraid of the word “Potions”.

Ron smirked. “Tha’s a first. Too bad ol’ Draco’s out cold and dint hear it. I’d’a left his arse on the front stoop.”

But Harry felt almost as Hagrid did. He still didn’t LIKE Malfoy, and knew that Hagrid didn’t either, but he felt bad for him all the same. He was then suddenly so tired that as he lay back in the bed (somehow it was always the SAME bed she stuck him in) that he didn’t even think to take off his glasses. As he sank back into the thick, puffy pillow, he heard Oliver Wood saying, “Yeh’ll bend ‘em, doin’ that,” and felt his specs being pulled off.

The last thing he remembered was Wood kissing his forehead, just as the Scottish youth informed him, “Seamus is all tucked in, too, an’ out like a light. You done good, Harry!” He said proudly.

And then he was asleep.

He awoke the next morning to find Hagrid snoozing in a chair near his bed. Reaching for his specs, he realized that the huge, blurry form couldn’t be anyone else. He sat up and put them on, looking around the Hospital Wing from the bed that he’d already spent too much time in the previous year. Sunlight was spilling through the windows opposite his bed, filling the room with warm summer light that gave the promise of a near-perfect day. Harry stretched, still a bit sore here and there from his excursions, and looked around.

Next to him on his left was Ron. He was lying on his back and snoring very softly. Other than a few bits of scorched red hair and a scratch and bruise here and there, Ron looked none the worse for wear. Harry shivered, remembering the first go around they’d had in the cemetery when Ron had had his hand blown off and died of shock.

To his right was Seamus. The Irish lad was curled up in a ball and lying on his left side, facing Harry. One arm was out over the blankets, the other under his pillow. He was snuggled down into it, and Harry wondered at how small and helpless he looked. He knew better, though, as he’d just seen Seamus take a good half-dozen Killing Curses and call down lightning bolts as weapons. The Irish lad’s breathing was even and very slow, indicating that he was still in a deep sleep.

Harry smiled, staring dreamily at him. He’s alive, he thought happily, absently scratching at his head of messy black hair, I got him back this time!

Then he looked across the room to the opposite row of beds. All of them were empty, except for one, and the privacy curtains were drawn around it. Madame Pomfrey was just finishing with hitching them back shut when she looked up and met Harry’s gaze.

“Don’t even think about it, Mister,” she told him a strict voice.

“Wha’?” Harry asked innocently, spreading his hands in confusion. “I jus’ woke up!”

“And you’re going right back to sleep as soon as you’ve been fed,” she informed him, waving her Wand at a tray of food on a trolley that rolled obediently to Harry’s bedside. He sniffed, and caught the aroma of porridge with honey. “Hagrid!” She then shouted, and the huge man almost fell off of his chair, looking around wildly and reaching for his umbrella.

Undaunted by such drama and with his tummy grumbling, Harry took the tray and watched.

“Aye! Wha’? Oh, right…” Hagrid grumbled, “Mornin’ ‘Arry!”

Harry smiled at him and nodded, his mouth full of porridge. About then, Ron began to stir and woke up sniffing. The porridge didn’t stand a chance.

“Hagrid,” Madame Pomfrey informed him a very dangerous tone that made him sit up straight, “If that boy even THINKS about getting out of bed, I want him wrapped up in a straight-jacket and hit with a Muting Charm! Do you get me?!” She snapped, gesticulating with her Wand as she spoke. “That goes for you, too, Weasley,” she added, and Ron nearly choked, nodding vigorously.

Hagrid nodded and just stared in awe.

When Harry and Ron had finished with breakfast, Harry discovered that he had to pee. The large glass of juice he’d drank hadn’t helped either. He was quite put out by the fact that he had to use a bedpan, but given Madam Pomfrey’s state of mind, he didn’t argue. He simply did it and kept quiet. When he was done with that, and settling back into his pillow with a heavy sigh, he glanced over across the way again at the curtained bed. A heavy sigh from his side told him that Ron had rolled over and gone back to sleep.

“Hagrid?”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Is Malfoy in that bed over there?” He asked softly.

Hagrid nodded, a strange look on his bushy face beneath his black beard. “Yea, an’ ‘e’s not in too good’er shape, neither. You-Know-Who was usin’ ‘im kinda hard. Dumbledore hoped ‘e warn’t too bad off, but he is.”

“Is he…I mean…will he get better?” Harry asked, genuinely concerned and feeling very guilty over kicking him in the head with his heavy, steel-toed boots.

“We don’ know,” Hagrid replied, “Poppy’s very worried. He’s lost a lotta weight, and his breathin’s not comin’ easy. Got one hell of a goose egg on his noggin’, though. Might ‘av a concussion. Looks like hell, too. Black eyes, bruises, pale – well – paler’n normal, fer Malfoy, that is.”

Harry lay back on his pillow and snorted. “I killed him, Hagrid,” he said in a very low voice. The huge man looked at him as is he were daft. “I killed him the first time around. He scared me, and I cut loose on him. I killed him, left him hanging on a cross, and no one cared,” Harry stated, staring at the curtains around Draco’s bed with his porridge churning in his stomach.

“Tha’s ‘ow them Dark ones are, ‘Arry. Now yeh know. But yeh dint kill ‘im THIS time, tho,” Hagrid reminded him, smoothing back Harry’s unruly black mop with a large hand and then patting his cheek. “Yeh saved ‘im from Vold- uh -HIM, yeh did!”

“I don’ get it,” Harry sighed. “He’s bad, probably going to grow up and be a Dark Wizard, at that, even after all they’ve done to him. He hates me, hates Ron, hates YOU, hates all ‘o us Gryffindors. Always on about Mudbloods an’ even don’t like Professor Dumbledore. Tryin’ ter get us in trouble all the time, too.”

“And?” Hagrid prompted him.

Harry looked over towards Draco’s bed again. “If’n ‘e’s so bad an’ hates me so, an’ ‘e helped try and hurt Seamus, then why do I feel so rotten fer ‘im?”

“That,” Hagrid said sagely, “is the big diff’urnce ‘tween YOU an’ HIM. ‘E wudn’t feel bad fer YOU, yeh know.”

“But I hurt him, Hagrid. I kicked him in the head, an’ well, I … I liked it!” Harry confessed.

“An’ now yeh feel guilty over it,” Hagrid pointed out.

“I know,” Harry replied, pulling his blankets up to his chin and yawning. “I think I’ll go back to sleep an’ try an’ stay outta trouble,” he said dismally.

“Excellent plan,” Hagrid told him, looking over at Ron and then at Seamus. The Irish lad hadn’t stirred a bit. “I’ll watch yeh’s until Professor Dumbledore comes in ter relieve me. Have a good sleep, Harry,” Hagrid told him, kissing his cheek and taking his glasses off as well.

Harry did go back to sleep (no thanks to the Potion that had been mixed into his porridge) but it wasn’t peaceful this time. He had strange dreams of the emasculated Draco Malfoy hanging naked on that cross in the forgotten cemetery, staring down at him and bleeding from a dozen wounds. He was speaking to him … no, shouting at him … his shrill voice full of agony.

It’s all your fault, Potter, he cried, They castrated me and used me all up, sucked the life out of me, and then YOU came along and killed me! Thanks a lot! Why dint you just kick me in the head a few times while you were at it?

“Harry? Harry, wake up!” Someone was saying.

He felt hands on his shoulders; someone was shaking him. Harry Potter jerked back to his senses with a strangled cry, Draco’s piteous wails still echoing in his ears. His green eyes were wide as he looked madly about the blurry and dark room. Someone was looking him the eye, very close to his face.

“AAAIIIGGGHHHHHH!” He screamed, struggling to get up, but tangled up in his blankets.

“Harry, iz me! Seamus! Iz a’right! Harry?!”

“Seamus?” Harry panted, coming to his senses at last. “Where are we? WHEN are we?”

“Oh, pipe down, ‘Arry,” Ron mumbled from the next bed, rolling back over and beginning to snore softly again.

“You’d better NOT be out of that bed!” Madam Pomfrey’s warning came echoing around the corner from her office.

Dressed in striped pajamas that were about a size too big for him, Seamus leaned back and began fixing Harry’s blankets. When he was done, he pulled them back a bit and climbed into bed with him. Harry took him in his arms and held him, suddenly very afraid to let go.

“So I’m not outta bed,” he commented.

“S-seam-m-mus,” Harry stammered, “I…I’m afraid! I’m…not sure…not sure where I am er even…even…whut day it is! B-but yer alive! Yer alive!” Harry repeated, shaking violently with his eyes wide and darting.

And then a very calm and reassuring voice spoke up, and Harry and Seamus heard the rustle of robes as Albus Dumbledore appeared at the bedside. He laid a hand on Harry’s brow, brushing back his bangs, and handed him a small cup of water with his other hand. Harry drank it and gasped, not taking his eyes off of the old Wizard.

“H-how’d I get here?” Harry gasped as Dumbledore pushed him back down onto the pillow and tucked him in. He took a deep breath and shook his head, his eyes a mystery as they looked over Harry closely.

“Oh, I thought this might happen.
“Harry, You are safely in the Hospital Wing of Hogwart’s,” Dumbledore reassured him, “Safe in bed and on the mend. It is one whole day past the full moon, and still a month or so until School takes up for your Second Year. You slept through the day that we arrived here, after the battle in the cemetery. In fact, you’ve been in bed asleep for almost two whole days now. All of you. I daresay I’ve never seen such exhausted boys in my life! It would appear that you have a slight case of Temporal Dementia though.”

“We’re alive,” Harry said, sorting it all out slowly.

“We’re alive,” Seamus agreed, snuggling up against him. “Thanks to you!”

Dumbledore nodded at him, smiling. “Very well done, Harry,” he said in a sort of awed tone. “You’ve done quite an amazing job of totally wrecking the Timeline! I suppose a slight case of Temporal Dementia is to be expected. You may become confused and disoriented as to WHEN you are for a few days to come, but you’ll get over it. Minor outbursts of panic are the worst parts.”

“Thanks, I think,” Harry replied, suddenly feeling something odd going on between his legs. He looked under the blankets, but it was too dark in the room to see much. He shifted a bit, and felt something puffy and wet down there. He reached down with one hand, feeling about, and groaned. He’d almost forgotten about being a eunuch. Seamus laughed.

“Madam Pomfrey resorted to diapers when none of us would wake up,” he informed Harry with a somewhat red face. “Kept me bed dry, though.”

Harry’s face turned beet red. Even Professor Dumbledore failed in suppressing a laugh, shaking his head. Harry considered his situation carefully then: He was in bed with another boy, wearing a wet diaper, and he was a eunuch. He’d awakened in a state of near-hysteria, screaming, and all right in front of his Headmaster. That, and he’d trashed just about every Law in the Wizarding Book to get Seamus back.

Can things possibly get any more embarrassing? He wondered.

“I know it’s late,” Dumbledore told him, just as Hedwig came sailing in through the open window to land on the bedpost and hoot. “Hello, Hedwig. Now, as I was saying, Harry, you have a visitor.”

“Who?” Harry squeaked, suddenly wondering if having religion and praying to some God – any God – who would listen to him would help. Hedwig stared at him as if he were an idiot. She’d been doing that a great deal, of late.

“It would seem that Miss Hermione Granger has just arrived as the sun was setting. I don’t know how she got wind of all this, but she did. She’s on her way up to see you right now.”

Harry’s mouth fell open and he pulled the blankets up over his head as Seamus laughed at him again.

There was just enough time for Harry, who still wasn’t allowed out of bed, to get out of his pajamas and wet diaper and settled back into bed before Hermione got there. He could just catch bits and pieces of Madame Pomfrey arguing with her in her office, stating the need for quiet and bed rest. Seamus, still grinning, got back into his own bed. Ron was just sitting up and rubbing his eyes, looking confused.

“Is tha’ Hermione?” He asked, stretching and pulling back his blankets. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

“I wun’t do that if’n I wuz you,” Seamus warned him. “NO getting’ up outta bed!”

Then a strange look came over Ron’s face. He reached down between his legs and Seamus and Harry laughed at him. “We’ve been out fer like three days, almost,” Harry told him, “It was either diapers or wet beds.”

“Oh,” Ron muttered, pulling his blankets back up and listening. His ears had gone bright magenta. “That IS Hermione! What’s SHE doing here?!”

“Prob’ly come ter lecture us,” Harry replied.

“You sound like Hagrid,” Ron told him, cocking a red eyebrow at him.

“Rubbed off,” Harry shrugged as Seamus smiled at him.

“I like tha’ accent,” he said with a grin.

Then they heard the light tap tap tap sounds of heels on the stone floor and looked up to see Hermione striding across the Infirmary. She looked odd without her usual pile of books and dressed in a plain blouse and skirt instead of her shirt and tie with black robes. She WAS smiling, however, and Harry took that as a good sign. She paused for a moment to look over at Draco’s curtained-off bed, then pulled up the chair that Hagrid had occupied.

“I cahn’t believe what you’ve done!” She promptly told them, with an air of drama in her voice. “Let me see if I got all of this right. You grabbed a Muggle boy, ran off to hunt for Seamus without permission, yelled at Ministry of Magic Officials in front of Mr. Weasley, disappeared to Diagon Alley after going to Ireland, blew up your Broomstick in the process, found Seamus, got into a fight with You-Know-Who, and … oh, this is where it gets a bit muddy.”

“Hermione,” Harry tried to interrupt her, but she was on a roll.

“You obviously got some help, had the fight, tore up a Muggle cemetery, set the entire Magical World on its collective ear, destroyed Mr. Malfoy’s car, and damn nigh killed Draco? And here we are. What have you all got to say for yourselves? And where’s this ‘Darby’ kid I hear all about?” She asked dangerously.

There was an awkward pause.

”WELL?” She reiterated.

“I wuz kidnapped,” Seamus offered lamely.

”Darby’s gone,” Ron added. “He won’ be comin’ here this fall.”

“Oh, bother,” Hermione replied, shaking her bushy brown hair back a bit. “And?” She said, looking from Harry to Ron and back again.

“’Ow’d you know?” Harry squeaked.

“Professor Dumbledore filled me in on the way up. I guess he figured I’d want to know why you’ve all been here in bed sleeping for almost three days and why Hedwig’s been so dodgy with letters lately. Madame Pomfrey said she was going to do something totally evil to you all if you got out of bed, too, so I guess that means you’re all trapped,” Hermione reminded them, getting back up to get a closer look at Ron and Seamus after giving Harry the once-over.

“You’ve got dirt, on your nose AGAIN, right there,” she informed Ron. Then she sniffed. “And someone needs a bath,” she commented, and then suddenly went silent. She looked at the three of them again, taking in the small scrapes and bruises here and there (what she could see). Then she flung herself on Ron’s bed and hugged him, suddenly crying.

Ron patted her back, looking over at his friends with utter terror on his freckled face.

“Wha’s this, now?” He asked.

“Oh, you could have all been KILLED!” She cried, prompting a SHHH’ing from Madam Pomfrey, who poked her head in the doorway to look. She looked rather perturbed.

“Don’ get mental on us now,” Ron advised, “We’re all alive!”

“Hermione,” Harry said softly, swallowing hard and sitting up in bed. “I think you need to hear the rest of the story.”

Ron, who’d not said a thing but had nonetheless figured it all out when Harry had denied using a Doppelganger Spell, also sat up in his bed. “This should be a good one, if’n what Harry really did adds up with whut I think he did!”

“WILL you four be a bit quieter?” Madame Pomfrey told them, coming in to check on Draco Malfoy again. Harry watched very closely as she wheeled a trolley over to his bedside and reached for the curtain.

They all watched in silence as she pulled the curtains back. Harry gasped, seeing Draco for the first time since they’d come back to Hogwart’s. If it hadn’t been for the slow rising and falling of his chest, he’d have sworn that the boy was dead.

Malfoy was lying on his back with his blankets pulled up to his chin. His face was colorless, and his blackened eyes were puffy and closed. His thin lips, instead of being red, were gray and tinged in blue; they were also dry and cracked. There was a bandage about his forehead, and some blood had soaked through it on the backside left where Harry had kicked him. His cheeks were sunken, and his breathes rattled. When Madam Pomfrey pulled the blankets back to take his pulse, the arm that she held up looked almost skeletal. Harry recognized an IV bottle and a nasal-gastric feeding tube – two things he’d have thought that Magic would have replaced in medical care.

“Oh my,” Hermione whispered, “What happened to him? YOU didn’t do all THAT, Harry, I know!”

“That’s the rest of the story I mentioned,” Harry replied in a sick voice, watching Madame Pomfrey shake her head and tuck Draco back in.

“He’s not gonta make it,” Seamus said in a low voice. “I kin tell. ‘E looks like me Uncle did when ‘e died.”

Madam Pomfrey looked up sharply at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but instead closed it and simply pulled the curtains back. She then came over to their row of beds. “I think you’ve all had enough rest,” she informed them, “Why don’t you all run along to Gryffindor Tower and leave me in peace so that I can take care of Mr. Malfoy? Besides, three days of YOU three – asleep or not - is wearing on me,” she added. “Get out!” She did say it with a smile, though.

No one had to tell Harry, Ron and Seamus twice. As soon as she’d said it, all three boys were out of bed on shaky legs, grabbing up their packs of personals, and heading out the door in the pajamas and bare feet. Hermione followed them, shaking her head and pulling out her Wand, just in case.

The boys were all panting when they finally reached the portrait of the Fat Lady guarding Gryffindor Tower. She looked at them as if they were all daft and raised an eyebrow. “What are YOU doing here at the start of August?” She asked, “I was planning on going on vacation with Violet in the other painting!” She then swung forward to open the portal. “Just go on in,” she told them, “I think I don’t want to know!”

”Thanks,” Harry panted, and they all scampered in and up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory. Hermione followed, and watched as they all collapsed onto their beds.

“That wore me out,” Ron puffed. “Must be in bad shape.”

“Well,” Hermione began in her ‘I’m about to lecture you voice’, “Given the fight that I heard you were all in, and how much Power you all used up and how badly some of you got trounced around, I’m surprised that you’re all not in comas! I mean, really! What made you go off half-popped like that anyway? Didn’t you think that the Ministry of Magic could find out who kidnapped Seamus and get him back? Dint anyone ever warn you that a Wizard is prone to total collapse when he pushes it too hard?!”

“No and no,” Harry replied, falling over on his bed with a great sigh and rubbing his forehead. “If you’d heard how they were all arguing about what to do, filling out paperwork and such, while Voldemort was well off with Seamus, you’d have done the same thing. If we’d waited on THEM, he’d be dead by now,” Harry said ominously, shivering, “OR he’d be nothing more than a host body for Voldemort.”

Seamus had tossed his pack onto a large four-poster bed in the remodeled dormitory and come to sit with Harry. “There’s five beds in here now,” he observed, “An’ the door to me ol’ room is gone.”

“Huh?” Ron asked, looking around. “It’s the same room.”

“Never mind,” Hermione said, not being familiar with the boys’ dorm room. “I want to hear the rest of this tale, Harry, like you said.”

Harry took a deep breath and nodded. He propped himself up on a pillow as Ron pushed the window open a bit. Seamus then snuggled into the crook of Harry’s arm, getting an odd look from Hermione in the process.

Harry didn’t care, though. He thought that Hermione, if anyone, would understand. After all, he’d spent the whole holiday – and most of the holiday AGAIN – in pursuit of Seamus Finnegan. He’d been Cursed, beaten, blown up, lost sleep, gotten sick, found out he’d lived a hellishly long and sad life without him, gone back in Time to fix it … and last but certainly not least … he’d emasculated himself with The Knife of Klingsor to gain the Power that he knew he’d need to set things right.

And there, in front of them all, nestled up against him all soft and warm and adoring, was the very reason he’d done it. Without a bit of care as to what anyone else would think, he kissed Seamus’ cheek and hugged him, his eyes emerald eyes filling with tears.

“THIS is why I did it,” Harry told her, as Hermione’s eyes went a bit wide. “I love Seamus, an’ I cahn’t stand the thought of him bein’ hurt anymore. Jus’ hear me out before yeh start yelling at me.”

And so Harry told her the whole, strange tale.

Of course, none of them BUT Harry really knew the entire story. Ron had guessed most of it, as had Seamus. The Irish lad knew about the Time Travel part, as Harry had appeared to him first when he was being abducted. He just didn’t know how or why he’d done it. Ron seemed somewhat surprised, but not overly so.

“I heard ‘bout Time-Turners from Dad once,” he added, “Thought it was a myth, though.”

“Yep,” Seamus agreed, “’Arry wuz there when Malfoy grabbed me. I give ‘im me Wand, and ‘e give it back ter me in the fight! I knew it was him!”

“So THA’S how it got there,” Ron nodded.

Hermione’s eyes were wider than ever, and her mouth was open in disbelief.

Harry shook his head, still holding Seamus tightly, and trying to screw up his courage to tell them all about the FIRST failed battle. Before he could, though, Hermione was asking about Darby again.

“So exactly WHERE did he go?” She asked, “If he was Seamus’ best friend AND a Wizard, he should be coming here this fall, right? You said someone named Odin took him?”

It seemed that Harry’s confession of loving Seamus hadn’t bothered her at all. That, or as Harry was worried, she was saving it up for a long lecture about the problems of being gay.

“Odin took ‘im,” Seamus answered in a small voice full of loss. “After tha battle, Odin’s boy come an’ took ‘im away. Said ‘e needed ‘im up North, fer his Powers.”

“Odin, as in the Norse God?” Hermione scoffed. “Really now?” She said in a condescending tone. Being so well read, Hermione knew all about the Norse legends.

“Ask Hagrid,” Seamus told her. “’E saw Fenris charge down Mr. Malfoy and wreck ‘is car.”

“Fenris? The Norse Hound?”

Seamus nodded, reaching into his pack for his Wand. “Me Wand has a whisker from Fenris, er Fenrir, in it. Darby’s had the other one. Brother Wands, Ollivander said.”

“Oh my,” Hermione gasped, touching Seamus’ Wand and then believing him. “I wouldn’t have even dreamed it!”

“Tha’s cuz yer Muggle born ‘n raised,” Seamus explained with a weak grin, “Yeh think a lot ‘o stuff is jus’ myth. But I still like ya, tho!”

“Anyway,” Hermione pressed, “Where were we? Harry was about to talk about the battle in the cemetery?”

Harry nodded. He then skimmed over the more salient points of the first fight as they ‘oohhh’d’ and ‘ahhh’d’, and then paused. He looked at them all, choked back a tear, and then said, “But things went wrong. I wasn’t strong enough. Voldemort killed them all. Ron, Darby, and Seamus … they all died. An’ I lived. If’n yeh kin call it livin’,” Harry added, amazed at how remorseful he still felt over having watched his friends die.

Hermione looked at him and felt his forehead. She shook her head. “Uh, Harry,” she told him in a condescending tone that was maddening, “They’re both right here, and you said Darby left for Odin’s place up North.”

Harry nodded as Ron grinned. “This is where it gets good,” Ron told her.

“I … I was lyin’ there, alone … in the cemetery. An’ someone … found me. I was tore up bad, too. He took care of me. He … he gave me a Time-Turner he’d made. I used it, went back in Time. Three times I went back, further and further. I had to change it, Hermione. I couldn’t jus’ leave ‘em all dead! I couldn’t live like HE said he had. It was horrible!”

“Who, Harry? Who found you?” Hermione asked with rapt attention. The complexity of the plot obviously intrigued her.

“Me,” Harry replied, as Ron laughed.

“I knew it!” Ron crowed in delight.

“You? You found YOU, Harry? I think I should call Madame Pomfrey. You didn’t get hit in the head, did you?”

“No,” Harry protested. “Dumbledore said the Temporal Dementia would wear off soon. I’m not mad! I was lying there dying when a LATER me came back in Time and found me…you know…ME! He changed history, Hermione. He told me how his … my … life had gone since that night that I got them all killed! He came back to let me have a chance to fix it! So I did. The second battle, we won, and here we are.”

Hermione slowly digested the story and nodded. “So, let me get this all straight. You ran off after Seamus because you’re in love with him, dragged Ron and Darby along, found Seamus, got into the fight, and then got everyone but yourself killed. OK, so far. Now, you’re telling me that a Harry Potter from 200 years in the Future came back to find you, gave you a Time-Turner, and you went back in time three times?”

Harry nodded as Seamus grinned. Ron was almost laughing aloud.

“And on the third try, you fixed it all? You redid the battle, beat Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy, and rescued Seamus? And here we all are, fine and dandy?”

Harry nodded, bracing himself.

“Oh, the Ministry of Magic’s going to have a field day with this one when they get wind of it,” Hermione predicted. “To say nothing of the flack you’ll get if anyone finds out WHY you did it,” she informed him in a tone that Harry really didn’t expect from her. It was almost as if she were dismissing it, or ignoring it. He felt he’d earned the lecture that he was sure that she would give him and Seamus, and he almost felt cheated in not getting it!

She did, however, look at them again with raised eyebrows. Then she looked at Ron and back again. “I have the distinct feeling that there’s more to this story,” she hinted.

“Like?” Harry asked cautiously, not sure if he wanted to come out as a Eunuch Wizard to anyone other than Hagrid and Seamus.

“Well, you’ll recall that short dissertation I sent you about eunuchs?” Hermione reminded them, and Harry’s stomach rolled over.

“Short? It nearly killed the owl!” Ron pointed out.

“I read all I could find about eunuchs,” she then informed them in that familiar tone, “And I found out something very interesting, an obscure little bit of history.” Then she blushed just a bit. “Seamus, you’re a Eunuch Wizard, aren’t you?”

Seamus looked up at Harry, who reluctantly nodded to him. “It’s OK,” he said.

“Yes,” Seamus replied, unable to meet Hermione’s gaze.

“I thought so. I knew there was something about you, something odd, like when you kept blowing things up and how I’d have to stop and think of who you were when I’d see you. I looked up your birthday, right on the Solstice, and it all fit together. Then I ran across some old text about Eunuch Wizards and this thing called ‘The Knife of Klingsor’, and I was almost certain.”

“WE know all about that one,” Harry interrupted.

“Oh?” Hermione asked, with a very interested look.

“Wasn’t that what they used on you, Seamus?” Ron asked.

Seamus nodded, looking away. Harry could tell that he was ashamed of himself, and he was trembling a bit. He decided to head off any further embarrassments right there.

“They put an Overlook-Me Charm on him,” Harry told her, “To protect him. They dint want anyone ter notice ‘im, cuz ‘e wuz too powerful. Iz not ‘is fault!”

“No one said it was. And that’s why Vold-er-HIM abducted him, then?”

“He wanted to take me over like he did Professor Quirrell,” Seamus said in a sick tone. “If’n Harry hadn’t come along when ‘e did … I’d … I’d be a host fer that parasite!”

“The Dark Side WOULD want a powerful Wizard, yes. Pity all they got was Malfoy,” she commented off-handedly. “I’m glad it all worked out, though.”

All three of them stared at her. Hermione didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the fact that Harry had just told her, effectively, that he was gay. The fact that Seamus was a eunuch didn’t seem to bother her. Even Harry’s fantastic story didn’t even seem to rate a tongue-lashing! Perplexed, he finally had to ask.

“Hermione, doesn’t it … er … bother you at all, I mean, I just told yeh I wuz in love wit’ Seamus, an’ you just figg’ured out that HE was a eunuch? Aren’t yeh gonta yell at us?”

“Harry,” she replied in that ‘oh don’t you get it’ tone, “I’ve read that most all boys go through a homosexual experimentation phase. And Seamus cahn’t help it if they cut his parts off, can he? He was just unlucky enough to be born with The Mark is all, on the right day. I think it’s wonderful, though, unbelievable actually, that you’d go to such lengths for him. You must REALLY care about him!” She concluded, hugging them both.

Harry and Seamus gasped in alarm.

“I am so proud of you,” she told them. “Just don’t go about advertising it, though. I’m sure there’s plenty of homophobic jerks here, like everywhere else in the world. But as long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters.”

“You took that rather well,” Ron told her with a broad grin, “I’d thought you’d go mental er sumthin’!”

“Well YOU must have taken the news pretty good too, Ron, if you’re still Harry’s friend. Most boys would have beaten him up and ditched him by now, from what I hear.”

“Not me,” Ron replied.Harry wasn’t sure what to say. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. There wasn’t much of anything that he could say, really. He was safe and warm, in bed with the boy that he loved, and in the company of his best friends. They’d listened, and accepted him as he was. Voldemort had been defeated – again – and the Malfoys humiliated! He was so happy, in fact, that he felt like he was about to burst!

“So,” Herminone then said, “It’s late, already! We’ve been talking a long time. I think I should head over to the girls’ dorm and get some rest. I absolutely hated the Broomstick ride here! I’ll see you all in the morning! Besides,” she added with a sly wink, “I’d think that after all of THIS carrying on, that Harry and Seamus might want to, er, catch up a bit?”

Ron laughed as Hermione left. Harry, however, turned red in the face again as Seamus giggled.

“Wha’s funny?” Ron asked after she’d gone. “Harry been talkin’ dirty ter ya?”

“Ron,” Harry said in a small voice, “There’s prob’ly sumthin’ yeh should know about me, I mean, after I went back in Time, the last time? Before I got to the cemetery?”

Ron nodded. “I think ya spent the summer – yer repeat summer – with Hagrid, right?”

Harry nodded. Seamus looked up at him then, placing a small hand on his cheek. “Don’ say it, ‘Arry,” he almost begged, “Yeh don’ ‘av ter say it if’n yeh don’ wan’ to. Keep it secret!”

“Ron should know,” Harry told him firmly. “I’m not ashamed of it, and YOU shouldn’t be, either. I love yeh, Seamus,” Harry finally told him, taking his smooth face in his hands and kissing him again. “But Ron’s me best friend, an’ he fought fer yeh right alongside me. He stood by me. He even died for me, technically.”

Then Harry got up out of bed and faced Ron. “When I wuz here, over me repeat summer,” he said in a firm voice, “I knew I culdn’t handle it like I wuz. I knew I wuzn’t powerful enough. I’d killed yeh all once already, and I culdn’t take that chance again. There wuz only ONE thing I could do, Ron, and Hagrid helped me through it. He took care of me when I wuz…after I…er…,” but Harry couldn’t say it. Instead, he simply pulled down his pajama bottoms and showed him.

“Oh…shiiiiit!” Ron breathed, staring with open mouth at Harry. He moved a bit closer, then tentatively reached out a hand that froze just inches from Harry’s smooth crotch.

“I used The Knife, Ron,” Harry told him. “I had to.”

And then Ron’s fingertips touched the spot where Harry’s boyhood should have been. He gasped, and the both of them could see the tent forming up in his pajama bottoms as well. His hand trembled as he touched Harry, and sucked in a hard breath. “I don’ believe it! It’s so smooth!” Then he looked Harry in the eye.

“Jus’ how long were yeh gone?” He asked. “This is perfectly healed over! An’ you … you were … no offense Seamus … but Harry, I mean, shit! You were a boy just a week ago! It wudn’t even a week when we … well … an’ now… WHERE’D it go?!”

“I went back farther in Time and watched us all leave on the train,” Harry told him, pulling his bottoms back up and getting back into bed with Seamus, who snuggled up against him again. Ron sat on the edge of his bed and just stared, shaking his red head in wonder.

“Long summer fer YOU,” he breathed. “Two summers. An’ Hagrid?”

“Hagrid took care of me,” Harry replied, snuggling up against Seamus in return and taking his specs off to set them aside on the night table.
“In my other Timeline, where you all died, Old Harry told me that Hagrid practically raised me. He said before that when my parents were killed, he wanted me so bad. He wanted to take me in, but they wouldn’t let him. We both sort of got our wish this summer,” Harry said dreamily, yawning and feeling only a bit flustered as Seamus’ hand found his tummy under the covers and rubbed him.

“I feel like the odd man out here,” Ron replied, unable to help but touch himself under his own blankets with a gasp. “Damn, Harry! You cut yourself?!” Harry simply nodded wistfully.

“Make that ‘odd eunuch out’,” Seamus laughed, “No, wait, yer right!” Then he yawned. Despite nearly three days in bed, they were all still quite tired from the Power they’d expended in the fight. It was going to take some time to get back to normal. Seamus then waved his hand and said, “Nox,” and the lights went out as Hedwig sailed out of the window with a ‘goodnight’ hoot.

Ron sighed and his four-poster’s drapes slid Magically shut.

Harry felt Seamus wrap himself up around him, almost like a soft, warm, and fleshy blanket. His hands were moving here and there over him, and Harry’s did the same as their mouths closed over each other’s. In moments, they were out of their pajamas and exploring one another. In his bed next to them, Ron listened for a bit and then began to wank. His cock was harder than it had ever been before, and it was maddening! He had to find some relief, and when he thought about Harry or Seamus NOT being able to, he nearly blew his load in record time.

He wondered just what they could be doing for one another, since neither of them had any equipment to work with. Still, it made for one intense fantasy as he stroked himself, finally blowing his wad into his shorts with a low moan.

Frustrated from not being able to feel what he was used to, but still feeling like something within him desperately needed to explode but couldn’t, Harry realized something:
He felt good. Intensely good. And as Seamus – who’d never known an orgasm in his short life – continued to stimulate him, he realized that it probably WOULDN’T stop feeling that way until they fell asleep! As much as he wanted to, as much as he felt that he badly needed to, Harry Potter simply couldn’t cum!

But he still felt euphoric, though. And it was the best feeling he’d ever had in his life, as Seamus touched him down there – eunuch or not. What felt like a phantom erection throbbed at him, and he trembled and groaned softly with Seamus’ mouth locked over his own as his small hands continued to explore.

He finally fell asleep again after a very long time, dreaming dreams of being an intact boy once more and finally getting to realize his wish of making Seamus have an orgasm.

It was well after Midnight when Harry awoke with a start.

He fumbled for his glasses and put them on, blinking and trying to see around the room. It was quiet. Shouldn’t he be hearing Dudley’s snores from the next room? Shouldn’t the streetlight be shining in his window on Privet Drive? Something was touching him – something warm! Harry slid out of bed slowly, trembling just a bit as his eyes adjusted.

He wasn’t at Privet Drive, though! He was somewhere else, and there was a boy in his bed! There were breathing sounds coming from the bed next to his, but it had its curtains shut! He took a few steps, and realized that he felt funny. He looked down and saw that he was naked! He also saw that there was nothing between his legs, and he almost screamed, biting it back with a great effort.

His bare foot then touched his pajamas, which had been tossed out onto the floor. He put them back on, found some slippers next to his big four-poster bed, and started to head for the door. He tripped over his pack, nearly falling on his face as he tried to sort out where he was and what was going on. Almost instinctively, and feeling like someone was watching him, he pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and vanished beneath it with a sigh of relief. He also shoved his Wand into his shirt, clutching the handle tightly.

Don’ panic, Harry, he told himself. Yeh know where yeh are, yeh jus’ don’ know it NOW! It’ll pass. Temporal Dementia. He said it’d pass soon. WHO said it’d pass, though?

He wondered about it as he left Gryffindor Tower, until the Fat Lady in the portrait who guarded the portal yelled at him for waking her up. But since she couldn’t see him, she simply shrugged and went back to sleep.

It’s Hogwart’s, I’m at School! Harry realized. Yea, the fight! That was Seamus in my bed! I did it! I really did it!

Coming to that conclusion, however, disturbed Harry. It seemed to be worse when he was just waking up, not knowing where he was or even WHEN he was. It actually began to frighten him as he moved through the deserted corridors, unconsciously making his way back to the Hospital Wing. He really didn’t think of where he was going until he’d walked in the door and let it close a bit too hard behind him.

“Hello, Harry,” Professor Dumbledore greeted him. “I know that can only be you under your wondrous Cloak, since even the ghosts are all gone for the summer! Do come and sit!”

Harry slid out of his cloak and walked over to Professor Dumbledore, who was sitting next to Draco Malfoy’s bed. Harry gasped as he looked at the Slytherin boy lying in the bed. He remembered what Seamus had said earlier about his own uncle and felt sick. He looked back at the old man, who seemed to be looking right through him with his odd blue eyes. He then held out his arms and took Harry in his lap.

“The last time I picked you up, you were only a baby,” he informed him.

Harry shook his head, confused. He pointed at Draco. “I did that, dint I?”

“No, Harry, you didn’t. Voldemort did that to him.” Then the old man looked at him a bit closer. “Another bout of Temporal Dementia?”

“If you say so,” the boy replied, “I’m not sure … what’s goin’ on. I get … confused sometimes.” Harry shifted in his lap and then his Wand poked the old man.

“Planning on another fight so soon, packing your Wand around? And what’s this on the hilt?” He asked, pointing to the Sorcerer’s Stone which was still stuck on it.

“I dunno,” Harry said, looking at the pretty red rock in wonder.

Harry blinked and tried to think of why he’d gotten out of bed and come down to the Infirmary when the door opened again. Both of them looked up to see Seamus Finnegan coming in, dressed in his striped pajamas. His shirt was on backwards and he looked only half awake.

“There ya are,” he yawned at Harry.

Harry blinked at him, and then it all came rushing back at him. He shook his head and made an indelicate sound.

“WHY is this happening to me?” He demanded of no one in particular.

Dumbledore then placed him on the edge of Draco’s bed and motioned for Seamus, whom he placed on the other side. Draco whimpered in his sleep, but didn’t open his eyes.

“Harry,” the old man told him, “I’ve told you that you have what’s called Temporal Dementia. You have it because you used a Time-Turner to go back in time. Now, doing it once usually has no effect on a Wizard, BUT, you’re very young. In fact, I don’t know of anyone so young doing it. You also did it three times in a row, though. Are you with me?”

Harry nodded, having come back to his senses.

“You also radically altered the Timeline. The Harry Potter from 200 years in the Future technically no longer exists. You are up walking and talking, while he said that he spent his Second Year mute and crippled and eventually had to repeat it. And that’s only a bit of it, Harry. You changed a great many things – the life of the little boy sitting next to you, for one.”

Seamus and Harry both looked at Dumbledore, expecting a lecture of some kind. As with Hermione, however, it didn’t come.

“So you see,” Dumbledore went on, “What you’ve done is to create what Muggles call a ‘Paradox’. You’ve undone so much, that what caused you to do it in the first place will never happen. That’s having an adverse affect on your mind, Harry, but it will pass.”

“But he’ll be OK, won’ ‘e?” Seamus asked in a very nervous tone, reaching over to hold Harry’s hand.

“He’ll be just fine in time,” Dumbledore nodded, looking sadly at Draco Malfoy just then. “Which is more than I can say for Mr. Malfoy here.”

Fully coherent again, Harry shook his head and looked hard at Malfoy’s ashen face. “He hates me,” he whispered. “He’s going to go Bad, I know it. Hagrid tol’ me…he don’ know no better, but…”

But Harry couldn’t finish his thought. And it wasn’t from the Temporal Dementia, either. He felt genuinely bad about Draco. After all, the boy had been tortured, lied to, castrated, used as a battery of sorts of Voldemort, and then left for dead by his own father. Harry even believed that even if he himself HAD failed – again – that Lucius Malfoy would have let the Dark Lord suck his only son dry of Power, eventually killing him in the process. And even though he’d never known the love of a family himself and envied Draco’s wealth, Harry had to wonder how anyone could do something that evil to a young boy. The Dursleys, as rude and uncaring as they were, had never actually beaten him or endangered his life intentionally.

“No, boys, he DOESN’T know anything else. I don’t think he’s ever been loved, really. And growing up without that is sure to cause a boy to go Bad.” Then he looked at Harry, who had opened his mouth. Dumbledore headed off his question, though, shaking a long finger at him.

“No, you see, Harry, I know that YOU didn’t feel loved either growing up as you did. But you WERE loved. Your mother and father loved you, died for you, even. We talked about that last term, remember?” Harry nodded, his green eyes filling again. “And I think you’ve found that there were others about that loved you as well. They may not have been there to tell you, or to hold you when you hurt, but they loved you all the same. THAT, as Hagrid told you, is the difference between you and Draco Malfoy. YOU know HOW to love. I don’t think that he does,” the old man concluded sadly.

And then an idea flashed through Harry’s mind. He looked up sharply at Seamus, who seemed to have had the same idea at the same time. “Professor!” Harry gasped, “Hagrid tol’ me somethin’ when we were … while I was … er … healin’ up. He sed tha’ boy Wizards had ter be cut wit’ The Knife ‘o Klingsor, er it wunt work right! Draco’s been castrated, but it culn’t’v been with THE KNIFE,” Harry said excitedly, “Because after I…I…used it, I hid it. I KNEW Malfoy wuz cummin’ fer it, so I hid it.”

Dumbledore gasped. “It’s not in Hagrid’s kitchen?” He asked, genuinely shocked. The fact that Harry had just admitted to emasculating himself didn’t seem to even phase him.

“No,” Seamus added helpfully, “Malfoy was all messed up over it, Mr. Malfoy, I mean. He acted like ‘e had it, then Harry sed it wuz gone and he jus’ got all stupid!”

Dumbledore smiled then. “Another huge change to the Timeline,” he told them. “Very good, Harry! I wish you’d destroyed it, though.”

“But HOW did he castrate him, then?” Seamus asked. “They knocked me out an’ then jus’ cut it all off!”

Dumbledore thought hard, but Harry was ahead of him. “In the cemetery,” he piped up, “Mr. Malfoy said he’d not cut him, just made him LOOK like a eunuch so’s he wun’t get all distracted and play with himself! He never cut him!”

Then Harry jumped up and pulled back Draco’s blanket, staring for a bit in amazement at the boy’s grayish skin and his emaciated frame. All of his ribs showed, and his chest hardly moved as his breath rattled in his lungs. He’d also been diapered, as the rest of them had when they’d been told to stay in bed. Very carefully, Harry undid it and stared. Malfoy’s crotch was smooth, much like Harry’s and Seamus’. However, as Harry noticed, THAT was the difference.

Draco had no scarring, no sign at all that he’d even been born an intact boy. It was perfect.

Too perfect.

“I know how me an’ Seamus look,” he told Dumbledore, “An’ we got scars. Draco don’t. He was NEVER cut.” Then Harry pulled out his Wand and touched the tip of it to Draco’s smooth crotch. An aura of cyan light flared up at the tip, and Harry took Seamus’ hand again. The glow spread to him as well, and Harry said, “Engorgio!”

“Harry!” Dumbledore gasped, but too late. A cloud of cyan light came out of Harry’s Wand as he and Seamus both began to glow brighter. The glow infused itself into Malfoy’s skin, vanishing. For a moment, nothing happened.

Harry thought about Draco dying as he concentrated. His little body was terribly weak. He thought of the geranium on Seamus’ windowsill then, and how it had Magically come back to life when they’d realized how they felt about one another. Of course, Harry hated Malfoy, but he also didn’t want to see him die. It just wasn’t right.

“Live, damnit,” he ordered the pale boy.

Then, very slowly, Draco Malfoy began to color up. Something seemed to be moving under his skin in his crotch, and his emaciated frame began to fill out. He breathing settled a bit, cleared, and he groaned and twitched. Then a small bump rose up where his cock should have been. The lump expanded as something began to bulge beneath it. They all stared in wonder as the strange glow that surrounded Harry and Seamus seemed to be leaking back OUT of Draco. It was almost as if he were wetting his bed, but with light!

And then there was a soft POP! and suddenly – Draco Malfoy was a boy again. His genitals returned, pink and healthy looking, in all of their original underdeveloped glory. Harry pulled his Wand back, staring. “I think that was about what they looked like when you spanked him, sir,” he stated. “I knew his father culn’t’v cut him!”

Draco moaned and slowly opened his gray eyes. He looked around, as if trying to figure out where he was, then inhaled sharply and shuddered. As the color rose up in his cheeks, which were no longer sunken in, he moved his mouth. Dumbledore bent down to listen.

“Wan’ t’go home,” he croaked, and the old man gently propped him up and got him to take a drink of water. Then he looked over at the two glowing Eunuch Wizards with his eyebrows raised.

“This is extraordinary,” he whispered, gently lowering Draco’s head back down to the pillow, being careful of his feeding tube and IV line. “Madame Pomfrey had … well … written him off, so to speak.” And then the old Wizard did something that left the both of them speechless.

He inclined his head towards them both with the deepest of respect.

“It is one thing to do good to your friends, boys, but it is quite another to do good to your enemies. If no one else does, I thank you.”

“P-p-pahhh-tur,” Draco murmured, his eyes gone shut again but his hands flexing.

“Yes, Malfoy?” Harry asked, leaning down as Dumbledore had.

“Don’ hurt me,” Draco moaned pathetically, “Lemme die like I feel now … good…” And then Draco fell asleep, stirring only a bit as they just sat and watched him fill in and color up more. After he seemed satisfied, Dumbledore covered him back up and tucked him in, leaving only his one arm exposed for the IV.

“I daresay you’re going to stay up, boys?” The old man asked, “Would you mind watching him until morning?”

Harry nodded, as did Seamus. As the old man left the Infirmary, Harry and Seamus moved to take up a position one to each side of Malfoy. They didn’t talk as they watched him sleep, looking up now and then to smile at one another. And although he wasn’t sure why he’d done it, Harry was glad that he had. Malfoy probably wouldn’t appreciate it when he was better, but that didn’t matter. That wasn’t why he’d done it.

He held Draco’s hand until the sun came up, and was still there at his bedside when Madame Pomfrey came in to relive them.

Harry and Seamus met Ron in the Gryffindor Common Room just as the sun was coming up, having left Draco in the care of Madam Pomfrey once again. She’d not said a thing to them, just smiled and dismissed them. Ron was coming down the stairs, dressed in his Muggle clothes, looking intent.

“Go get dressed, I’m starved!” He cried, “Where’v ya been?”

“Long story,” Harry replied, with no sign of the Temporal Dementia. “Meet yeh in the Hall!” And then he and Seamus ran up the stairs to get dressed.

They joined Ron at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, which had seemed to know that four hungry boys and one girl were coming. Hermione was already there, as was Oliver Wood. They watched as Harry and Seamus came running in, Harry looking odd in his black but Muggley-looking clothes.

“Mornin’!” Wood called out, moving over a bit. They sat down beside him, opposite Ron and Hermione. Then, Magically, the small area of table filled with various breakfast foods.

“I love this place!” Ron stated heartily, attacking a plate of bacon.

They were all busy eating when suddenly there was a loud “HOOT!”. They all looked up to see Hedwig and three other owls come swooping in to bring them mail.

“They always KNOW where yer at,” Wood observed, opening a letter from his boss wanting to know where he was and why he’d had to call off work. Hermione’s consisted of a note from her parents saying to call of Floo them, as well as issue of The Dailey Prophet newspaper. There was no mention of the missing boys on the front page, though, which they all thought odd. After all, shouldn’t someone know by now where they were at?

And then Hedwig and the other owl, a regal looking brown, dropped a fat scroll in front of Harry and Seamus. Hedwig grabbed a sausage before flying off to sleep in the owlrey.

“Wha’s that?” Ron asked around a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

Harry unrolled it as Seamus caught the other end. It rolled and rolled, falling off of the table and continuing to unroll across the floor of the Great Hall. Harry’s green eyes went wide and he adjusted his glasses in shock.

“Dear Mr. Potter,” he read, and then suddenly paused, his mouth hanging open in shock. “Shit! This is unreal! I cahn’t believe this!”

“What?” Hermione asked, leaning over to look. “Oh dear!” She gasped, dropping her toast.

“Whut?” Wood asked, leaning over as well. Hermione, however, began to read it aloud as Harry’s eyes went even wider and his voice failed him.

“Arrested?” Ron managed, nearly choking on a sausage.

“This is insanity!” Hermione stated, going over the letter again and beginning to read off the charges.

“Oh, shit,” Seamus groaned.

Hermione tossed the scroll aside in disgust. “Well, I’d say that being expelled is the LEAST of our worries now,” she stated.

“Well what in bloody hell do we do then?” Ron demanded, his appetite miraculously gone.

“We do what any good Muggle would do,” Hermione stated calmly.

“Muggle?” Wood asked curiously, having been raised totally in a Wizarding family.

Hermione nodded. “We sue!” She announced, heading off towards the library to prepare her case in defense of Harry Potter.

*Author’s note : This was intended to be the last chapter of this long Harry Potter tale, and was going to end in the Infirmary at Draco Malfoy’s bedside. However, due to overwhelming demand for “one more chapter,” and the “Harry always gets caught,” words of encouragement, I have decided to continue! This version of chapter 20 is identical to the special version online at http://www.dakoniko.com/Harry%20Potter3.htm in the links table.