Unofficial Portkey Archive

Disclaimer: The characters of this fiction are borrowed and used as a tribute to the wonderful world created by J.K. Rowling. They're not mine, never were and never will be. No money is being made on this either.

Summary: WARNING: MAJOR OotP SPOILERS! After working hard during the summer to get over his depressions after his disastrous fifth year with great losses and mischief, Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts with his recently found girlfriend, something that makes Hermione Granger very depressed. Everyone remains totally unaware of the terrible danger that hides among them in school, until a lot of hideous deaths among the students come to light. (Warning: This is an attempt of a Horror-story. Harry/Hermione romance will come at the end.)

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'Are you sure you've told me everything, Mr. Potter?'
'I told you everything I feel you need to know, Dr. McSwan.' Harry answered in a gloomy 'Wish-I-were-somewhere-else' tone. It was his third visit here, and he hadn't enjoyed a single one of them.
'You do know that if I am to be able to help you, it will be best for you that you let go of whatever it is that dwells deep in your mind and let it all out, otherwise it will eventually take control of your stressed mind and could drive you crazy?'
'It won't.' Harry answered in the same gloomy tone as before. 'It has nothing to do with my problems.'
Actually it had, but Harry couldn't tell it. How was he to explain to a Muggle psychiatrist that he actually was a wizard?

Dr. McSwan sighed and once again looked through his notes. He scratched his beard as he tried to put together this young man's life. It definitely wasn't easy, but then again; those who came to his office for help never had an easy life. Unfortunately this boy had not approached him on his own. It had been his foster-family who dropped him in, explaining to the doctor that young Harry Potter had not been the same since he came back from his school at the beginning of the summer. Obviously he was quite on the verge of losing control and go into a tantrum at any time, but what would you expect of a boy who attended St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys? That's what Vernon Dursley had told him, but Dr. McSwan knew at once that that was a lie. St Brutus had its own psychiatrists, why would the foster-family drop him off here unless he didn't attend there?

Dr. McSwan took off his glasses and looked at the boy who lay on the couch, staring at an invisible spot on the ceiling. The doctor decided to approach from a different direction.
'I want you to think carefully before you answer my question, Mr. Potter. Who are you?'
Harry was about to open his mouth to answer the stupid question the doctor was asking before he stopped himself. He understood that Dr. McSwan didn't ask about his identity, but of his person. He realized that it was a difficult question…

'I… actually don't know anymore…' he answered honestly. All the years of first being a nobody, to all of the sudden become a famous wizard who was by one group of people admired, was at the same time by another group of people considered a sad and unstable person. It was sometimes such a confusing mix that it could turn one's head totally upside-down. He wasn't sure anymore where he stood today.
'I thought so.' The doctor said, putting his glasses back and picked up his pen, ready to copy down whatever Harry was ready to give away.

'Years ago I was just an ordinary person who tried to get along despite being bullied by my stupid cousin. Then I started this school where my parents had studied, where I suddenly became a different person. I was kind of treated like some kind of celebrity, 'cause my parents where known there since before… it did become quite confusing. I got quite used to it after a while, therefore it was extra hard to come back home every holiday to once again being pushed down by my relatives…'
'Then this foreign school of yours is your sanctuary?' the doctor rather stated than asked.
'At first I thought it was… now I'm not so sure anymore.'
'Why?'
It took a minute for Harry to answer the question. '"Things" always happened… and most of the time it was I who was to blame. I went from being a celebrity to be the worst criminal in the world quite sudden almost all the time.'

'How did you cope with it?'
'I ignored it at first… it helped that I had my two best friends still on my side.'
'Yes, you mentioned them. We will get back to them soon. Please continue.'
'Obviously all those "things" that kept crossing my way finally caught the attention of several people.' Harry sighed. 'Last year, the attention on me was so strong that people started to keep me under surveillance… Although I know that I'm still under aged, I was kind of totally classed as a reckless child, even by my own headmaster at my school, whom I otherwise had got quite well along with under all this time… That was the very beginning of my anger, which got worse under the year… One of the new teachers, a woman I really got to hate, even tried to have me expelled, 'cause for some reason they found me worth of being discredited and banned. And all because of their fear of that crazy bastard that's chasing after me.'

'But don't you feel that it was something that needed to be done because of you being followed by that murderer?' Dr. McSwan carefully asked. 'It is quite frightening… a crazed man who's holding a lifelong grudge against your whole family line for reasons unknown, and who swore to wipe you and the rest of your kin out?'
Harry inwardly smiled, although it was not a laughing matter. It was the best lie he'd been able to come up with. Lord Voldemort wasn't interested in wiping out the whole family tree of the Potter's, he only wanted to kill him, 'cause of some stupid prophecy that he was chosen to be the conqueror of the dark lord… Well, more like that either him or Lord Voldemort was destined to die by the other's hand. That was a heavy weight on Harry's shoulders, but it wasn't anything he could share with the Doctor.

'Maybe it had to be done,' Harry answered grumpily. '-with him being after me again, but it could at least be handled in another matter. I feel that I could at least be kept under protection somewhere else, instead of having to go back to the Dursley's all the time. My friend Ron's family is quite taken to me, and would be more than willing to take me, but the 'authorities' just won't allow it. They say that I have to stay in Privet Drive, 'cause of my aunt being my mother's sister.'

'And neither could you live with your godfather, (although it was your parent's wish) because he was to blame and convicted for murdering them in the first place?' the Doctor went on.
'The fools!' Harry spat under his breath. 'He was my parents best friend, he'd would rather die than killing them.'
'And now you lost him as well, the last line of connection to the parents you never knew, to the same man whose now is after to kill you?'
'Yes.'
Well it wasn't entirely true, it was Sirius' cousin Bellatrix Lestrange who was responsible for his death, but she's working under Voldemort, so it was best to keep the blame totally on the dark Lord, to keep this psychiatry evaluation simple.

'Mr. Potter, I do not recall ever reading about this incident in any of the news-papers…'
'Not everything that happens in a foreign land shows up in the local news, Doctor.' That was true. All of it had happened in the Wizard world, but he couldn't tell that. So Harry kept to the story that Hogwarts was in a foreign land in hopes that Dr. McSwan wouldn't ask to many questions.
'All this is undoubtedly putting a heavy stress on you, it's no wonder you're having these attacks of tantrums…' the doctor mumbled.

'I would like to know more of your friends.' He then said. 'Tell me a bit in general about them.'
'Well… Hermione is the brightest girl in our year, perhaps even in the whole school. Ron is an equal to me in all subjects…'
'I understand that you get quite along with them?'
'In the first three years, yes. But in my fourth year…' Harry felt down at the memory. 'One of them turned his back against me after another "thing" happened.'
'And you felt betrayed. That kind of incidents builds up stress. What about your other friend?'
'She stayed, but I didn't treat her right. I took out my frustration on her sometimes, something I deeply regret.'
'Aha!' the doctor said. 'You haven't freed your conscience I hear. Another stress-factor. Are you and this other friend still not talking?'

'We came to an understanding and became friends again, but… I know that the tension is still there.'
'Do you feel jealousy towards them in any way?'
'Yes. They both got ordinary families. I don't.' Harry said bitterly. 'And lately I feel that they get together having a great time behind my back, while I'm stuck with my relatives… they say that they're not comfortable doing it with me being left behind, but somehow… I'm beginning to lose my trust in them.'
'In that case I'd like to ask you a more personal question…' Harry involuntarily tensed… he didn't like when people wanted to do that. The Doctor then asked: 'Are you in love with this girl?'

Harry laughed. 'Doctor, that idea has never crossed my mind. She's a great friend, nothing more.'
'Then I'd like to ask you about your love life.'
Harry's mode went straight down again. 'Do you have to?'
'There's another stress-factor there I hear.'
Harry surrendered. 'Her name is Cho. We did date during this past year, but because of my inexperience with women, and the fact that she'd lost her boyfriend in an 'accident' the year before, I only accomplished in breaking her heart. I suppose she tried to find comfort with me, but I messed up miserably.'

'Well Mr. Potter, as far as I can tell: you are going through an identity crisis, and that's normal of your age.' McSwan said, putting down his notes. 'Basically you are the boy who are used to being put down by your relatives, but during the rest of the year you're the young man who's trying to acknowledge the expectations your fellow students demand of you, while you constantly have to look over your shoulder after the man who murdered your parents.'
Harry snorted but didn't say anything.
'You are also torn of the facts that you've learned that your parents was maybe not as good people as you expected them to be, which gives you a confusion of what direction in life you are suppose to take. Because I suppose that you do not want to go in their footsteps anymore.'

'I used to, because I always imagined them being the best people in the world. But after learning how they truly were in their youth, finding out that they had actually bullied another person and been not quite so good, I just don't know what to believe anymore.'
Harry felt a knot in his stomach, 'cause all of it was true. Even though he didn't like Professor Snape, he couldn't forget the memory in the pensive when his father James and his friend Sirius Black had unprovoked attacked fifteen-year old Severus Snape. It made Harry sick.

'Yes.' The doctor said. 'You don't know what to believe anymore, that's why you answer that you don't know who you are anymore. But remember, Mr. Potter, that every person is unique. And it's the experiences of their own individual lives that make the person… I'll answer you your question on who you are… You're Harry Potter, a unique person, just like everyone else that you meet is also a unique person. And it's just like it should be. Your problem is that you'd had to find the answers of your life in a most unfortunate ways, that's why you're building up stress that leads to your anger, because you are also afraid of what you will learn next.'

'I'm not afraid.' Harry protested.
'Ah… you are. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, 'cause every man and woman is afraid of something. Do not deny your fear, because it's one of the main bricks that are building up your wisdom. Without fear, none of us would be where we are today.'
Harry felt like he'd just had a lecture from either Professor Dumbledore or Hermione. It was just that kind of talk that usually put his head upside down and he couldn't get anymore wiser of it, more quite the opposite. So he decided not to press the matter further with Dr. McSwan.

'This is all part of growing up, Mr. Potter. Some people just have a harder time going through it then others. I will do what I can to make it easier for you, although it is not much. The only one who can truly help you going through these crisis of stress is none other than yourself.'
'So what am I suppose to do then?' Harry asked feeling slightly dejected. Why did everything have to be put in his own hands?
'The first thing you can do is ease your conscience in any way you can. To release you from the burden of guilt is, believe it or not, half the step. And I'm going to give you something that might help you distract yourself from your building anger…'

Dr. McSwan rose and walked over to his desk and fetched something from one of his drawers. He then walked back to Harry and held out his hand. In it where two small silver balls. It reminded Harry of the golden snitch in size, but that were the only similarities…
'What're these?' he asked as he took them.
'They're Chinese Worry-balls. Whenever you feel anxious or tense, you should grind those balls in your hand. It helps distract you from the build-up of anger and stress.'
Harry looked at the doctor almost with disgust. 'I think I'd feel rather stupid grinding these things just because of a moment of anxiety, do I really need them?'

Dr. McSwan looked rather uncomfortable. 'It would be best if you took them and used them, Mr. Potter. You see, the results of your health-test I had you go through last time shows that you have developed a stress-related nervous disorder. It's quite unusual for somebody of your age, but whatever you've been through, it has raised your blood pressure to an alarmingly high level. So if you don't calm down, you could risk an affect of aneurysm. The pressure could burst your veins.'
'Oh, terrific!' Harry said through gritted teeth.
The news was enough to cause him some anxiety, and he suddenly felt dizzy and trouble of breathing. Abandoning the thoughts of feeling stupid he grinded the balls and to his surprise, he felt himself calming down and could breath again.

'It would be best Mr. Potter, if you'd stayed away from stress-related situations for a while. With this crazy murderer after you, you should not go back to your school this year, or at least not until the local authorities has captured him.'
'What?' Harry looked at the doctor as if he'd gone crazy. 'Doctor, going back to school is the only thing I have to look forward to, that's where I have my friends! I would be worse of if I stayed home, I'm not going to let that git keep me away just because he want to kill me!'
'Very well Mr. Potter, I can't stop you.' Dr. McSwan said with a sigh. 'Just keep in mind what I said about your health. But I'm going to write a letter that I want you to give to your Headmaster, that will explain your health-status so that he can take necessary precautions.'

'Right.' Harry mumbled.
'I'm also going to write a letter for you to take to whichever authorities that are responsible for you, to tell them that you need to be re-located from your relatives. For your health's sake, you can't stay with them.'
Harry shone up. If his health required him to have to move out from Privet Drive, then there was a good outcome in his illness anyway… it was so good that it was almost worth it. Almost.

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Harry's mode had reached the bottom of the pit again as he rode in the backseat of his Uncle Vernon's car. Uncle Vernon was muttering under his breath about the expensive money he had to pay Harry's psychiatrist.
'That darn boy and his freakish powers… if it hadn't been for him losing control… blowing up Marge… would never spend a single penny on him otherwise…'
Harry only listened with half an ear, holding down his frustration of his uncle scowling about him by grinding the Worry-balls in his pocket… It wasn't tantrums from Harry the Dursley's feared. Before his third year, Harry had lost control and accidentally inflated his Aunt Marge making her dance like a balloon on the ceiling. It was that the Dursley's feared: who knows what could happen around them if Harry lost control again?
'If only I could throw him out… but no, he has to stay… them dare to threaten me… those freakish people with Demon-faces… (He was talking about Alastor Moody.) Have no respect for us normal decent people…'

Uncle Vernon's sour mode and complaints continued all the way home to Privet Drive. When they finally got indoors Uncle Vernon turned to Harry:
'I hope you're happy now for all the money I had to spend on you. Now you go straight up to your room and stay there, I don't want to see you more today. Which means that I will not tolerate catching you listening on the news!'
'Fine, I'm going.' Harry muttered and went up the stairs. He closed the door with a bang and sat heavily down on his bed, taking out the silver balls and grinded them once more. His snow-white owl: Hedwig watched it all curiously from her cage.
'Looks quite ridiculous, don't it?' He asked her quietly. She only hooted with sympathy, as if she understood her master's health-problems.

'Stress-related nervous disorder. I'm a wreck…' He thought back of what Dr. McSwan had said to him, about him releasing his guilt from his conscience if he'd have a chance of getting better. Harry wondered what kind of guilt was dwelling in his soul that could cause him the present problems…
He glanced at his calendar… July 30:th. Tomorrow would be his sixteenth birthday. He normally didn't look forward to his birthday, but this would be his first birthday without his godfather being able to congratulate him, never would he do that again… He should stop sulking about it; Sirius would want him to go on somehow. The question was how? Who could he contact? Talking with Dumbledore was out of the question, Harry was actually still angry with him… Contacting either Ron or Hermione didn't exactly appeal to him; he still didn't know where he had those two. Besides: he would probably hear from them the next day…

His thought fell on Remus Lupin… but it just didn't feel right to shove all his troubles on him, even though he was the only one left of the Marauders from their school-time. Peter Pettigrew, also known as Wormtail didn't count since he'd turned his back on his friends and become a Death-eater…
No, he didn't want to trouble Professor Lupin with teenage problems such as girl problems or studying… Girl problems?
His thoughts suddenly fell on Cho Chang, remembering that he was kind of a letdown on her… Harry actually did feel a little guilt about that, but could he be blamed for it? It had been Cho's friend Marietta Edgecombe who had sold them out to Dolores Umbridge about their secret group of Dumbledore's Army, which they had formed to properly train Defence against Dark Arts, which Umbridge had neglected them to.

Still, Harry felt that he'd at least have tried to acknowledge the discomfort and sorrow Cho had felt under the year since she was quite down after Cedric Diggory's death. After all, she still had one more year at Hogwarts; he should at least try to smooth things out with her. Harry went over to his desk and took out quill and paper and began to write…

Dear Cho.

Harry Potter.

Harry re-read the letter twice before he sealed it. Then he turned to Hedwig…
'Do you think you can find Cho Chang for me? I don't know how far you will have to travel, but there's really no hurry…'
Hedwig gently nipped his fingers as sign of understanding, and then she flew off through the window. As Harry followed her until she'd disappeared beyond the horizon, he now felt that a great weight had been lifted off his soul. Maybe Dr. McSwan was right…

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The weight that had been removed was unfortunately replaced quickly the next day. The Dursley's, who as usual ignored Harry's birthday wanted a full payback for his therapy, therefore Harry was sent out to tend to not only the Dursley's garden, but some of the neighbour's gardens as well. Uncle Vernon grinned with malevolence as he showed Harry the timetable: he'd been booked for different kind of works everyday until the date it was time to go back to school.
'Some work will do you good, and I will get my money back…' Uncle Vernon said happily. Harry felt like he was going to explode, he dug his hand in his pocket and grinded the balls in a desperate attempt to calm down.
'Well, don't just stand there, boy. Get out there and trim the hedge. After that you'll be going over to the Dawson's and clean their pool. And you must be finished with the Benson's flowerbed before dawn. And tomorrow you will use the whole day to paint the Peabody's house…'

Harry was really tempted to fetch his wand and hex the Dursley's with a Furunculous Curse, but he knew that it would be unwise. He had enough problems with the Ministry of Magic already, if he did anything like that, he would be expelled immediately, and then he would never get out of Privet Drive. So Harry had no choice but to do the work Uncle Vernon sent him to do. He now regretted that he sent Hedwig away with the letter, he couldn't send word to Professor Lupin for help.
Harry had a real hard time keeping his temper in control, mostly because of his cousin Dudley who strolled around eating ice cream and snickered at him. Harry felt blood pumping to his head; it gave him quite a headache.

Harry was just wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, when he heard the angry voice of Uncle Vernon call for him.
'POTTER!'
'What now?' Harry angrily called back.
'Don't raise your voice against me! Get in here this instant!' Harry threw away the hedge-clipper and went back inside the house, where Uncle Vernon waited for him looking quite furious.
'How many times do I have to tell you that I - do - not - want any wretched OWLS in my house!' he roared and pointed towards the big couch in the living-room where one owl, big, tawny and handsome sat and looked at the other owl scornfully, 'cause the other was small and lively, and was zooming around the room happily hooting, with no sense of dignity. Harry snatched the tiny one in midair, knowing perfectly well that it was Pig, Ron's owl. Harry felt a bit of sadness again. Pig had been a gift to Ron from Sirius Black, after he'd exposed Ron's old rat Scabbers as Wormtail.

How Pig had managed to fly here with two small parcels and two letters tied to his feet, Harry didn't know. But he released Pig from his burden and opened the first letter:

Happy Birthday, Mate.

Your friend
Ron.

Harry snorted. So that was it? Again they got together without him and now they've even become a couple. Backstabbers! Now they'll probably be keeping a distance even more from him just so they can have some snog-time together… Harry's stomach lurched of the thought and he felt his blood beginning to boil again.
'I want the wretched creatures OUT!' roared Uncle Vernon.
'Yes, Yes. I'll deal with it!' Harry spat back. He pocketed the parcels to look at them later. Maybe. Then he opened the other letter, this one from Hermione.

Dear Harry.

Love from
Hermione.

Harry snorted again. After reading Ron's letter, he was quite certain that it wasn't just to help out Ginny that she was there. He would bet his Broomstick that deep down they were both relieved of Harry absence so that they could spend more time together, if it weren't for that that his trusted Firebolt was still locked up in Hogwarts ever since the Umbridge-wench confiscated it. Not that he needed it any more, since he was banned from Quidditch.
'Well?' Uncle Vernon furiously asked again.
'Give me a moment!' Harry answered angrily.
'I will not!' Vernon roared. 'I want the blasted birds OUT!' Feeling a heavy pressure on his head, Harry took the letter from the bigger owl and sent it away, as well as Pig. The envelope was from Hogwarts and it was quite thick.

'Look, Vernon.' Aunt Petunia had entered the living room and looked quite dismayed. 'They have moulted all over the couch and the floor…'
'Clean up this mess, boy!' Vernon shouted.
'When I'm done!' Harry shouted back.
'Don't shout at me!' Vernon roared. Harry trembled with anger as he opened the letter. Inside were the results of his latest exam: 7 OWLs. Harry couldn't tell if it was a good or bad result, he just had to wait and see… then it was the usual booklist he needed to buy in Diagon Alley.
'Feathers all over the place…' muttered Aunt Petunia as she came in with a vacuum cleaner. 'Wouldn't surprise me if there where droppings somewhere too…' Dudley seemed to hope so as he stood watching from the doorway. That would mean that his Dad would shout even more at Harry.

'Get to work, boy.' Aunt Petunia said to Harry, but he wasn't listening. He was reading an extra letter that had been included…

Dear Mr. Potter.

Yours sincerely,
Professor M. McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

Harry's hands began to shake violently. His vision was starting to blur and his head felt like it was on the verge of bursting. Now he was even deprived of visiting Hogsmeade! Give the new permission form to his next guardian, Uncle Vernon, to sign? There wasn't even any point of trying, 'cause he would refuse, just like he had the last time. Harry couldn't take it any more. His heart was pounding roughly, but Harry couldn't breathe. With the blood pressure threatening to blow his brain, he screamed…

'AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHH…'

Every vase, porcelain dish on the walls, glass in the frames holding pictures of Dudley, even the window-glass… everything brittle seemed to just explode as Harry bellowed his rage. The Dursley's, seeing this as an attack of magic, panicked and fled the room. And then everything was quiet. The three members of the Dursley's carefully peeked inside the living room… Harry lay sprawled on the floor, face down and arms in front of him as if he was crying…
'What do you think you're doing?' Uncle Vernon shouted. 'Are you trying to bring down the whole house on top of us? How many times have I told you not to use your freakish powers here? Now, you're going to be expelled! And don't lie there weeping on the floor…!'

'Er… Vernon?' Aunt Petunia interrupted her husband as she leaned over Harry's silent and motionless body.
'I think… we need to call for an ambulance…'

Author's notes:
Well, that's the first chapter of an all new story. I hope you will like this one as much as you liked my first story: 'The curse of Ron Weasley'. Harry's aneurysm-problem and the chinese worry-balls is borrowed from a Red Dwarf episode (Rimmer World), when Arnold Rimmer had those problems.
Please be prepared for that there will be some time between the uploads, 'cause I'm a slow writer and I got work to go to every day. But I'll do my best to keep it up as fast as I can.