Harry Potter and the Serpent Items: Part 7

Harry hastily ate a couple of the crumpets and tried to work out what he was going to do. School didn’t start back until September and he basically had free rein on what he could do. Except he didn’t. He was basically confined to The Leaky Cauldron and the magical shops hidden beyond.

Tom was waiting for him when he left the room and the first thing the innkeeper did before he tidied up the room was show Harry to his room. The trunk and the owl cage he’d left behind the bar earlier were already in his room, while Hedwig, who he had let out of her cage when he’d left the Dursley’s, was preening on the perch just inside his window.

“Smart bird you have there, Mr Potter.” Tom said approvingly as Harry gave her a couple of owl treats and filled up the water bowl from the jug on the bedside table, “She flew in the window the moment I brought your stuff up.”

“Thank you for that by the way.” Harry nodded to the innkeeper who just smiled back at him and waved it off before heading downstairs, leaving Harry alone in his room.

The moment the door had shut Harry collapsed backwards onto the bed, not quite able to believe the way that his summer had changed in just a few short hours. Just this morning he’d had a list of chores to do, including mowing the lawn and it had been that list of chores, which Vernon had accused him of slacking on that had put into motion the events of today.

If it hadn’t been for the fact he’d had blackouts before today, he would have been convinced that he was going to wake up and find that today had been one hell of an insane dream, even the fact that he apparently had an escaped Death Eater after him kind of fit considering his past experiences.

Still there were pluses and minuses to the whole situation and he had had a reprieve from the Ministry when Shacklebolt had...

Harry paused, attempted to wrench the bracer off, had to pause while the snake uncoiled itself slightly, and then chucked it onto the bed, glaring at it.

The Auror had said he’d been possessed recently and the only thing that had changed in the last few weeks was the bracer. It all fit too. The blackouts, doing spells he would never have known about... It wasn’t that different from when Riddle’s diary and the spirit within had been possessing Ginny and made her attack the students.

Except while Ginny had been writing in the diary, Harry had been telling the spirit of the bracer nothing about himself, nor had he, hopefully, given him any openings. If anything Harry was surprised that the spirit appeared to be trying to help him. Every time he’d had a blackout it had been following pain, be it from a blow or hunger pangs.

Harry blinked as he realised this, sitting down on the bed and poking the golden bracer with a finger. “Who are you?” He asked it, wondering if it was another fragment of Voldemort’s soul, as the diary’s spirit had been or whether it was someone else who had sealed himself in his item for some strange reason.

Harry got no reply, not that he was really expecting one, and he spent a few more minutes glowering at the gaudy golden trinket. Somehow he had thought he’d feel relieved when he knew what the blackouts were but the knowledge he was being possessed didn’t ease his mind any.

Nor did he really know what to do. Dumbledore had told him to look after it, but Harry didn’t know if Dumbledore had known about the spirit within it. If he told his friends that the bracer was possessing him from time to time, Hermione would freak and demand he give it to a teacher, while Ron would probably want to destroy it or put it back where it came from.

Of course those were all perfectly justified things to do, or would have been if the spirit hadn’t been trying to help him. If there were just a way for Harry to talk to the spirit and tell him that while he appreciated the help he would really rather not get into trouble because he was being possessed by an over protective spirit who apparently thought that it was okay to drive people insane, it would be better.

Until he could find such a way, however, he was stuck trying to make sure he didn’t get hurt by anyone or anything, in case it triggered an episode.

Thinking about the spirit of the bracer made him think harder about what he was going to do over the summer. His best bet, he finally decided, was to make use of the huge bookstore on Diagon Alley, which might be able to help him work out what the bracer was and how to either remove the spirit from it or get in contact with his possessor.

If there was nothing in there there were other options, after all there were plenty of magical trinket shops around and, though he was loath to admit even thinking about using the last option, he was sure that Knockturn Alley had somewhere that could have information on it. Hell he’d been in Borgen and Burkes last year and seen the sorts of magical artifacts they had on offer. It was highly possible that he could take it to them and find out exactly what it was and why Dumbledore thought it was so important.

That, however, was most definitely a last chance option. He had no great urge to get lost down the dark, dank alley where dark magic lurked and there were plenty who would be willing to off ‘the Boy-Who-Lived’ for any reason, including that he looked at them in a funny tone of voice. 

Somehow he thought that while there might be some down there that might deserve whatever the spirit had done to Vernon and Dudley, and he was certain he should feel more guilty about that than he did, if people suddenly started turning up insane or worse he would be the first person the Aurors went to and they probably wouldn’t be as nice about it as Shacklebolt had been.

A knock on his door made him jump a mile. “Hello?”