Next Time Around

Deceptions

Authors note:
So it's way to late for me to even attempt writing this, so bear with me. I'm purely going on adrenaline on this point. But whatever, you get the story and I get to write, what's the big deal?

Disclaimer: I don't own HP universe, only my plot line so pls don't steal.

Enjoy!

Harry blinked again. Only after the third blink did he realize the reason he didn't see anything was because he was bathed in darkness, as the ritual room had no windows.

He resisted the urge to scratch his head, knowing there would probably be motion-detection charms in place, and began contemplating what would happen now. He felt the familiar surge of anger at the thought of Hermione, Ron and the rest of those betraying bastards.

He contemplated attacking them, then claiming selective memory loss, but decided against it. Too suspicious. No, he would keep himself in line, following the plan he had spent years contemplating over.

He mentally pushed his eighteen-year-old persona forth and closed his eyes, mentally preparing for the amount of deceiving he was about to do. He felt a sliver of disgust trickling down his spine. He had been so naive and... weak before his training.

No matter, he told himself. He was a grown-up and damn it, if he had to play off a mask as simple as this one -it was himself, for God's sake- he would ace it, not whine about it.

With that mindset he spasmed, then sat up, blinking and looked around, pretending to be heavily disoriented.

The doors opened. Hah. He knew there was a motion detector in here.

He blinked, shielding his eyes from the harsh light, whimpering pitifully. He made some half-hearted movements meant to ask them to close the door whilst at the same time taking a quick calculating glance around. The books were clean and there was no blood anywhere. Good. Wouldn't want anyone else to know exactly what had happened in here. He also took a quick glance at the people inside and had to force out a loud whimper to disguise the growl that left his mouth when he spotted Hermione.

He eventually paled, what was no easy feat, but he managed thanks to his Occlumency, and pretended to have to retch. As someone summoned a bucket Harry wandlessly transfigured some spittle in the back of his throat to puke and pretended to "woof his cookies", as that's called. He mentally patted his own back. This was some supreme acting he was pulling off.

He then looked around worriedly, squeezing out a small 'Sorry!', then let his head fall to his hands pretending to have a huge headache.

'What happened in there?' Hermione asked immediately.

Harry wanted to sneer. He had been in a coma for more than a week and the first thing she could come up with was: "what happened in there?" But he didn't.

He let out another small noise of distress. 'Headache... I got this whole load of information in my head and now I have to look through it.' He spasmed again. 'It hurts! Who cares for 'Knitting for Beginners' and 'Forty-one Ways to Bake Bread- Magical Edition? I don't want to know this stuff!'

He had indeed learned how to knit. He had enjoyed it more that he thought he would, but they didn't know that and didn't need to.

'Oh you poor thing!' Ah. There it was, Miss Weasley's famous mother-hen condition. Funny, how she could keep it up whilst also stealing obscure amounts of cash from his vault every month.

'Come here, we'll put you to bed. Then you can rest for a bit and let the information deep though the cracks in your brain.'

Harry nodded a little. He was picked up be Shacklebolt and, back at the house, dropped right into a nice bed. Hmmm. That wasn't his, he didn't think. Maybe they wanted to give him a reason to trust them. Pff. Like this version of Harry didn't. Gosh, he really had to stop this flow of mental sarcastic feedback. He might say something aloud.