In which Harry gets answers and learns new skills

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

Confucius

Snape was already near the door, but when Harry entered the doorway, he sneered and took another step closer, causing Harry to back up right into Gordon, who gently steadied him. “What did you hear, Potter?” he demanded.

Harry was mortified to find that he was shaking. “Severus!” he vaguely heard Dumbledore admonish his professor, but he was already turning to try to push his way past Gordon.

“I can’t do this,” he muttered to Gordon. “Let me go… please!”

“Harry, you can do this. Just stay for a few min—“ Gordon broke off as Harry suddenly stiffened and he had to catch the boy. The psychologist looked past Harry and saw Snape with his wand out, looking smug. Gordon was furious. He took the time to carefully lean Harry’s form against the wall, and then advanced on Snape. “You *idiot*! It’s no wonder he wants to run away, when you treat him like this! I could have convinced him to stay and we could have had a reasonable conversation, but no!”

The psychologist then turned on Dumbledore. “And you!” The headmaster looked a bit surprised to be targeted. “How can you let him do this to Harry? Do you realize that you are endorsing his behavior by failing to stop it?” He shook his head in disgust. “I would quit this job right now, except that I care about Harry, *despite* all of you! Now, did you have anything productive to say, or were you just planning on immobilizing him and showering him with useless platitudes?”

Dumbledore took a deep breath as though to steady himself. “You’re right, Gordon. You’re absolutely right. It wasn’t my intention to keep things from Harry, but it seems I have done so nonetheless. I suppose--”

Gordon nodded emphatically and interrupted the headmaster’s monologue. “You bet you do! But first…” he walked back to Harry’s side. “Unfreeze him or undo whatever you did. Harry will *not* be at a disadvantage during this conversation.” Dumbledore looked at Snape pointedly, who pointed his wand toward Harry reluctantly.

“Finite Incantatem.” Snape retreated to a corner of the room to stand, but did not exit. Meanwhile, Harry relaxed and nearly fell to the ground, but Gordon caught his arm and helped to steady him. A moment later, Harry took a step toward the door, but Gordon put himself in the way again.

“Come on, Harry… I think it’s about time to get some answers, don’t you?”

Harry shrugged. Right now, he just wanted to be away from this room, which seem to be saturated with anger and fear and even a little concern. It was all overwhelming and Harry could feel a headache forming.

“Harry? Talk to me.”

He shook his head. “Not here, not now… It’s too… noisy.” He put a hand to his head as the headache intensified.

“What…?” Gordon asked, his confusion evident.

“I believe I have an idea of what is going on,” answered Dumbledore calmly. “What do you feel, Harry?”

Harry thought that he had begun to feel the difference between his own emotions and those around him. The emotions of others were strong, but had a foreign feel to them. He opened his mouth to explain, and then his expression darkened. “How do *you* know what’s going on?”

“That is what I want to explain, Harry,” Dumbledore replied without flinching at Harry’s anger. “But I want you to be comfortable first. What are you feeling?”

“Professor Snape,” Harry said quite suddenly, without looking at the man in question. “I don’t want him here.”

Snape sputtered in disgust. “Surely you will not allow him to dictate his terms when you should be *punishing* him!” he protested.

Dumbledore gave Snape a sad look. “Severus… I am not one to punish people for things they do when they have been pushed to their breaking point.” Snape flinched back at this, and Harry felt shame join the mix of emotions swirling through the room.

“Even so,” Snape said finally, “why should I not be allowed to stay? After all, I am involved.”

“Be that as it may, Harry has requested that you not be present.”

“Fine,” Snape sneered at Harry as he passed him on the way to the door, and Harry took a step back to give him space. As soon as the man had left, his shoulders sagged and he sighed in relief.

“Thank you, Professor,” he said, his gratitude momentarily making him forget the reasons as to why he was angry at the old headmaster.

“Better, Harry?” He nodded. “Very well… I think it’s about time that I explain what is happening, to the best of my knowledge.” *Now* Harry remembered why he had been so angry at the man.

“You *knew*?” he hissed. “You knew and you didn’t tell me *anything*!”

Dumbledore held a hand up and Harry quieted by reflex. “I must admit, I have known more than what I told you, though not much. I have been trying to ascertain what changes you are undergoing so that I could help you with them, and as such did not take the time to fill you in on what I had found.” Harry just clenched his teeth and glared at the man, daring him to continue. “But I suppose the beginning would be the best place to start.

“I continue to be sorry about the method in which it was done, but it *was* very important that you be brought here on your birthday. Remus understood that, which is why he assisted. The balance of the timing was delicate, since I did not want to remove you from the Dursley residence to soon and risk ending the protection that you gain from them, but I also did not want you developing these new abilities away from us.”

This was just too much. “You knew this was going to be happening weeks ago and you’re only *now* telling me?!”

“I didn’t know, Harry, I only had a strong suspicion, and I did not want to worry you or cause you any undue anticipation if my suspicions turned out to be incorrect.” Dumbledore sighed. “You see, Harry, it is relatively common for witches and wizards to develop new abilities spontaneously around their 16th birthday, as 16 is the age at which you generally reach your full magical level. The fact that you come of age at 17 in the magical world is not accidental, as this gives you a year to get accustomed to any new abilities under the supervision and with the help of your professors, before you are able to practice magic on your own.”

“Why does no one tell me this stuff?” Harry exclaimed.

“I’m afraid that most of the time we forget that you have not been in the magical world all your life, since you have been known your entire life. However, if you have any questions at any time, you may feel free to ask me.”

Harry barely swallowed his first response, which was, ‘Like I’m going to ask *you*!’ Instead, he hissed, “If I knew what to ask, I wouldn’t *have* this problem!” He breathed heavily for a moment and then turned toward the wall. “Professor, I know you’re there. Please leave, I can’t think with you there.”

“Harry..?” Gordon said in a worried tone of voice, likely wondering why Harry had begun talking to the wall.

Dumbledore frowned. “Severus, I asked you to leave.” He gave a stern look to the wall. “Please, Severus,” he said in a tone that made it more of an order than a request.

“I’m leaving,” came a voice from the wall, clearly unhappy.

Harry turned back to the headmaster. “So I take it you know why I can feel everyone’s emotions now? Any other surprises I should look forward to?” he sneered.

Dumbledore looked more comfortable with this topic. “Yes, Harry, you seem to have developed empathy. Frankly, I’m not surprised, since it’s not such an uncommon gift, and you have always had an unusual affinity to emotions, as I have mentioned to you in the past. I also suspect that this is why your scar is most likely to hurt when Voldemort is feeling a particularly strong emotion.”

“Fine. How helpful,” Harry replied, rolling his eyes. “Thanks so much for your ‘help,’ but I think I’ll be going now.” He spun around and walked quickly toward the door, and this time Gordon made no move to block him.

“Harry, wait,” Dumbledore called when he neared the door. “Please, Harry…”

At the door, Harry’s anger finally overcame his discretion, and he turned around and began stalking back in the headmaster’s direction. “Tell me, why should I? Why should I listen to a *word* you have to say? Do you realize that you haven’t even apologized? It makes me wonder… Do you even realize that what you have done was *wrong*?” He stopped when he was only a few steps from Dumbledore, and he felt a small amount of magic crackle through the air. Apparently the headmaster felt it as well, for his eyes widened ever so slightly.

“Harry, I am deeply sorry for some of the things that I have had to do—“

Another crackle. “You see? If you were truly sorry, you would realize that these were not things you *had* to do, they were things you *chose* to do! You are one of if not the most powerful wizard in the world. Who made you order Remus to kidnap me from my relatives’ house rather than explain what was going on? Who forced you to have Madam Pomfrey give me an experimental potion and then interrogate me to satisfy your *curiosity*? And why did you *have* to force-feed me Calming Draughts until you had overdosed me? And why did it never occur to you to explain to me *anything* about what was going on??”

“Harry, please calm yourself,” pleaded Dumbledore. Suddenly, Harry realized something shocking—the *headmaster* was afraid of him. He wasn’t sure whether to be satisfied or afraid himself, but he settled with afraid when Gordon tried to place a calming hand on his shoulder and jumped back with a cry of pain.

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself, he took a large step back, and then another. He finally stopped when he could no longer feel the crackling in the air. “Well, that was interesting,” he muttered darkly. He looked to Gordon and saw fear in the muggle’s eyes as well. This hurt him far more than Dumbledore’s fear had.

He took off for the door one last time. This time, no one was going to stop him. Unfortunately, the spell reached the door before he did, just as it had the night of his birthday. He felt a tingling run through him, though, and began to turn the doorknob. Then the coat rack grabbed him around his middle and the time he spent trying to break from it was enough for a nearby chair to trot over and place itself under the door handle, effectively stopping both entrance and exit.

“Harry!” Dumbledore’s tone of voice suggested that he had been calling for a while, though Harry could not remember hearing anything. “I am not trying to hold you prisoner.” The coat rack untangled itself from Harry and returned to its upright position as if to emphasize this point. “However, it is apparent that your ability has overpowered outside means of control, and you will need to learn to control it yourself before you can leave this room.”

“Outside means of control,” Harry unconsciously echoed, trying to figure out what the headmaster was talking about. Then suddenly he looked up in recognition. “*That* was why you were giving me the Calming Draught!”

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. “Yes, Harry. It was not an arbitrary decision. And I never meant for you to be so incapacitated. However, I once again made the mistake of giving Severus some control over you by allowing him to control the size of the dose you were getting. I don’t think even he meant to overdose you, though.”

“But… what *is* it?” He realized that they were having to speak quite loudly to communicate across the room and started to step out, to bridge the gap. Then he realized what a bad idea that would be. “I know it’s not the empathy… that was never affected by the Calming Draught.”

“I’m afraid that I will have to admit that I don’t know exactly what this new ability is, Harry. I have been doing quite a bit of research over the past two weeks, but I have learned very little.”

Knowing that the old man was not likely to volunteer information, Harry spoke up. “What *do* you know?”

“I…” Harry had never seen the headmaster so reluctant to speak. “The only thing I have ever heard of that is vaguely related is a… a legend… it has become a scary story that is often told to wizarding children. It tells of… beings—Depascori, they are called—that can take a wizard’s magical energy and turn it back against them.” The wizard looked exhausted at having had to say so much, and sadly watched for Harry’s reaction.

For his part, Harry was stunned at the implications. He stumbled back against the wall and slid to the floor, his legs suddenly too weak to hold his weight. “So… I’m a monster…” he murmured to himself.

“No!” Dumbledore protested immediately. He had no idea how the old wizard had heard his quiet comment from across the room, but apparently he had. “You are *not* a monster, Harry. This ability makes you no more evil than being a Parselmouth.”

“But… was Tom… is Voldemort…?”

The headmaster quickly shook his head. “No, Harry, he is not. This is one advantage you have over him.”

Harry chuckled darkly. “Great, I can beat him with a Dark Art and then become the next Dark Lord.”

“It’s not a Dark Art, Harry… It’s only been a legend, no one knows of a single being who has ever had this power, though apparently there must have been, for there to be such a legend.” Dumbledore had been slowly approaching Harry as he spoke, and was now only five feet away from him.

Harry looked up in surprise. “Are you sure you want to be so close to me?”

“Yes,” said the headmaster, and then he did something perhaps more odd than he had ever done before—with little to none of his usual decorum, he joined Harry on the floor, sitting with crossed legs facing Harry. The younger wizard had never had a chance to notice that the headmaster had *always* had an aura of power around him, though at times it was noticeably stronger. Now, with that aura gone or imperceptible, he was surprised to see a sad old man sitting across from him. “I’m sorry, Harry. I tried to protect you, once again, and only ended up hurting you even more. Will you let me help you, at least to gain control of this ability?”

Harry felt exhausted just at the thought of it. He asked a silly, childish question. “Isn’t there any way to just… turn it off?”

Dumbledore sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m sorry… sorry that you have one more thing that you must worry about now.” Then he sat up a little straighter, and his voice was more confident. “But I *will* be here for you, if you allow me to be.”

“So will I, Harry,” came Gordon’s voice from Harry’s right, and then the man was ruffling his hair playfully. “You didn’t think you were going to get rid of me that easily, did you?”

Harry sighed in relief at the support that he could feel coming from Dumbledore and that he knew Gordon was offering as well, even if he couldn’t feel it. Actually… “Professor?”

The twinkle in Dumbledore’s eye was hard to miss as it brightened and he gave a mischievous smile. “You may not *ever* call me this when we are around anyone else, barring Gordon, but please, call me Albus. I’m not actually your professor, anyway.” He winked.

“Er…” Had the headmaster, who was more than a century older than him, just asked him to call him by his first name? “Can I stick to ‘sir’?” he asked embarrassedly.

The older wizard laughed out loud at that. “Is there something wrong with my given name?”

“No!” Harry exclaimed. He hurried to explain, “It’s just that you’re so old and—“ He turned bright red. “I didn’t mean it *that* way!” Now both Dumbledore and Gordon were laughing at him. He hid his face in his hands and waited for the laughter to subside. Finally, it did. “I just can’t call you by your first name… it’s too weird…” They both burst out laughing again, and what blood had left his face returned. “Oh Merlin! I didn’t mean your *name*!”

The headmaster chuckled. “That’s quite alright, Harry. You may call me whatever you prefer, whether it be ‘Professor,’ ‘sir,’ or anything else. Within limits, of course. Now… I believe there was something you were going to ask me?”

“There was?” Harry asked with a blank look. Then he remembered. “Oh! I was wondering, why can’t I feel Gordon’s feelings like everyone else’s?”

“Ahh…” Dumbledore started to lean back, but then realized that on the ground it was not the most effective way of doing things. With a wave of his wand he conjured three bean bag chairs and settled himself in one. “I apologize, but my old bones can’t handle sitting on the floor for too long.”

Harry shrugged and pulled himself up and into another of the beanbag chairs, and watched as Gordon settled himself in the third. Then he waited for Dumbledore to continue.

“That is an excellent question, Harry…” He leaned back and steepled his fingers, clearly considering his answer carefully. “You see, all wizards and witches give off ambient magical energy. This energy is actually fueling both of your new abilities, though in different ways. The way your gift of empathy works is to pick up on changes that come in the ambient energy according to the wizard’s mood. As for your other ability, which we will have to give a name, when no spells are fired at you, you are able to draw on a wizard’s ambient magical energy to fuel your protection.”

Harry nodded, then understood. “So that’s why you weren’t worried about Gordon!”

Dumbledore nodded. “Indeed. There was no energy to fuel a protective response.”

“So how do I learn to control this?” Harry asked, coming to the point with more than a bit of nervousness.

“Well, at the moment I am controlling my ambient magical energy and keeping it to a minimum. That is a special ability of mine and is how I am often able to get and keep people’s attention. You see, most if not all wizards unconsciously sense the ambient magical energy of the others around them.”

“So right now there isn’t much for me to leech off of?”

Dumbledore nodded, and Harry thought he caught a small frown crossing Gordon’s face. “Now, I’m going to start slowly letting go of it, and we’ll see what happens, alright? If you accidentally stun me, get Gordon to call Severus and he can revive me.”

Harry struggled to his feet. “No, I can’t do this!” he exclaimed, horrified at the idea of stunning the headmaster, even if he *had* been angry at the man a few minutes ago.

“Calm down, Harry,” replied Dumbledore. “If I believed that you would harm me, I would not have offered to help you learn… As it is, I am most definitely the best person, as I can at least partially control your source of power if you get out of control. Now, I’m going to start…”

Harry started to back away the moment he felt that strange crackling between them. “Harry, come back, please,” Dumbledore said in a commanding voice, and Harry took one step forward before he even thought about it. Then he stopped and shook his head.

“I’m going to hurt you! And Snape will *kill* me if he has to come in here to revive you!” Harry exclaimed, barely controlling the panic inside him.

“*Professor* Snape will do no such thing, Harry. And I said, I have *asked* you to do this, so I do not mind if you lose control once or twice… though I would prefer that you didn’t.” He smiled gently.

“Come on, Harry, just come sit in the chair, and then you don’t have to move,” encouraged Gordon. Harry took another hesitant step forward, and shuddered as he truly felt himself come in contact with the headmaster. The crackling grew much more noticeable.

“Harry, the magic is there, but it will not do anything unless you ask it to. Eventually you will need to learn to control the effects so that it is not so obvious, but for now, just focus on feeling it.”

After a few more hesitant steps forward, Harry collapsed back into the beanbag chair. Then he closed his eyes and tried to do as the older wizard was telling him.

“What do you feel, Harry?”

“The magic… it’s right there, like you said. It’s like with S—Professor Snape, earlier… it was there, and then it gathered itself and threw itself at him.” He cut himself off as soon as he finished with this, as he had thought for a moment that the magic was gathering itself as he spoke about it.

“Can you ask it to do something else, other than hurling itself at me?”

“Erm… Well…” He thought hard of floating, and the magic gathered itself underneath him. He didn’t dare open his eyes as he felt his beanbag sway as the magic continued to flow upwards and push him higher. Then, suddenly, the flow snapped and he fell through the air.

He distantly heard Gordon cry out, but he never impacted. He opened his eyes and saw himself fall through the last few inches from where he had stopped, hovering in the air. “Oof!” he let out a bit of air in surprise at the delayed impact, but it was hardly a bump compared to what it could have been.

“Interesting choice…” commented the headmaster, smiling slightly with a twinkle in his eyes. “Perhaps you should choose something that does not end up taking you out of range of me?”

“Do you have any suggestions, *sir*?” he asked, frustrated at being teased.

The infamous ‘thoughtful’ look crossed his face, and then it let up. “Perhaps you could try gathering it around you, so that it could defend you without actively attacking the person you are drawing energy from?”

Harry nodded slowly, then closed his eyes again to focus on the magic. He thought of gathering it around him, a bit like his winter cloak on a particularly cold day—or perhaps more like his invisibility cloak, since it covered his head as well. He heard an exclamation from Gordon and opened his eyes quickly. “What?!”

“You disappeared!” Gordon exclaimed.

Dumbledore merely looked intrigued. “Did you ask it to make you invisible, Harry?”

“Erm… I suppose sort of… I was imagining drawing the magic around me like my invisibility cloak.”

“Fascinating,” he replied thoughtfully. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “Perhaps you could imagine it clear this time?”

Harry closed his eyes and drew the magic back around him, this time imagining it to be a clear plastic sheet that covered him from head to toe. “Now, can you open your eyes without losing hold of it?”

He opened his eyes slowly but continued to imagine the magic surrounding him, and was fairly certain he had succeeded. “I think… I think I have it…” he said hesitantly, trying not to forget about the magic.

Without giving any other indication, Dumbledore’s wand was suddenly pointed at him. “Riddikulus!”

Harry gasped as the spell impacted on his ‘shield.’ He felt the magic surge and realized immediately that it would be too much. He allowed some of the new magic to make it through his shield, but pushed some of it away and it rebounded on Dumbledore.

A moment later they found themselves both giggling. Neither had had the full effect of the spell, but each got enough that they couldn’t help but giggle. Gordon looked back and forth between them. “What’s so funny?” he asked finally.

This only made Harry giggle more. Meanwhile, Dumbledore was trying to reverse the spell. “Fini-hahaha! Finit-hehehe-“

Suddenly Harry had an idea. He gathered the energy toward him and tried to imagine it drawing the spell out and dissipating it. It took what seemed like forever but he saw the magical energy flowing out of him and dispersing around him. Then, nervously, he asked it to do the same to Dumbledore. It gathered and moved in his direction, and hesitated as Harry nearly panicked, but finally he pushed it in the headmaster’s direction again and focused on drawing the energy out. This time the process went slightly faster.

He opened his eyes and saw Dumbledore beaming at him proudly. “Excellent work, Harry!”

Harry narrowed his eyes, realizing something. “There is no way that you couldn’t have cast the counter-curse to a half-strength Riddikulus hex!”

“But you did such a marvelous job of doing it on your own!” he replied happily, resolutely ignoring (or being truly unaware of) the fact that Harry was irritated.

“Fine. See if I help you again.” He heard choking laughter from his right and turned to see Gordon quickly compose himself. He crossed his arms and looked back to Dumbledore. “What now?”

“I’ll let you discover that for yourself, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore replied with a lazy smile worthy of Lucius Malfoy. Harry felt his blood begin to boil.

“How about this—I’ll just leave,” he suggested in frustration. He turned and headed toward the door. As he neared it, though, the coat rack once again attached itself to him.

“I did not say we were finished, Harry,” Dumbledore said. “You may step away from the door and come back in this direction on your own, or the coat rack can carry you here.”

But Harry was hardly listening. He felt an odd tingling and realized that there was magic *in* the coat rack. With a little concentration he pulled the magic out of the coat rack, and felt and heard it snap back into its normal position. He pulled the magic around himself as he had before, but without a constant source it quickly dissipated.

“Need I give you another warning?” came Dumbledore’s hard voice.

“And what are you going to do, exactly?” Harry replied.

“This! Stupefy!” he called out, and a red bolt flew toward Harry.

Instinctively using the quick reflexes he had learned from both the Dursleys and Quidditch, he ducked to the side and avoided the spell.

“The real question,” said the headmaster, “is what *you* are going to do. Riddikulus!” Once again Harry dodged, but this time he ended up on the ground. “Stupefy!” Harry was halfway up but turned his forward momentum into a roll to avoid the next spell. Then he was within range of Dumbledore, and he smiled and gathered the energy to him quickly.

Dumbledore smiled indulgently. “And what is that going to do? You couldn’t even fully reflect the Riddikulus that I sent earlier!”

Harry felt that the energy would certainly be crackling in the air if he was not holding it tightly to him as he glared at Dumbledore. In the back of his head he realized that this was all play, but then, Dumbledore was sending real spells at him! And that wasn’t even mentioning the fact that even if he understood why now, he was still not happy with how Dumbledore had dealt with things over the past few weeks. “Just try it,” he smiled cockily.

“Stupefy!” Harry concentrated his energy on making the magic into a mirror that would reflect the spell. It raced toward him, bounced off his shield, and flew back at Dumbledore at twice its usual speed. Harry saw his eyes widen a moment before the stunner hit him and he collapsed to the ground.

Harry said a word that would have gained a glare from Hermione before rushing to Dumbledore’s side, feeling the energy dispersing already. He tried to focus what was left, but it slipped through his imaginary fingers and away before he could do anything. He sat back and stared at the headmaster’s prone form. “I am *so* dead,” he murmured.

“Harry? I think I should get Snape now,” Gordon said hesitantly. “Just stay calm, I’m sure he’ll wake Dumbledore up quickly.”

“If only that was what I was worried about,” he muttered to himself, then shook his head. Maybe, just maybe, Snape would show restraint this once.

“Potter!” There he was. “What have you done to the headmaster?” he demanded angrily.

He focused on trying to keep his voice calm. “He was hit by his own stunner… All he needs is an ‘Enervate,’ but I can’t cast it, since I’m not allowed to do magic over the summer,” he said, keeping his voice remarkably even, even if it did come out in a low monotone as a result.

“And how, pray tell, did the headmaster get hit by his own stunner?” Snape sneered, showing no signs of casting the necessary spell any time soon. “For that matter, why was the headmaster casting a stunning spell in the first place?”

“He was testing me,” Harry replied in the same tone. “Please, can you wake him?”

“What was he *testing,* Potter?”

Harry bit back an exclamation and was proud of himself when he only answered with a half-truth, “I was practicing dodging.”

Snape narrowed his eyes. “You were practicing dodging…?” he asked rhetorically.

Finally Harry couldn’t take it anymore. “Look, will you cast the spell already?” he exclaimed.

“Perhaps I should cast a spell on you, first? After all, it’s only fair after you stunned me earlier,” he sneered.

“Snape…” Gordon said warningly, approaching them rapidly.

“Stay *away,*” Harry hissed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Oh?” Snape sneered. “Let’s test that theory—Legilimens!”