Harry Potter and the Sympathy of Souls

IV) "I Know You"

PART TWO: DREAMS
YEAR SIX

"What's eating you, Harry?" Perenelle asked when Harry sighed quietly halfway through the film they were watching.

Because Harry had been stressing about their lack of plan regarding Voldemort, Nicolas had invited him over to 'discuss strategy' as he had called it when issuing the invitation, in a gesture of appeasement of sorts. Somehow, though, it had ended up being a discussion of all the different creative ways they could do Voldemort in. When Perenelle had suggested dropping a piano on his head, the 'war council' had disbanded for the sake of going to watch Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner.

At Harry's sigh, though, both had taken their eyes off the screen and were staring at Harry with concern on their face, making him feel guilty for ruining their fun with his inability to stop worrying.

"I have another 'session' with Dumbledore tomorrow evening," Harry told them, "and somehow I don't think it'll be any more useful than what we're doing here."

"You know," said Nicolas, "once we knew about the prophecy, I thought that Dumbledore's actions finally made sense, but I'm currently baffled. He obviously believes that the only way to get rid of Voldemort is for you to succeed in killing him. Now, I completely disagree with that premise, but let's put that aside for now. Assuming the only way Voldemort could die is by your hands, why does he promise to help you, only to cryptically show you a random memory that is only semi-related to Voldemort, and wait months before scheduling the next session? What will he show Harry next, do you think, the memory of Voldemort's conception?"

Harry chuckled, but Perenelle seemed to consider the question seriously. "I'd told you Nicolas, didn't I, just when we first met him, that that boy's problem was that he was too clever. A brilliant mind, and he knew it. People like that just go with their ideas and don't stop to consider if the people involved in them are happy with the direction they're going, because as far as they're concerned- they are the ones who know how things should be. He probably is working according to his own convoluted plan to get Harry to kill Voldemort, with no regard to how Harry feels about the matter."

Harry groaned. "Can we please not talk about Dumbledore's convoluted plans right now? I'll be getting enough of that tomorrow."

"Very well," said Nicolas "we're getting to the best part of the film as it is."

They all cheered when Wile E. Coyote was once again hoisted by his own petard.

~

Harry moved down the stairs leading from Dumbledore's office, his mind racing. The latest memory that Dumbledore had shown him, the one of a young Tom Riddle, had given him much food for thought. Dumbledore's words after they had viewed the memory were especially interesting: "Bear in mind this magpie-like tendency, for this, particularly, will be important later". Never before had it occurred to Harry that Dumbledore might know what horcruxes were, but the talk of collecting objects seemed like it might be a precursor to Voldemort's accumulation of horcruxes. Could Dumbledore have guessed the same thing that Harry and Nicolas had?

It was an intriguing thought, but if Harry was honest with himself, that hadn't been the thing that caught his interest and set his mind whirring. That honor belonged to Tom Riddle.

Harry knew what Dumbledore was thinking during the memory. Tom Riddle hadn't presented himself in the best light during that first meeting. In fact he had proven himself to be a bully.

Despite that, of the two men he had glimpsed a new side of during the memory, it was Tom Riddle that his heart went out to.

True, he wasn't exactly an unbiased observer. Ever since Harry had found out how badly he had been duped by his headmaster in the Philosopher's Stone affair, he had felt rather resentful and distrustful towards the man. He had come to these lessons that Dumbledore had arranged for them rather disinclined to believe or take seriously anything that Dumbledore revealed.