You're Awake

Harry slowly opened her eyes.

The familiar white curtains of the Hospital Wing came into view.

Sunlight streamed through the window onto the bedsheets, making the gold and scarlet Gryffindor crest shine.

"Harry! You're finally awake!" Ron's face appeared in her field of vision, his delight unmistakable.

Hearing Ron's shout, Hermione sprang up from her chair. After a quick look at Harry's condition, she hurried toward the door. "I'll get Madam Pomfrey!" she called, nearly knocking over a medicine bottle as she rushed out.

Harry's right arm still ached. She sat up with a grimace and only then noticed Dumbledore sitting at the foot of the bed. His Half-moon Spectacles reflected the sunlight, hiding the expression in his eyes, but his long silver beard looked messier than usual. He clearly hadn't had a proper night's sleep.

"Good morning, Harry." The headmaster's voice was as gentle as ever. "Can you tell us what happened?"

Harry glanced around the Hospital Wing.

He didn't see Professor Snape anywhere.

"A giant snake dragged me into a chamber," Harry said, her voice slightly hoarse with thirst. She licked her dry, chapped lips and continued, "Just after we managed to knock out the Troll."

She chose to leave out Voldemort.

She couldn't mention Voldemort. Another Voldemort was still living as a parasite on the back of Professor Quirrell's head. How could two Dark Lords exist at the same time in the same place?

Professor Dumbledore might believe her, but how was she supposed to explain that she had been reborn, or make them understand the terrible war she would go through later?

They'll think I'm mad.

That was what Harry thought.

Her gaze fell on her uninjured right arm. There should have been a mark where the Basilisk had bitten her.

Harry didn't know how to explain the connection between her and Voldemort, either. It was even stranger than it had been in her previous life.

Dumbledore's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

After so many years as a professor, Dumbledore knew all too well when a student was hiding something from him.

After Tom Riddle became Voldemort, he had lain awake night after night. Late at night, thoughts of the brief romance he'd had in his youth only plunged him deeper into guilt and self-reproach.

Back then, when Dumbledore hadn't been quite so old, he had bought a Muggle crash course in student psychology overnight. These days, Dumbledore wouldn't dare guarantee that, if he returned to his youth, he would know what Grindelwald was going to do just from seeing him stick out his bottom, but at the very least, he could tell whether a student was lying as soon as they opened their mouth.

Dumbledore lowered his head and met Harry's eyes through his spectacles for a moment. She shook her head, and he pressed her no further.

Harry was a good child. If she was keeping something from him, it could wait until she was ready to tell him.

"Salazar Slytherin did leave behind a legend about keeping a Basilisk, but I have never found the exact location of the Chamber of Secrets."

"It attacked you once, so it may attack again. Please be sure to take care from now on, Harry."

A Basilisk attacking a student was no small matter. Dumbledore hurried out of the Hospital Wing. He had to tell all the other professors and put them on alert. Since the Basilisk was active, they needed to protect the students.

Dumbledore had not been gone long when Hermione rushed in with Madam Pomfrey. Madam Pomfrey waved her wand like a conductor's baton and cast several diagnostic spells on Harry, enveloping her body in a silvery mist.

After a while, she smiled with satisfaction. "Your injuries have healed. You've just overexerted your magic a little, dear. You can leave now, but don't take part in any activities today, for the sake of your spirits!"

This was good news, of course, and Ron and Hermione cheered. Harry only needed a little quiet rest; it was nothing too serious.

The three thanked Madam Pomfrey.

As they left the Hospital Wing, Harry looked toward a corner of the corridor. She seemed to glimpse a black robe disappearing around the bend, but when she looked again, there were only shadows cast by the flickering torches.

Maybe I imagined it?

Harry shook her head.

In the Headmaster's Office, the golden light of the setting sun poured through the stained-glass windows, scattering colors across the floor.

Dumbledore was bent over his phoenix-shaped inkwell, writing a letter, his quill scratching across the parchment. Fawkes was dozing on his perch when the office door suddenly flew open.

Snape stormed in, his black robes billowing like the wings of an angry bat, his gloomy face twisted with suppressed fury. "Albus! You let Quirrell go? And you're allowing him to keep teaching?"

His voice was very low, but as sharp as a poisoned dagger. "That stuttering fool nearly killed Potter!"

Dumbledore looked at him over his Half-moon Spectacles and calmly took a handful of Sherbet Lemons from his candy box. "Would you like one, Severus? They're very helpful for calming the nerves."

Snape stepped back half a pace in disgust, his black robes knocking over a small tea table behind him.

Several screaming books fell to the floor, letting out piercing wails.

He silenced them with a wave of his wand, but his eyes remained fixed on the headmaster's hand. The glittering sweets were as dazzling as little suns in the evening light.

Childish old lunatic.

Snape instinctively wanted to swat the sweets away, but suddenly remembered the face he had seen when carrying Harry to the Hospital Wing, pale from blood loss.

Her long red hair had covered her small face, which was no bigger than a palm, subtly overlapping with his memory of the last time he had seen Lily.

Little girls probably like sweets, don't they?

With that thought, Snape reached out and took the sweets as if possessed, then shoved them roughly into the pocket of his black robes.

The corners of Dumbledore's mouth rose slightly, and a knowing light twinkled in his blue eyes. "Calmed down? Good."

He took off his spectacles and wiped them. "The Basilisk has become active, Severus. You and I both know what that means."

A deathly silence suddenly fell over the office.

The portraits of the former headmasters and headmistresses on the walls all held their breath, and even Fawkes opened his eyes. A crack appeared in Snape's masklike expression. "You-Know-Who..."

The name burned his throat like poison.

"Even when the body perishes, darkness does not easily fade."

Dumbledore walked over to the Pensieve, silver light illuminating his solemn face. "Quirinus Quirrell has most likely joined his old master, but acting rashly would only alert him."

Snape's knuckles turned white. "So you're letting that traitor wander around the school? Letting him get close to-"

He abruptly broke off, his chest heaving beneath his black robes.

"We need to know what forces are behind him, Severus."

As Dumbledore turned, the stars on his robes shimmered. "More important than rooting out a puppet is making sure Voldemort can never return!" His gaze grew piercingly sharp.

Fawkes suddenly let out a clear cry, breaking the heavy atmosphere in the room. Snape was silent for a long time before finally giving a stiff nod.

As he turned to leave, his hand rubbed the sweets in his pocket unconsciously, their rough wrappers rustling softly.

After the office door closed, Dumbledore looked toward a portrait on the wall. The red-haired witch in the painting shook her head at him.

The old man sighed and removed his spectacles. "I know, but some sacrifices must be guarded against."

He was old now.

Over the years, he had watched so many children enter the school with smiles and come into his life, only to die before an old man like him.

He could not afford to lose anymore.