Walk the Shadows

'Everything all right, Harry?' Dumbledore asked.

Harry sighed again and went to sit down in one of the chairs in front of the Headmaster's cluttered desk. 'Yes, sir.'

Dumbledore peered at him over his half-moon spectacles, and Harry felt himself almost squirming under that knowing look.

Then, despite his promise to Snape, he felt his temper getting the better of him. 'Is this going to be another of those talks where you tell me my greatest strength is my ability to feel pain? Because I really don't think I could take it right now, no offense.'

The silence went on a long time, but this time, Harry refused to look away. Amazingly, Dumbledore backed off first, turning to Fawkes and rubbing the phoenix's chest with his index finger briefly, before settling his gaze on Harry again. Then his blue eyes drew Harry's gaze and held it in a firm grip. For a heartbeat, Harry felt a light pull at his mind, before he shoved a block of stone in front of his thoughts. The pull vanished, and Harry barely kept from glaring at Dumbledore's attempt to Legilimize him.

Dumbledore spoke without referencing what he had just done, his gaze just as sharp. 'I believe I told you at that time that I had made many mistakes regarding you,' he said. 'And how, because I had grown to care for you a great deal, I was not as forthright with information as I might have otherwise been.' His voice was calm, and not cold, but without even a trace of remorse, unlike how it had been in June.

Harry nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

'I want you to know, Harry, that since I am human, I will continue to make errors, though I hope to keep them from being catastrophic.'

'Me, too,' Harry muttered. Sirius' death was about as much catastrophe as he could deal with, ever.

Dumbledore smiled wryly. 'I learned many lessons from the mistakes I made with Tom Riddle, and I would hope not to repeat any of them with you.'

'But you did!' Harry said, stung. 'You sent him back to his orphanage, even when he begged to stay here over summers. Just like you sent me back to the Dursleys.'

'I do regret that.'

'Do you? I think it's just real easy to say so, now, when you can't send me back again.'

'Harry, I never wished for any harm to come to you—'

'No? Then why didn't you tell me about . . .' Harry stopped. He wasn't going to go into a tirade over all the sleights, real and imagined, he could lay at Dumbledore's feet. He was too goddamned tired for it. 'Never mind,' he finished lamely. 'I'm sorry. For yelling.' He paused. 'And for wreaking your stuff before.'

Dumbledore nodded. 'I understand. You were very upset that night. With good reason.'

'Yeah. Well, I'm still sorry.' There, now Snape would have one less thing to pester him about.

The Headmaster watched him silently for a few minutes. 'How are you doing with that, Harry?'

'With Sirius being dead you mean?' Harry asked harshly.

At Dumbledore's nod, Harry grated out, 'How do you think? I miss him so much I can't even think about him without wanting to scream my head off or smash stuff or both. And the worst part is it's my fault he's dead. I know you said it wasn't, and so does Snape. But it's the same as Cedric, and my parents and everyone he's killed since taking my blood in the graveyard. If not for me, they'd all still be alive! SO HOW DO YOU FUCKING THINK??'

Harry was panting hard, sucking in breaths when he could catch them, and glaring at Dumbledore, who gazed serenely back at him. That calm, untouchable gaze just stoked his fury to greater heights. He couldn't take it anymore, just could not take it.

In that moment, he wanted to make the Headmaster hurt as much as Harry did right now. He wanted him to see what he'd been through at the manor, cursed and blinded and raped, wanted him to know the awful things his aunt and uncle had said to him day after day, to hear his screams through the nightmares he had lived with for years, while Voldemort's tortures flowed like fire in his veins, to feel the beatings Dudley had dealt him, and to know what it meant to be starved and unwanted and made to feel like a freak, every day of his life for ten long, unforgivable years.

So, in the next moment, instead of turning away or walking away, or even having another screaming fit in this office, Harry Showed him. He dredged up every memory he could and pressed all of them into a tight, narrow, razor sharp ribbon. Using every ounce of magical energy he possessed, he flung the spear of memory toward Dumbledore, through the connection the Headmaster had tried to use earlier with his own Legilimency.

The piercing blade sliced right into the Headmaster's mind. Quicker than thought, Dumbledore's whole body went rigid, his face frozen in a mask of pain and fear and torment. Only his eyes moved, blue orbs flicking in terror at images that, up till now, only Harry had seen all of, only Harry had lived through, felt and experienced. At the same time, Harry saw it all again, with him, remembered every minute of torture, every harsh word, every bruise and cut and curse, and it was only the continued connection between them that kept him from screaming and screaming and screaming. . . .

But now . . . now Dumbledore could understand his pain.

Time passed. A breeze touched Harry's back, from the door slamming open behind him, and a sweep of black robes suddenly blocked the Headmaster from view.

Snape. His every sharp gesture and movement showed his fear and, yes, his complete and utter wrath. He grabbed hold of the Headmaster's chin and forced the man to look away from Harry and into his own eyes, shredding their mind connection.

Harry staggered and grabbed at a chair to keep from falling. At some point, he must have stood up, but he didn't remember doing so. He could barely breathe, his chest hurt like he'd been running for hours, and his throat felt raw like he'd been screaming almost as long. His head was in agony, like an army of trolls was marching on