Remember Me

The four friends were engrossed in a game of wizard’s chess. As Ron was brilliant and Harry, Hermione and Cassandra were very bad, it was three against one, with Dean lounging in an armchair and suggesting helpful moves, but still…

“Checkmate,” said Ron triumphantly, moving his queen forward and stretching his arms back behind his head.

“No!” cried Cassandra and Hermione indignantly; Harry was resigned to Ron beating him after five years of it.

“You cheated,” said Cassandra, examing the chess pieces. “Either you cheated or the chess pieces just don’t listen to us.”

“Excuse me?” snapped the white knight, turning round on the board to glower at her. “You told me to move to E5, so I did!”

Hermione and Cassandra eagerly entered into a heated argument with the chess pieces as Harry and Ron sank into armchairs in front of the fire.

“So, have you decided when Quidditch training starts?” asked Ron.

“No…” said Harry. “Probably next weekend or something, I dunno.”

“Well, get started soon, mate! Slytherin have started training already.”

Harry shrugged, rubbing his eyes. He had been up late last night, finishing a particularly nasty essay Snape had set them for homework. “At least I haven’t got Crabbe and Goyle for beaters,” he muttered, staring into the fire.

“True,” agreed Ron, who was looking over at Hermione and Cassandra, who were still arguing with the chessmen, Dean at their side laughing at them. Cassandra now seemed to be threatening them with her wand.

“D’you really want to be Stunned? Because I can do it non-verbally now, aren’t you impressed…”

Harry grinned. “I think we’ve got a really good team this year,” he said to Ron.

Ron beamed with pride. “Yeah. We’ve got a good chance of winning – Hufflepuff haven’t got a very good side this year, so we can definitely beat them at least, but Ravenclaw…” He trailed off into a long and complicated Quidditch talk, which was only stopped when Cassandra and Hermione stalked over.

“Ron, you have very badly behaved chessmen,” said Cassandra. “They are so rude!”

“You did break one,” said Hermione fairly, sitting down and smiling.

“Only to teach it a lesson and I repaired it quickly.” She raised her eyebrows at Hermione, and then turned, frowning at Harry.

“Harry, you okay?”

Harry had raised his hands to his scar, which was prickling again. “Nothing,” he muttered. “Scar.”

Cassandra practically bounced next to him. “When are we starting Quidditch training?”

“Told you we need to get a move on,” grinned Ron.

“We’re not starting? Harry, you idiot, Ravenclaw have done about three hours every day.”

Cassandra turned to Hermione. “C’mon, Hermione, let’s try and attempt the impossible and get you to fly on a broomstick. Let’s go!”

But Harry didn’t move, wasn’t, in fact, concentrating on the conversation. The cosy red common room seemed to be fading slowly in front of his eyes as the pain in his scar mounted. He had a confused impression of the floor slowly reaching up, closer to him that it should be before the cheerful colours faded to black, and a voice was speaking in his ear again, as if he was close by, though there was nothing in the impenetrable darkness.

And Harry tried to force out Voldemort, tried desperately to fight the darkness that made him defenceless and weak, tried not to be taken over by the soft, hissing, hypnotic voice.

Harry Potter…let me in…you cannot beat me…

And it felt as if Voldemort was getting closer to him, and Harry turned around, searching desperately in the darkness but found nothing.

The prophecy, Harry…

And as Harry felt Voldemort come closer to him, almost become him, his scar burned fiercely and he felt as if his head would burst from the pain.

And then he felt his control, his self, slipping.

Voldemort seized his chance.

As Harry felt himself drift away into the darkness, Voldemort searched; searched for the answers he wanted, searched for the truth, the solution. He penetrated Harry’s mind, every memory, every thought, looking for the prophecy.

But Harry would not give it to him.

Harry protected the memory of what Dumbledore had told him that night, collected every thought he had ever had about the prophecy and created an impenetrable wall that Voldemort could not break down, could not get into. And though it cost him every ounce of strength he possessed, Harry refused to break down, to show Voldemort the prophecy.

Voldemort yelled in rage and the sound issued out of Harry’s mouth. And the darkness was somehow growing fainter, and the hypnotic spell Voldemort had put on Harry was fading, and Harry found himself back in control, but still with Voldemort in the back of his head, hissing and still determined to find the prophecy.

They fought.

And as they fought for control of the knowledge, as they fought the hardest mental battle they had ever experienced, Harry’s vision blurred. Sometimes he could see nothing, he was blind, but other times he caught glimpses of the faded red carpet of the common room, a flash of red hair, a pair of silver-grey eyes close to his…

As he saw her eyes, a jolt of shock flew through Voldemort; Harry felt it as though it was his own.

Who is she?

Harry felt Voldemort trying to open his eyes; he screwed them up tightly.

Tell me her name, Harry…

Voldemort was becoming powerful again, he was rearing up and it was all Harry could do to refuse…

“Harry! Harry!”

“What’s happening to him, the idiot?!”

Tell me…

Harry couldn’t fight anymore. He was exhausted. Cassandra James, he spoke in his mind. And then he felt such a wave of pleasure, of triumph, of joy…and he was laughing, a cold, cruel, high-pitched laugh, and everything was becoming confused, the blackness was fading.

He woke up, shaking and panting on the floor of the Gryffindor common room. Someone had their arms around his chest, restraining him as he tossed and turned. He felt sick and sat up and retched.

“Harry, mate,” came Ron’s worried voice clearly through the babble of noise. “What happened?”

Harry pushed his glasses back on to his face, feeling cold sweat on his skin. The person that had been holding him was Cassandra.

“Harry, what was that?” her anxious face appeared above him as he lay, shaking and shivering, on the floor.

He reached up and seized her wrist tightly.

“Who are you?”

She looked even more scared now. “It’s me, idiot, Cassandra! What…”

“No! What does he want with you?”

“What are you going on about?”

“He needed to know who you are? Why?”

“Who?”

“Voldemort!” The word burst out of Harry like a gunshot in his desperation to know. As Cassandra’s face merged into a confused frown he realised. She doesn’t know.

He sat up, his face burning with embarrassment as he realised that most of Gryffindor house were sitting around him, looking at him with fear in their eyes.

“Come with me,” he muttered to Ron, Hermione and Cassandra, and they followed him out of the common room. Harry still felt sick and weak; as soon as they clambered out of the portrait hole he sat down, still staring at Cassandra.

“What did you see, Harry?” asked Ron immediately. “What’s this about Cass?”

“Did you say Voldemort wanted Cass, Harry?” asked Hermione. Both of them were looking at Cassandra in concern.

“Yes!” Why didn’t she look scared? Why didn’t Cassandra realise what he’d done? Given her name to Voldemort, given where she was…in short, betrayed her. If Voldemort wanted to kill her he now knew where she was and he, harry, had given him the information.

“But why?” Cassandra cried. “What d’you mean he wants me? Why? I’m just…me, I’m just me!”

“I think,” said a quiet voice. Dumbledore stood at the end of the corridor, gazing at them. “It is time for an explanation. Please come with me.”