By lunchtime, Percy had discovered a flaw in surviving a catastrophe. People expected him to attend lessons afterwards.
His Transfiguration essay sat beside a cold cup of tea and the stone he was supposed to describe. He had written one sentence. Ron was reading it over his shoulder.
Ron leaned over his shoulder and read the first line. His expression suggested that Percy's handwriting had suffered injuries Pomfrey had overlooked.
"Is that a principle or a threat?"
"Depends how the marking goes."
Hermione turned a page without looking up. She had brought three books instead of seven, which Percy suspected was her version of taking things gently.
Harry sat beside the window with a quill resting against his thumb. He had written the date, crossed it out, and written it again even though the first attempt had been correct.
Percy watched the movement for a moment too long. Harry noticed, and the quill stopped.
"You can ask."
"Does it hurt?"
Harry knew he meant the scar. He kept his hands on the desk while answering.
"Sometimes. Less than before the gate closed."
Ron put down his sandwich. Hermione closed her book around a finger, keeping her place without pretending she was still reading.
Percy looked at the skin beside Harry's scar. He had been waiting for someone else to explain what he feared was there. Harry was still waiting for an explanation too.
"Can we go somewhere private?" Percy asked. He left the essay where it was.
----------------------
The unused classroom had a cracked globe, six mismatched chairs, and a view of the grounds. Hermione checked the corridor before closing the door, while Ron made sure nobody was hiding behind a cabinet that would barely have concealed a determined squirrel.
Percy stayed by the door until Harry pulled out a chair. He sat and put both hands on his knees.
"Yesterday, I told you about remembering another life. There's another part."
Harry waited. The absence of encouragement was not unkind, but Percy found he would almost have preferred an interruption.
"Where I came from, there were stories about this world. About Hogwarts, and Voldemort, and you."
Ron stared at him. Hermione's finger tightened against the edge of her notebook without opening it.
"Stories," Harry repeated. He looked briefly towards the window. "With my name?"
"Yes."
Harry looked at Ron. Percy waited for Hermione's next question.
"Books?" Hermione asked. She had begun to speak more quietly. "Or accounts someone told you afterwards?"
"Books. I remember parts of them, but I can't prove where the information came from, and this world hasn't followed them."
"Was there a gate?"
"Not the one we closed. And he wasn't captured like this."
Harry watched Percy for a long moment. He put his quill down before speaking.
"When we met, did you know me?"
Percy looked back at him and answered.
"I knew a story about you. I didn't know you, but I let myself act as if knowing the story gave me a head start."
"And the rest of us?"
"You were in it too. Both of you."
Ron leaned back until his chair creaked. Hermione put the unopened notebook on a desk, deliberately placing it out of reach.
"Were you going to tell us?"
"I kept deciding I needed to understand more first. Then things changed, and I used that as another reason to wait."
Harry kept his eyes on Percy. Percy wanted to look away and made himself stay.
"What did you know about this?" Harry asked. He tapped the skin beside his scar once. "Before we found it ourselves?"
"I remembered that Voldemort could leave parts of his soul outside his body. I suspected that might be what was inside you, but I wasn't certain this world worked the same way."
"You could have said suspected."
"Yes. I should have."
Someone shouted after a ball outside the window. Percy heard it bounce twice while Hermione drew her chair closer.
Hermione folded her hands together. She was thinking, but not with the eager look she wore when a puzzle offered interesting pieces.
"We need to separate what you remember from what has happened here. Otherwise we'll start treating every resemblance as proof."
"I know."
"You need to do it too."
Percy nodded and waited for her to continue.
Ron had been looking down at the floor. When he spoke, his voice was level enough to make Percy listen carefully.
"Did you become our friend because we were in it?"
Percy answered before looking down at his hands.
"Knowing your names made me notice you. Being your friend happened because of you."
Ron did not immediately accept that, but he did not leave either. He rubbed a thumb over the pale mark the rescue rope had left across his palm.
"Then you'll have to let us decide what to do with the noticing part."
Harry moved his chair closer to the desk. He was still holding the edge with one hand.
"Tell me the part about the soul pieces. Don't leave something out because you think I'll react badly."
----------------------
Percy told them what he remembered, and said when memory became uncertain. He named the word Horcrux, described objects used to anchor fragments, and explained that a ruined body might not mean the end of the person who had made them.
Hermione retrieved her notebook only after asking Harry whether he wanted notes. At his nod, she drew a line down a page and put remembered account on one side and observed here on the other.
Hermione wrote the confirmed scar reactions in the second column. The list of remembered objects on the first side was much longer.
He remembered a diary, a ring, a locket, a cup, a diadem, and a snake. He could not give reliable dates for their creation in this world, and he would not pretend that remembering an object proved anyone had used it.
Percy stopped after naming the objects. Harry asked whether there was anything else about the scar.
"In the story I remember, getting rid of the piece in Harry involved him walking towards Voldemort expecting to die. He survived, but I don't know enough about why to turn that into a plan here."
Ron stood up so sharply that his chair struck the desk behind him. Hermione's quill stopped above the paper without making a mark.
"That isn't a plan at all."
"No," Percy said. He kept his eyes on Harry. "It isn't."
Harry sat still. Percy could not tell whether he was waiting for more or wishing the explanation had ended.
"Did you think that was what I was for?"
"No. But keeping the information to myself meant you couldn't know what I thought, and you couldn't challenge it. I'm sorry."
Harry looked down at Hermione's divided page. After a moment, he reached for the quill and wrote beneath the shorter column.
Percy could read the sentence upside down. Harry had pressed hard enough to leave a groove in the parchment.
The words read: I am alive now. Nothing followed them.
"Start there," Harry said. He put the quill down. "Whatever Dumbledore thinks, whatever your book said, start there."
Hermione moved the page so the wet ink would not smear against her sleeve. Ron sat down again, this time beside Harry rather than opposite him.
Percy nodded once. For a while, that was all he trusted himself to do.
----------------------
Dumbledore received them before dinner, with McGonagall present at Harry's request. Percy had expected surprise, disbelief, or a long examination of whether memory could cross between worlds, but the headmaster first asked Harry where he wanted to sit.
Harry chose the chair closest to the door. Ron occupied the one beside it, and nobody commented.
Percy repeated the account with Hermione's notes beside him. He identified each remembered lead before explaining what they had observed here.
Dumbledore recognised the word Horcrux. His expression at the list of possible objects suggested that recognition did not make the conversation easier.
"I have pursued some questions concerning Tom's survival," he said. He placed both hands on the desk. "Not all of the answers you describe are established here."
"Then write down which ones are," Harry said. His voice shook once, but he kept going. "And which ones you already knew enough to suspect."
McGonagall looked at Dumbledore. Whatever passed between them ended with the headmaster drawing a clean sheet towards himself.
He confirmed that deliberate soul division was possible and that the foreign presence in Harry warranted investigation. He did not claim to know how many external anchors existed, nor did he present Percy's remembered ending as a treatment.
"There will be no attempt to damage or remove anything from you without explaining the proposal to you first," McGonagall said. She looked at Harry rather than at the desk. "And no experiment simply because somebody calls the alternative inevitable."
Harry lowered his shoulders slightly and asked McGonagall to put that condition in the written plan.
Dumbledore proposed beginning with material already in custody. Dorridge had inventoried documents recovered from the northern pumping station, and a reference to a privately held collection might be checked without approaching Harry at all.
Hermione asked who had checked the recovered documents. Dumbledore showed her the names on the handling record.
"The originals are isolated," Dumbledore said. He reached for a sealed folder rather than opening it. "We have a plain transcription of an inventory. No incantations or diagrams were copied."
Inside lay a single page of numbered household objects. Most descriptions meant nothing to Percy, but one line made the back of his neck prickle.
The entry described an oval locket with a serpent device. It had been transferred for private appraisal.
Percy pointed to the locket entry. Hermione moved her quill to the remembered-account column.
"That resembles one of the objects I remember. It doesn't prove it is one."
"Good," Hermione said. She drew another line beneath her notes. "Now we have a question we can actually check."
----------------------
They left with permission to read the harmless transcription in the morning. The dangerous work, if the lead produced any, would belong to adults equipped to do it.
At the moving staircase, Ron went ahead with Hermione, giving Harry a choice about whether Percy remained beside him. Harry waited until the stairs had finished turning before speaking.
"I'm angry."
"You should be."
"You don't get to decide that either."
Percy stopped himself from answering automatically. Harry glanced at him, and something tired rather than hostile passed across his face.
"I want to hear the rest eventually. About your life, I mean, not just what you thought you knew about mine."
"Whenever you want."
"And if you remember something else that might matter, you tell me it's a memory. You don't arrange things around me until you're certain."
"I will."
The stairs settled against the landing. Harry stepped onto it, then glanced back to see whether Percy was coming.
Percy followed him onto the landing. They walked upstairs together without saying anything more.
===========================
Hey, you. Yes, You! You with the craazy hair. Keep reading, trust me. [Yes, keep reading] Wh-what? Who just spoke? Wh-why is my vo-
I see.
[I finally see]
[It was here all along]
What just happened?
{END OF LOG}
[SHAMELESS PLUG]
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