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Harry Potter: Forging the Flame Ch. 26
🕑 Added 2025-04-26 19:18:07 +0000 UTCChapter 26.
The dormitory was dark, the other boys were sleeping. Harry lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, hands folded behind his head.
“Do you think that anger belongs to you, Harry? Or is it something you were given?”
He could picture Andromeda’s mouth when she said it, her dark eyes watching him carefully. Harry had never felt so exposed in his life. He tried to push the memory away, but it kept coming back, like a pebble stuck in his shoe he couldn’t shake out.
Did it belong to him? He didn’t know. Maybe. It felt like it did. It lived inside him, didn’t it? It was his chest that burned, his hands that clenched when he was angry. Nobody else could carry it for him. Nobody else even seemed to notice it half the time. It had to be his. Even if it started somewhere else, even if it grew out of things he couldn’t control, it was still his now. His mess. His responsibility. Because at the end of the day, who else was going to deal with it?
He rolled onto his side, pulling the blanket higher even though he wasn’t cold. The thought didn’t make him feel any better.
Maybe clearing his mind would help. He shifted on the mattress, settling deeper into the pillow, and closed his eyes. He didn’t focus on anything in particular. Just breathing. In and out. For a few seconds, it almost worked. His legs stopped tensing under the blanket. But then, like a drip from a leaking ceiling, the thoughts started up again. Little things at first.
The crackle of magic during Transfiguration when McGonagall had them working on partial elemental shifts. His wand pulling too much power, the edges of the spell warping before he caught it.
Potions, the smell of burnt knotweed still clinging to his robes.
Defense drills, fast and brutal, the way Moody barked at him to move faster, hit harder.
Late nights in the library with the journal, old words digging into the back of his mind, pulling him places he didn’t always want to go.
It all bled together, sharp edges scraping against each other.
And somewhere in the middle of it, he realized he wasn’t breathing anymore. His chest was tight. His thoughts had pulled him under again without even meaning to.
Harry opened his eyes and sucked in a slow, shaky breath. The dormitory was still dark, still quiet. He focused on the air moving in and out of his lungs until the tightness loosened a little. It didn’t help much.
“Tempus,”
Soft blue numbers floated above his wand. 2:13 a.m.
Harry sighed, wiped a hand over his face, and slowly sat up. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his socks. No point trying to force sleep that wasn’t coming.
He moved carefully, stepping over the creaky floorboard near Neville’s bed and slipping past Ron’s trunk without bumping it. His feet made barely a sound on the worn stone as he eased the door open and stepped into the stairwell.
The common room was mostly dark, just the low orange glow of the fireplace lighting the edges of the furniture. Harry shuffled across the rug, too tired to think about anything except sitting down. That was when he spotted movement near the corner.
Dobby was standing on a chair, polishing one of the brass lanterns, humming quietly to himself. When he saw Harry, he nearly fell off, ears flapping as he beamed.
“Harry Potter, sir!” Dobby squeaked, jumping down and landing with a little bounce. “Dobby is most honored to see you tonight, sir!”
Harry blinked, caught off guard by the sudden energy. “Hey, Dobby,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You is never interrupting, sir!” Dobby said fiercely, puffing out his chest. “Dobby is always happy to see Harry Potter!”
Harry gave a tired smile and sank into the nearest chair, rubbing his forehead.
Dobby’s ears twitched. He stepped closer, peering up at Harry with a worried look.
“Harry Potter is not looking well, sir,” he said quietly.
Harry shook his head a little. “Just tired, Dobby. Long day.”
Dobby wrung his hands, clearly not satisfied with that answer. Without another word, he popped away with a faint crack.
Harry didn’t even have time to sit up before Dobby reappeared, holding a steaming mug in both hands like it was something precious.
“Hot chocolate, sir,” Dobby said earnestly, offering it up. “Best for tired nights.”
Harry blinked at it, then gave a real, small smile. “Thanks, Dobby.”
He took the mug, the warmth of it soaking into his fingers almost immediately. It smelled rich, a little like cinnamon. Harry sank back in the chair and took a careful sip.
Dobby hovered nearby, still wringing his hands. “Harry Potter is… sad tonight?”
Harry stared into the cup for a second, watching the steam curl and fade.
“Not sad,” he said slowly. “It’s more like… my mind’s going somewhere I don’t want it to. Like I’m trying to steer it one way and it keeps pulling the other.”
Dobby listened intently, ears twitching. Then he gave a small, knowing smile.
“Harry Potter is fighting the monster,”
Harry looked up, confused. “Monster?”
Dobby nodded, his big green eyes serious. “Before Malfoys, Dobby had one master. Old master. Not kind, not cruel. He used to say… the worst monster in the world is ego. Harder to see than any dark wizard. Harder to fight than any curse.”
Harry frowned into his mug.
“Ego?” he repeated. The word felt strange in his mouth, like he was trying out something that didn’t quite fit. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dobby tilted his head. “Ego is… thinking you are the biggest thing, sir. That you must be right, must be safe, must be strong. Ego tricks minds. Makes them scared to be small. Scared to change.”
Harry shifted in the chair, the hot chocolate forgotten in his hands.
“That sounds… bad,” he said slowly.
Dobby nodded seriously. “Not bad to have, sir. Bad when it controls.”
Harry thought about that. About the way he kept trying to clear his mind and it fought back, dragging him places he didn’t want to go. About the tight knot of anger and shame and confusion twisting up inside him.
“So… it’s like a part of you that doesn’t want you to change?”
“Yes, sir!” Dobby said, beaming, as if Harry had just won ten house points. “Ego says, ‘stay safe.’ Ego says, ‘stay angry.’ Ego says, ‘stay where it knows you.’”
Dobby went back to tidying the hearth, humming under his breath, and Harry sat there turning the words over in his mind.
Stay where it knows you.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s why it felt like his mind was dragging him backwards when he was trying so hard to move forward.
He took another slow sip of hot chocolate, then glanced at Dobby, who was now reorganizing the kindling with ridiculous precision.
“Hey, Dobby,” Harry said. “Can I ask you something?”
Dobby popped upright, eyes wide and eager. “Anything, Harry Potter, sir!”
Harry hesitated. “It’s about… house-elves.”
Dobby’s ears twitched.
“There’s been this… thing,” Harry said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “Ron and Hermione, they were arguing about it. About how house-elves work here at Hogwarts. About if it’s fair.”
He looked at Dobby, trying to read his expression. “Do you… like it? Working here? Is it really your choice?”
Dobby’s ears twitched again, but he didn’t look upset. He set the last piece of kindling down very precisely before turning back to Harry, hands folded in front of him.
“Dobby is free, sir,” he said proudly. “Free elf. Chooses his work. Chooses his place.” He tapped his chest with one long finger. “Dobby works at Hogwarts because Dobby wants to. Headmaster Dumbledore offered Dobby wages and days off, and Dobby said yes.”
He hesitated, ears drooping just a little. “But… most elves, sir… they do not want freedom. They are happy working. Happy serving. They do not think like wizards think.”
Harry frowned into his mug. “But… why?”
Dobby’s big green eyes shimmered in the firelight. “Because, sir,” he said carefully, like it was a thing he had practiced saying before, “when you is told all your life that you is only good if you serve… it is hard to think any different.”
He shrugged, small shoulders rising and falling. “Freedom is scary when you is never taught to want it.”
Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He sat there, mug heavy in his hands, feeling something cold crawl up his spine.
It sounded way too close to some things he had been thinking lately about himself.
When he finally blinked and looked around, Dobby was gone.
Harry set the mug aside, pushed himself up from the chair, and headed for the stairs.
No point sitting here all night.
Harry reached behind his mattress. His fingers closed around the worn leather and he pulled it free.
He climbed back onto the bed, drew the curtains halfway shut, and flipped the journal open to where he had left off.
The words were waiting for him.
I set these words to parchment beneath the scorched skies of Kemet, where the sands hiss like serpents and the sun smiteth even the stones. I have crossed the outer dunes beyond Saqqara, where ruins lie half-devoured by time and spiteful ghosts haunt the breath of the wind. Three nights past, I did battle with twin Chimeras that guarded the mouth of a forgotten tomb, and scarcely did I leave the place with life enough to write these lines. My wand is splintered, my robes torn, and yet it is not the beasts of flesh that trouble me, but the beasts within.
Long have I pondered upon the makings of mine own mind, and in the stillness of these perilous nights have I come to see that it is no singular vessel, but a weaving of threefold nature, each thread hidden from the next, yet all bound in the same loom.
First there is Belief, that which clotheth the self in names and duties, that which proclaimeth, I am thus, and I am not thus. It is the tongue of the waking soul, the herald of reason. Yet Belief is but mist above deep waters; it shifteth with each storm of fortune, it bendeth before pain and longing. It proclaimeth mastery, yet knoweth not the root of its own voice.
Second there are Wounds, deep and unseen, like stones sunk beneath black rivers. These are the memories untended, the griefs unspoken, the shames buried in shallow graves. Though they lie silent, they seep into all things, staining thought, steering will. A man may speak of freedom, yet be slave to a sorrow he hath never named.
Third there is the Stranger, the raw spirit, fierce and wordless, the beast that knoweth hunger and fear, that striketh before reason may tame it. It is neither good nor evil, but it is old — older than speech, older than fire. It is the thing that preserveth life when all else falleth to ruin, yet it is blind and heedeth no law save survival.
Thus must I reckon with this bitter truth:
If that which moveth within me is beyond my knowing, then I am its thrall, not its master.
And if mastery is my charge, then ignorance is the chain that bindeth me fast.
The tombs here are thick with spells of forgetting. Cursed to draw the mind into endless maze, where thought loopeth upon itself like a snake devouring its own tail. I have felt it gnawing at the edges of my memory as I wandered the catacombs, and I say now with no jest: there is no prison crueler than the loss of the self.
What is unseen cannot be governed, and what is unfaced cannot be healed.
Let no man speak to me of blind faith. Faith bindeth the eye and sootheth the spirit, but it delivereth no freedom. Only knowledge, won by toil and courage, may tear back the veil.
I see now that to heal the mind is no gentle work. It is a war fought not with wands nor sword, but with sight.
To walk the corridors of the soul is to tread a shifting tide, to behold monsters not born of malice but of forgetting.
Thus I set down this oath, in mine own blood and spirit:
I shall seek that which is hidden, though it break me.
I shall name that which is nameless, though it shame me.
I shall look upon the Stranger within and call it mine.
And if I fail, let it not be for cowardice.
Harry closed the journal and leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. Some of it made sense. He understood what Joren meant about things living in the mind without permission, about needing to drag them into the light before they could be changed. But knowing it was different than doing it. He could feel how deep the roots went. How much work it would take to even start pulling them out. It wouldn’t be a week, or a month. He just didn’t know where to begin.
The night had crawled by in pieces, broken into long stretches of staring at the ceiling and short bursts of thinking he’d maybe dozed off, only to find he hadn’t. When the first grey light started leaking through the cracks of the curtains, Harry had already given up. He dressed like a ghost, went through the motions, and followed the others down to the dungeons without saying a word.
Harry didn’t even remember getting through the lesson. One moment he was hunched over a cauldron with Daphne muttering something about stirring counterclockwise, and the next thing he knew, the bell was ringing and students were packing up around him. He moved on autopilot through the corridors, skipped lunch without thinking, and climbed the stairs back up to Gryffindor Tower. The dormitory was blissfully empty when he pushed inside. No noise, no demands, just his bed waiting for him like a lifeboat.
Harry didn’t even bother pulling the curtains closed. He dropped onto the bed face-first, not even caring that he was still wearing his shoes. For a long moment, he just lay there, breathing into the pillow, every part of him aching from exhaustion that had nothing to do with magic or running or even lack of sleep.
He let his eyes drift shut. Maybe just a quick nap. Fifteen minutes. Enough to stop feeling like a walking ghost.
Something buzzed under his pillow.
Harry grunted, reaching blindly until his fingers closed around the mirror. He dragged it out and squinted at the glass.
Sirius’ face was there, looking serious in a way Harry didn’t see often.
“Harry, you awake?”
Harry made a noise that could’ve meant yes or no.
Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Got any big plans for Halloween?”
Harry rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. “Not really. Just the feast. Watching the champions get picked, I guess.”
Sirius hummed like he was thinking something over. “Well… how about something different?”
Harry blinked at the mirror. “Like what?”
“Thought maybe you and I could go visit Godric’s Hollow. Visit your mum and dad properly. I could pick you up that morning. You’ve still got a few days. Gives you time to think about it.”
Harry sat up straighter without meaning to, the blanket sliding down his arms. His throat felt tigh.
“Yeah,” he said, the word coming out rough but sure. “Yeah, I want that.”
Sirius’ smiled. “Good. We’ll work out the details later. Get some rest first, kid.”
The mirror went dark.
Harry set the mirror down beside him and let his head fall back onto the pillow. He didn’t even bother pulling the blanket up. His body felt like lead, and this time, sleep didn’t ask permission.
At first, the dream felt almost normal. He was standing in a house he didn’t recognize, but somehow knew. The floors creaked under his bare feet. The air smelled like tea and old wood. A woman was laughing in another room, a sound so light it barely touched the edges of his mind. He wanted to follow it, wanted to see her face.
But the hallway stretched out longer the further he walked. The walls peeled. The doors twisted on their hinges. That laughter turned sharp, bending into something wrong.
He ran, calling out without sound, pushing through a door that collapsed into ash at his touch.
On the other side, there was nothing.
Just darkness. Cold and endless.
And something waiting in it.
It wasn’t Voldemort. It wasn’t a monster he could fight. It was him. Twisting, broken versions of himself, angry and scared and lost, pulling at him, whispering things he didn’t want to hear.
The harder he fought to wake up, the deeper he sank, like something had hooked its claws into the back of his mind and wouldn’t let go.
When he finally ripped free, gasping, he was back in his bed, heart hammering so hard it hurt.
The dormitory was still quiet.
Harry pressed his fists against his eyes and stayed like that, breathing slow and shaky, until he could tell where he ended and the dream began.
Next chapter we are officialy starting tournament. Stay tuned!
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Comments
rotamod
Thank you for your support! I like the fact that you told me in a straight way what you want to see and what you would like me to avoid, sometimes I have doubts whenever i pursue certain last say angles of the story. On that note though, what do you think about concepts of Minds Arts? Ive been giving off some not subtle signals that Harry might get involve in that, would you like that?
UN
I really like this story - it's why I signed up for at least a year. But you DID ask about our reactions to the Ego bit..... and while I like what happened with Andromeda, I guess I don't want the internal growth bit to overshadow the actual action in the story. It's not bad, just not very important to me to go into in depth once it was acknowledged as an issue. I also hope the SPEW thing doesn't take up too much of the story. I've read stories where it goes on and on and on..... and again, it just isn't the focus I'm reading for, personally. I WOULD like to see more on Harry's magical progression and development, you are making that very interesting. Thanks!
