Wednesday morning, Harry woke with a headache, which he ignored to the best of his ability, until his scar starting hurting as well, during Defense Against the Dark Arts class. He pressed a hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. It burned, like a hot needle jabbing into his brain, which it had not done before, except for rarely during or right after a bad nightmare. In those situations, the burning was gone almost immediately, but this time, the torment kept going on and on and on . . . .
"Harry," someone whispered, though the sound was like the crack of thunder in his ears. And then an elbow, in his side.
Harry opened one eye, just a slit, to find Teddy's face real close, his eyes making an obvious 'look over there' gesture, and Harry followed the direction of Teddy's look, to find Professor Quirrell standing almost over him, and glowering. Which wasn't at all like Professor Quirrell.
"Wh-wh-what is the m-m-meaning of this, P-p-potter?"
"Headache," Harry said shortly. "May I go to the Infirmary?"
The stuttering professor's eyes narrowed, but he gave a curt nod. Harry stood up to start gathering his books, but his knees buckled suddenly, and he had to grab the desk to keep from ending up on his arse.
"G-g-go with h-h-him, M-mister Nott."
Teddy, who was already gathering Harry's books together for him, collected his own, too, with a nod, and slung the bags over his shoulder. "You need help?" he asked Harry in a low voice.
"No." Harry knew he did, really, but he was not going to show weakness in front of his fellow Slytherins, not if he could at all help it. He'd felt worse before, certainly, just not in his scar, and although he probably had nothing like Snape's experience with becoming accustomed to excruciating pain, he had lived day to day with at least a small amount for most of his life. So he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, and not vomiting or keeling over as they made their way out of the classroom and down the corridor toward the Infirmary.
Oddly, they had gone no more than twenty feet from the Defense classroom before the headache eased, and the burning in Harry's scar vanished almost entirely. The sudden loss of that searing agony made him reel, gasping for breath.
"Harry?" Teddy called, his voice coming from far away. "Let me go get Madam Pom-"
"No," he rasped, bending over with his hands on his knees. "It's okay. The pain's almost gone."
Teddy's voice sounded strangled. "Were you skiving?"
Harry shook his head, finding out the hard way that the torture wasn't truly over. "No, it's weird. Like . . ." Like the only reason he had been in pain was because of his connection through the scar to Voldemort. Or a connection to his minion, someone who knew lots of curses and hexes. Like a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would.
"Come on," he said, and grabbed at Teddy's hand. "I need to find . . ." He trailed off, not sure who he could tell. Professor Snape was the obvious choice, but Harry was still angry with him for invading his mind the night before. And the Bloody Baron . . . well, who knew what the ghost would be able to do about this information. He wondered if it was something he should tell the Headmaster about, but he didn't want to disturb Dumbledore with complaints about a headache.
Even as he decided on not telling anyone, Teddy pulled away. "No, you're not going anywhere except the Infirmary. You need to have a lie down. Your face is pasty, and in case you were wondering, Malfoy might be able to pull it off, but it's not a good look for you."
Leave it to Teddy to soften a lecture with a joke. "All right, all right, Mum. I'll get a headache potion."
"And I'll make sure you do. Come on."
Madam Pomfrey actually praised him for coming to the Infirmary when he was "under the weather," and Harry sped out of there as fast as he could, more embarrassed than he could say. Honestly!
Teddy just snickered softly, and made Harry carry their book bags down to the dungeons, as was only fair, now that he was feeling better. There, Millicent accosted Harry the second he got to the Slytherin common room, asking if he was okay, or if there was anything she could do to help. She'd taken good notes in Defense, she said, and would make a copy for Harry for their study group.
"Can't be there," Harry admitted. "I still have detention for two more days."
"Well, I'll still have the notes for you." She gave Teddy a wrinkle-nosed, considering look. "You can have a copy, too, I suppose. Though your own group should have some for you."
Teddy opened his mouth, likely to say something cutting about how he certainly wouldn't need any notes that Millie took, but Harry gave him a quick, sharp glance, and he just nodded instead. "Yeah, thanks. If they don't have the notes for me, I'd like a copy."
Millie's smile was amazingly bright. Teddy's face reddened immediately, but he didn't say anything more about it.
After dinner, Harry went to detention again, but found another note on Snape's office door with directions of what to do while Snape was gone. This time, there were bobotuber pods that needed to be squeezed for pus. Twenty jars worth. Ugh. Snape had been right, though; the tasks he'd set this week had put a serious damper on Harry wanting to serve detention ever again, especially for rules breaking.
It was going on eight-thirty and Harry was perhaps half way through the task when he felt a chilling presence behind him. He turned to see the Bloody Baron gliding through the door.
Harry returned his attention to the pods, squeezing the pus out of the current one with a gentle pressure near the end so it wouldn't explode everywhere. "Did the Professor send you to watch me?"
"He requested that I look in on you. And also asked me to try and get a translation of the Parseltongue in your memory."
"Yeah, well, he can go hang as far as my memories go."
"You're angry."
"Damn right!" He put a little too much pressure on the pod in his hand, and it squirted a line of pus across the table. "Damn!"
"You have every right to be," the Baron said as Harry went about cleaning the spill. At least he hadn't gotten any on his skin or clothes, but it was a near thing.
"Look, could you leave? It's nothing personal," although it was, "but I don't want to mess up again."
The Bloody Baron chuckled. "Not very Slytherin of you, Harry Potter."
Harry glared up at him through his fringe. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"If you wish me to leave, you should offer me something in return. Something to make it worth my while."
With narrowed eyes, Harry considered, then said, "Well, you want to know about the Parseltongue, right? How about you go away and I write it down for you some other time."
"Alas, written communication is not very useful for ghosts. It's impossible to hold any such objects as might contain writing."
"Oh, yeah." And translating it now basically meant keeping the ghost in the classroom with him, which was not terribly motivating. He bent his head over his task again, and ignored the ghost for as long as he could. Then, "How come we had a conversation?"
"Beg pardon?" The Baron's voice was much closer now than it had been before, and Harry barely kept from jumping away from him and splashing more pus around.
He looked up to see the ghost hovering no more than a pace away, to his left. Glaring again at the ghost for sneaking up on him, he said, "When we were in the corridor. Afterwards, and before I remembered anything else, I remembered us having a conversation, though it was sort of surreal. But then you said that you took over my body right after I got hit by a spell, so we shouldn't have had any time to talk."
"Mmm." The Baron glided into view, and pointed at the bobotuber Harry was holding. "If you make a small incision, just there, the pus will slide out much more easily."
With a frown, Harry tried that, and found it worked well. "Er, thanks." He picked up the next pod. "But are you going to answer my question?"
The Baron gave a low chuckle. "In a way. I don't imagine it's the kind of answer you were really hoping for."
"What kind of answer do you think I'm hoping for?"
"I believe you are hoping I shall slip up in some way, which will allow you to decide that what we say happened in the corridor never actually happened. But since you have your own memories of the events now, you are merely grasping at straws. It's a waste of time, and also rather unbecoming."
Since the Baron was essentially correct, Harry didn't bother to reply to that. "Then what did happen?"
"It was all in your head."
"In my head."
"Indeed. My belief is that you were . . . projecting, for lack of better term, a conversation with me, so that your mind could wrap around the concept of having my presence inside it, without rendering you insane."
"'Cause that would've been bad."
"You have no idea."
"Yeah, well, I'm not a shrink or anything, but even I know effing crazy isn't a great way to spend my life."
"Shrink?"
"Head shrinker. You know, a psychiatrist." Harry glanced up at the ghost to find him smiling bemusedly, head cocked to the side. "It's a Muggle thing."
"Ah."
"Yeah."
A long pause, then, "Your scar . . ."
Harry jerked back involuntarily, nearly upending the bottle he was currently filling. "What about it?" he growled.
"It appears more inflamed than yesterday."
"It is."
"Would you care to explain why?"
"Would you care to leave me alone?"
That time, the Bloody Baron laughed out loud. "You're a cheeky thing, no doubt. Very well, Mister Potter. You explain why your scar looks like it's newly cut into your forehead, and I shall leave you in peace. For now."
"For a week."
"Alas, I still must discover the nature of the Parseltongue you heard during our fight."
"Then choose one or the other." Anger flowed through him like his own blood, and Harry's hand was trembling around the bobotuber pod. He stilled it with an effort and gritted his teeth. "Look. I don't like being possessed, and I don't like having people poke around in my head and look at stuff they're not allowed to. And I don't like being blackmailed and I don't like being hovered over. So you get one piece of information from me, and then you get lost."
The Bloody Baron was quiet for a long while, and Harry kept working, and trying not to think. At last, a sigh came from a little farther away. Seemed like the ghost had caught on about the hovering so close bit. "Very well, Harry Potter. Tell me about the Parseltongue."
Harry nodded. He'd known the ghost would ask for that one, and he'd been calling up the memory. "The voice said, 'There has to be an end to it, an end to this half life,' and, 'I did not return to be disobeyed by a lesser servant,' and, 'You are weak, too weak; I need another to sustain me. Bring me his blood.' He said other things, but mostly variations on those."
"Good," The Bloody Baron said. "That will help immensely." He paused, and his voice was softer, smoother, when he continued, "You do want to learn who tried to murder you, do you not?"
"Sure I do," Harry said. "But I'm more interested in keeping it from happening again."
"Naturally."
Harry finished filling up the thirteenth jar, capped it and labeled it, and started on jar fourteen. "You're delaying on your end of the deal."
"So I am," the Baron said. "I must admit, I do not wish to see any harm come to you on your trip back to the common room tonight."
"I'm sure I'll be fine," Harry told him, though he was a little bit afraid.
"Perhaps I will escort you, once you are finished with your most . . . intriguing task."
"The deal-"
"I will wait outside this door until then. Will that suffice?"
With a sigh, knowing he was unlikely to get a better offer, Harry nodded. "Yeah, all right." Then, more grudgingly, "Thanks."
After another forty-five minutes of slicing and squeezing, capping and labeling, then cleaning up after himself, Harry exited Snape's classroom and headed back to the common room. The Bloody Baron floated along beside him all the way to the portrait, just like Snape had done . . . except the floating part.
"Thanks," Harry said again.
"My pleasure," the Baron replied. "You have another session with Severus Snape tomorrow, do you not?"
"No, I mean . . . Oh, damn!" He did have detention, but he also had his first Quidditch practice. At the same time. Well, he'd just have to make up the detention later, since there was no way Flint would let him be on the team if he didn't go to practice. Even an extra week of detention would be better than getting cut. "I have Quidditch practice tomorrow," Harry said at last. He shrugged one shoulder, trying to look unconcerned. "I'll make up the detention some other time."
The Bloody Baron gave him a long look. "And this has been discussed with Professor Snape?"
Harry looked away. He didn't want to talk to Snape, at all. And particularly not to ask if he could skip detention, 'cause he knew what the answer would be. Better to do the thing and beg forgiveness later. Not to mention, Snape must know when practices for Quidditch were; he was the Head of Slytherin, after all. And he wanted Harry on the team. Didn't he? "It'll be fine," Harry said. "He won't mind."
"I see."
"Yeah, so, see you later," Harry said, and slipped in through the portrait door. It was a long time before he fell asleep that night.
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