Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling and her various corporate partners. Keldorn Firecam is owned by BioWare, Atari, or whoever it is that owns the rights to Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn these days, although I have taken several liberties with his character. I own nothing, and I am making no profit by my little ventures into the shadowy realms of fanfiction. I do so purely for enjoyment. I would, however, like to thank JKR for allowing us all to play in her sandbox.
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Harry Potter and the Knight of the Radiant Heart
V
Thunk!
The log that was on the chopping block split in two. Harry repositioned the larger of the two resulting pieces and then raised the maul for another swing.
Thunk!
Harry had spent several days after his conversation with Keldorn splitting wood and thinking. While swinging the maul and moving the logs around was physically exhausting labor, the repetitive nature of the task also provided Harry with ample opportunity to reflect on the past couple of weeks and the things that he had said and done.
He decided that Dumbledore really didn't deserve the treatment Harry had given him. Yes, the Headmaster could have acted differently, but then again, Harry should have acted differently too. It seemed that for all his power, learning and mystique, Dumbledore was just a man after all. And like all human beings, he was prone to sometimes choose the wrong course of action and make mistakes. Harry tried to see things from Dumbledore's point of view; if he had knowledge of a secret prophecy about the most evil and dangerous wizard in the world, and if he knew that the dark wizard needed the information in that prophecy at all costs, would Harry have been willing to share that secret with a fifteen year-old schoolboy? Probably not.
But it was just so easy to be angry with Dumbledore. He was supposed to be in charge; he was supposed to make sure that everything worked out alright in the end. And now, when things had gone to Hell and would never be the same again, it was easy to blame the man who was supposed to stop that from happening. But how, exactly, was Dumbledore supposed to stop Voldemort all on his own or with the support of only a small group of civilians and a few schoolchildren? The old wizard was caught between a rock and a hard place, and Harry had held him to impossibly high standards.
Each swing of the maul forced Harry to realize that Dumbledore did not deserve his anger. It hurt to realize that Dumbledore wasn't all-powerful after all, that he couldn't solve every problem. But Harry supposed that realizing that your idols were just mere human beings was a part of growing up.
Thunk!
Harry looked over at the old knight sitting by the hut with his feet propped up on a log, reading and smoking as always. Sir Keldorn Firecam was somewhat of a curiosity for Harry. Sir Firecam, as he insisted on being called by one as young as Harry, had spent each day with him down by the Gamekeeper's hut. While Harry worked himself to exhaustion, the knight would read, trade stories with Hagrid, or sometimes just close his eyes. Harry didn't think he was sleeping at those times, as he still seemed to be aware of what was going on around him. It was more like he was meditating.
Harry always thought that knights and warriors would spend more time fighting or training or whatever it was that soldiers did. He never thought of knights spending as much time reading as Keldorn did.
I bet Hermione would like to be in his army.
Thunk!
That thought brought to mind his other favorite topic to dwell on: one Hermione Granger. She had continued to send him letters everyday, each one a little more frantic than the last.
And each one went unanswered.
Harry read all of the letters of course, and then placed them in his trunk with the others with a mumbled, "I'll write her back later," and that was it. He wasn't completely sure why he was putting off penning a response, but he knew it had to do with the guilt and the anger that he still felt. He knew it was wrong for him to ignore his friends like he had, but he just didn't know what else to do. Like he had told Keldorn a few days ago, Hermione should be dead and it was his fault.
Harry was partly convinced that the girl genius would wise up and realize that fact sometime soon, and then she would want nothing to do with him if he was lucky, and would likely kill him if he wasn't. Harry just couldn't think of anything to say that would repair the damage he had caused to their friendship. You can't take back leading your friends into a deathtrap.
Thunk!
Speaking of death, when he wasn't too angry to see straight or absorbed in his thoughts about Hermione, Ron and the others, his mind would come back to Sirius. Hermione was lucky; she was miraculously pulled back from the brink of death. Sirius wasn't. He really was dead and he wouldn't be coming back. Thinking about Sirius didn't make him sad but angry. The only problem was he didn't know who he was supposed to be angry with.
Thunk!
Harry had already worked out that it wasn't Dumbledore's fault; the Headmaster was doing the best he could to fight the Dark Lord. But was Harry supposed to be mad at Kreacher for lying to him and thus convincing him to go to the Department of Mysteries, Bellatrix Lestrange for casting the spell that threw his godfather through the veil, or Voldemort for masterminding the whole thing? Harry just wasn't sure. He couldn't really make his anger stick with any of them. He would try, he tried to hate them, but he couldn't do it. Harry was certain that he would go after them for what they'd done. He knew that he would stand up to Voldemort if only because the prophecy dictated that he had to, but in all honesty, Harry wasn't really angry with them.
Harry had brought up his confusing anger with Keldorn the night before as they were preparing to head back to the castle after a long day of splitting wood.
"Anger is a tricky thing," the knight had replied, "sometimes it is right and just for a man to be angry, and yet at other times it leads him to the very worst things imaginable. Saint Tomus the Black Friar would say that anger is a response to a perceived insult. When someone insults you, it's not really correct to say that you're angry with the person, it's more that you're angry with the insult. We often get angry with people not only when their words are insulting, but more often when their actions are perceived as an insult. You would likely be angry if one of your friends did something to betray you because their actions would be unexpected, at odds with your previous beliefs about that person, and therefore insulting to you and your beliefs.
"It is not unheard of for a man to find it much harder to truly become angry with one's enemies, since we already expect and believe them to be likely to take actions against us. More often, people become insulted and therefore angry when an enemy offers some gesture of peace or kindness. Just think, if your so-called Dark Lord were to suddenly offer to pay for the funeral arrangements of your godfather, you would likely become rather angry, yes? Such an offer would go against the beliefs that you hold about the Dark Lord, and thus you would conclude that he is mocking you, insulting you, and you would be angry.
"However, as unpleasant and terrible as the reality of war is, we expect our enemies to try and harm us, try to kill us and our comrades on the field of battle. Thus, for some, like yourself, it can be difficult to be angry with your enemies for such actions."
Harry wasn't really sure of what to make of the old knight's explanation. It seemed right and yet wrong at the same time. Perhaps Harry just wanted to find a convenient target for his anger.
Thunk!
Because the more he thought and reflected about it, the unhappier he was with the person with whom he found that he was really angry.
Himself.
Bellatrix might have cast the spell, and Voldemort might have set the trap, but it was Harry that blindly charged into an unknown and dangerous situation. Even if his vision was right and Voldemort was torturing Sirius in the Ministry, what exactly had Harry hoped to accomplish by running off to confront him? Did he really think he could take on the most feared dark wizard in history with just his wand and a few friends?
Running off to the ministry was stupid. Leading his friends there was doubly stupid. And Harry was insulted by the sheer stupidity of his own actions. He expected better of himself. Thus he realized that the anger he was flinging in every direction, at everyone and everything that presented themselves to him as an easy target, was really meant for himself.
This realization made Harry feel kind of sick.
"Sir Firecam?" Harry asked as he carried an armful of split logs to the woodpile, "is there any way to, well… is it possible to stop becoming angry?"
Keldorn paused his reading and looked at Harry over the small spectacles that were perched on the tip of his nose.
"Well," replied the knight, "what did we learn from Saint Tomus yesterday? Where does anger come from?"
"From being insulted, yes I got that much. But I want to know if we can stop ourselves from becoming angry entirely. It's… well, the last couple of weeks haven't been very fun, what with my being angry all the time…"
"I see. Well, in truth, the answer is rather simple."
Harry looked up in surprise at this, not expecting a simple answer.
"If you desire to never be angry, you simply need to stop perceiving things as insults. Actually doing that, however, is anything but easy. You must grow in humility. Insults attack our pride; if you become truly humble, and remove all stain of pride from your soul, then you cannot perceive something as an insult, and thus you will never become angry."
Harry let out a sigh of disappointment at that.
"However," continued the knight, "I do not think such perfect humility is really possible for us in our fallen, darkened nature. Instead, work on becoming as humble as you can, and when you do find yourself becoming angry, recognize it, try to understand who or what you are really angry with, and put the energy you get from your anger into something productive."
"Like splitting wood?" Harry asked with a laugh.
"Indeed," replied the knight as he turned back to his reading. "Like splitting wood."
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Later that evening after dinner, Harry found himself standing in front of the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office.
"Err… I don't suppose you'd just let me in?"
After a moment of silence, during which Harry scratched his head trying to think of a likely password, the gargoyle simply moved to the side accompanied by the loud sound of stone grinding on stone.
"Thanks."
Harry rode up the stairs and knocked on the wooden door at the top.
"Come in, Harry," came the reply from the other side of the door. It seemed that Dumbledore already knew the identity of his visitor.
Harry entered the office and quietly shut the door behind him. A quick glance around the room saw that the armchair had been put back in its proper place and that the cabinet had been repaired. Its shelves, however, contained the broken and smashed pieces of whatever those mysterious items once were.
"Please, have a seat," Dumbledore said, gesturing to one of the chairs.
As Harry approached the desk and sat down, several of the silver, whirling, noisy things on the desktop scurried back out of Harry's reach. Harry blushed with embarrassment.
"What can I do for you this evening?" Dumbledore asked.
"I err…" Harry started, "I wanted to say I'm sorry."
Dumbledore smiled. "That's quite alright, my boy."
"No, err… it isn't." Harry quickly responded. "Please, just let me say it."
Dumbledore simply raised his eyebrows and nodded once.
"I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have yelled at you or broken your things like I did. I had no right to take my anger out on you. You might have made a few mistakes, but so have I. We're only human after all. You've always looked out for me, tried to help me as you could. So I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted, Harry," Dumbledore said with a smile. "And I'm afraid I must apologize as well. This past year hasn't been the best for you, and that is largely my fault. I avoided you, afraid that Voldemort would use the connection you share to attack me. I denied Professor McGonagall's recommendation for you to be one of the Gryffindor prefects, as I thought you had too much on your plate already. I did not realize that doing so would serve to isolate you from your friends as it did. I could have told you about the prophecy sooner, but, well, I'm afraid I simply wanted to spare you the burden for as long as I could. For these, Harry, and for all my many sins that have hurt you, I am truly sorry."
Harry was kind of embarrassed by the Headmaster's frank admissions. Harry's upbringing didn't exactly make him familiar with accepting apologies. Having Dumbledore apologize to him was just weird.
But, like he had come to realize, Dumbledore was merely human after all.
"Umm… that's okay, err… apology accepted."
"Thank you, Harry. That means very much to me."
The two wizards smiled at each other for a moment before Dumbledore brought up a different topic.
"Tell me, Harry, have you been finding your time with Sir Firecam to be beneficial?"
"How did you know about that?" Harry asked in surprise.
"You will find that there is very little that goes on in this castle that I am not aware of." The twinkle in Dumbledore's blue eyes had finally returned.
"Oh. Well, he's okay, I guess. He's helped me kinda work through a few things. By chopping up a tree no less."
"Excellent. I am very pleased to hear that. I believe that Sir Firecam could prove to be a very valuable ally for us in the coming days. I am confident when I say that I believe you can trust him without worry."
"Do you know, err, where exactly he came from?"
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before returning his gaze to his student.
"If you desire to know of his home world, I believe you would be better off asking him in person. If you instead want to know how he ended up in the Department of Mysteries, that is another question, one to which we don't have a very satisfactory answer.
"The room where you were fighting Bellatrix and where Sir Firecam first appeared is known as the Multiverse Room." Harry listened to the Headmaster's explanation with rapt attention. "While it is not common knowledge, it is a proven fact, nonetheless, that our universe is only one of many, perhaps even an infinite number of parallel universes. Each of the small crystal pendants that adorned the walls of that room could allow a person to travel to one of those alternate universes. In my many long years, I've had occasion to visit one or two of them, purely out of curiosity. These worlds can be very similar to our own, differing, for instance, in only what you might have chosen to eat for breakfast that very morning. Or they could be wildly different to the extent that you might never have existed there at all, or perhaps all of England was missing, or perhaps the earth never formed. The possibilities are seemingly endless…"
Dumbledore was now staring at a point somewhere behind Harry's shoulder, lost in wonder as he described the multiverse. A quick shake of his head brought his attention back to his pupil.
"Where was I? Oh yes. In any event, during the course of your battle, something reacted with the crystals which caused Sir Firecam to be pulled out of his world and dropped here in ours."
Harry's face paled.
"I err… I think I did it."
"Indeed?"
"Well, Bellatrix was banishing groups of the crystals at me, and my Shield Charms had no effect on them. So I cast a Reductor Curse at the next group, hoping to scatter them. Instead they exploded in a white ball of magic that knocked me out. When I came to, Sir Firecam was on the floor."
"Most interesting," said the Headmaster. "The sheer amount of magic released in that room has rendered any of the Ministry's attempts to recreate the exact reaction that took place to be quite hopeless. That it was such a random occurrence from a basic spell is even more intriguing. I quite doubt the Unspeakables will ever be able to figure it out."
"So, does that mean he's stuck here?"
"Quite."
Harry's heart began racing. Sir Firecam's stuck here and it's my fault! I didn't even realize… I've been so caught up in everything else… I basically kidnapped the man away from everything he's ever known and I didn't even notice!
"I wouldn't worry about him too much though," continued Dumbledore, "he seems to be taking it quite well. He says that it's all up to Providence."
The Headmaster looked straight into the eyes of his student who seemed to be nearing hyperventilation.
"Don't worry, Harry. He and I have talked about this at great length. He doesn't blame you. And even if he did, he is not the type to hold grudges."
Dumbledore then moved to change the subject.
"I am glad that you stopped by to see me, because there is something else I need to tell you."
Harry focused on the Headmaster as he brought his breathing under control.
"I know you might not want to hear it, but I need to tell you the contents of Sirius' will."
Harry simply nodded for the old wizard to continue.
"You were named as the primary beneficiary of Sirius Orion Black, and aside from some small, almost insignificant bequests, you have inherited the entire Black fortune as well as the his old home: the Order's current Headquarters at Grimmauld Place."
Harry didn't know exactly how he should feel about that.
"Err… exactly how much…?"
"You'd have to ask the goblins to be sure, but I'm quite confident in saying that you need never worry about money again, as long as you keep a level head about you. There was some excitement at the reading when Narcissa Malfoy challenged the will, claiming that everything should go to Draco as he is the nearest male relative by blood." Harry felt his anger beginning to stir hearing that. "But don't worry, Sirius and the goblins left no loopholes for the Malfoys to exploit and their claim was rejected. To that end, I have a question for you.
"I would not presume to make use of Number Twelve without its owner's consent. So, Harry, would it be acceptable to you for the Order to continue to use it as our headquarters?"
"Oh," Harry replied, "that's fine." In truth, the whole topic had Harry feeling a bit out of sorts. He'd never have to worry about money? Harry knew that his parents had left him a tidy sum, but he figured most of that would be spent on his education. To now suddenly be wealthy, well, it was a strange concept.
"Well," said the Headmaster, "if there's nothing else you would like to discuss, I'm afraid I must bid you goodnight. I'm an old man and I need my beauty rest."
Harry rose from his chair at the dismissal.
"Right. Thanks for seeing me. Goodnight, Professor."
"No, Harry," returned the aged wizard, "thank you."
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The next day saw Harry once more splitting wood. He figured that he would probably manage to finish the job that day. Sir Firecam was in attendance as always; at the moment he was smoking his pipe and watching Harry's labors. Harry's mind was occupied with thoughts of the old knight. He felt sorry for him, stranded in a foreign world with apparently no hope of returning home.
How can he be so calm about it? Harry thought to himself. Why isn't he trying to find a way home?
Harry paused in his work, and turned to address the knight.
"Sir Firecam, I err… well…"
"What is it, boy?" the knight asked with his characteristic desire to speak plainly.
"I'm sorry," said Harry before he had a chance to have second thoughts about it.
"Oh? And just what are you sorry for?" queried the knight as he raised his eyebrows.
"For getting you stranded here. It was my spell that brought you here, and Professor Dumbledore says that they have no idea how it happened or how to send you home. I'm not sorry that you are here, I mean, if you weren't, Hermione would be, well, you know. But I'm sorry that you've been dragged here without a choice."
"I do not believe," began the knight, "that you have anything to apologize for in this instance. However, since you think that you do, I accept your apology. Thank you for your concern. But, like I said, my being here is really no fault of yours. Did you mean for your spell to bring me here?"
"Well, no."
"And there we have it. The reaction was an accident. Such things happen. It is not the first time I have been caught up in circumstances beyond my control."
"And you're okay with that?" questioned Harry.
"Yes," replied the knight in his usual calm tone, "my life, like the lives of all paladins, is at the service of the Light. I go where I am needed. I do not believe that I am here by chance, even if it was an accident that brought me here. Providence is at work here and time will reveal why I have been brought here."
Harry just nodded and went back to work. If the old knight didn't want to be upset with his situation, well, that was his choice. As he raised the maul and took aim at the log on the chopping block, Harry posed another question.
"So what are you going to do now?"
Sir Firecam tapped out the ashes and burnt remnants of tobacco from his pipe as he answered.
"Well, right now I will continue to make sure that you don't bleed to death if you happen to chop off your foot," the knight said with a smile. "After that, I believe that your Headmaster is trying to cook something up for me.
"In any event," he continued as he fished around in one of the pouches on his belt looking for his reading glasses, "I shall ultimately do what I was born to do."
"And what's that?"
"I will stand against the Darkness."
OoOoO
AN: The Multiverse Room and the crystal pendants that allow travel though the different universes are made in homage to Shadow Walks by lorien829. If you haven't read it, go do so now. Read everything she's written for that matter.
Not the most exciting of chapters, I know, but it was necessary. Things start to get a bit livelier in chapter VI, so stay tuned!
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