A/N: The unfortunate graveyard scene with Harry, Cedric, and Voldy was pretty great, book or movie, and I was like 'what if something more came of it?' So, here's that more, enjoy!

Chapter Nex: Will You Shut Up?

There it was again.

And this time, he was sure of it.

Harry Potter lay quite motionless on his bed, which wasn't really his bed so much as Dudley's old bed, but after a few years, he felt quite right in calling it his. He had finally gotten the lumps in proper alignment with his spine so that sleeping on it nowadays didn't leave him hunched over for a majority of the day. Now, though, his form was the stiffest it had ever been, and surprisingly, not because of the mattress—

—but because of the very quiet, hardly noticeable buzzing coming from under his pillow.

It was the same buzzing that he had heard numerous times since arriving back at his aunt and uncle's a month ago, that same incessant buzzing like a swarm of bees had somehow flittered in under his pillow. At first, he merely thought himself tired, because what lay buzzing under his pillow was his wand; it's where he kept it when he slept for safe-keeping as thrice already Uncle Vernon had tried to toss it.

Then he fancied himself mad once he found himself shaking and yelling at his wand about two weeks in.

Still, he had never been able to catch his wand buzzing and vibrating in the act, which would get on just about anyones nerves, really. Because imagine getting all tucked in for the night, finally finding the spot where that annoying spring didn't consistently jab you in the side, only to be jarred awake at nearly every prolonged blink by what was currently keeping him up right now.

Harry had half a mind to go through the same motions he usually did, but he knew the moment he pulled it from under the pillow, that's when it would fall silent and lend credence to his 'going mad' theory. It would only be fitting considering how he felt most days: unhinged, exposed like a raw nerve, paranoid and slightly skittish. Even his cousin's usual methods of bullying didn't affect him like it used to and the horrible treatment that Uncle Vernon like to dole out like sweeties went by without so much as an acknowledging glance on Harry's part.

The events of only a couple months ago were still numbingly fresh in Harry's mind: competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Cedric Diggory's death, yet another meet-and-greet with the Dark Lord himself and yet another attempt on his life narrowly foiled… it was all one big agonizing tornado swirling about the confines of his frazzled mind, and there was no one he could even talk to about it. Outside of whatever he could glean from scrapings of the Daily Prophet, no one other than Ron and Hermione bothered to keep in contact with him—and given the spacing of their letters, he had to reckon they were together right now, at the burrow, and apparently forbidden to tell him what was truly going on in the wizarding world.

Maddening didn't even begin to describe it.

Why couldn't he know the details surrounding events that undoubtedly concerned him? Wasn't it Harry who had proven himself more than capable of being reliable? Wasn't it also Harry who had not only faced Voldemort head-on but escaped to tell the tale? And, as aghast as he was to think it, even when blinded with festering rage, just how many other souls were still alive who could say they survived a duel with the Dark Lord himself? If anything, he should be the first one kept in the loop, shouldn't he?

When his pillow gave a particularly strong throb, almost mockingly so, it took every ounce of Harry's willpower to silence the aggravated shout that had ignited in his throat. He could take it no longer—his mind was actively playing with him and he would be damned if he continued to let it happen. Grunting back a swear, he reared up onto his knees, gripped his pillow, and flung it clear across the room—

"Will you shut up?" he hissed at his wand, which was just as silent and still as one would expect a slim strip of wood to be. That didn't stop Harry from snatching it up and giving the blasted instrument a fierce shake. "I've had just about enough of you!"

"Oh, trust me, the feeling is intensely mutual."

As though his wand had scalded him, Harry dropped it with a pitched yelp, nearly throwing himself to the floorboards in his hast to back away, scrambling until he had one leg flung over the foot of the bed. Instincts were telling him to run, that this was nothing he wanted part in, but his brain, his logic, was steadily assuring him that there was no way he had heard what he thought he had….

Because the voice that had testily responded to Harry's insult, in a none-too-polite manner at that, was altogether feminine and had unmistakably originated from his wand, which now lay at the head of his mattress, still and quite silent. Just as before. Just as it always did….

Now you're just acting silly, Harry, he scolded himself, taking a few deep breaths to calm his pounding heart. Wand's don't talk, you know that. Even by magic standards that's unheard of and just plain ridiculous….

"You'd be surprised, these things you deem ridiculous that are really quite commonplace," came the same voice snobbishly, "but I suppose to you and your narrow view of all things magical, something like this would seem—"

Several things happened in quick succession: the door to Harry's room had begun to open, that little click drawing his attention over all else; and then he dove for his wand, one hand clenching around it while his other grasped a bundle of sheets; it only took one massive spin to entangle himself just right so that when his door was fully thrown open with a ground rumbling bang, the show he made of being startled and sitting up boltright seemed as natural as could be.

"WHAT GIRL HAVE YOU GOT IN HERE, BOY?" roared Uncle Vernon, clothed in his nighttime things and taking a few powerful strides into Harry's room with a belt hanging from his hand. The sight of it almost made Harry snort, as if he would ever let such a thing raze his skin again—but Uncle Vernon was so caught up in casting frantic glances around that he didn't seem to notice the small smirk his nephew was wearing. "Where is she?"

The beginnings of a very nasty joke sat on the tip of Harry's tongue but he was in no such hurry to egg his uncle into possibly striking him as the fallout would likely see him banned from Hogwarts. He only sat with his legs drawn up, draping his wand arm over his knees. "There's no girl in here, Uncle Vernon," said Harry, and he was surprised at the steadiness that prevailed in his voice considering his heart was currently running laps around his lungs.

"Codswallop!" Uncle Vernon brandished his belt with a threatening flare and in response, Harry merely gave his wand hand a meaningless yet eye-catching flick. It was the smallest of motions but the message got across rather well and, even despite knowing that Harry was forbidden to use magic outside of school, Uncle Vernon cleared his throat, the angry red hue draining somewhat from his rotund face. "I, er… I heard you yell, boy—and the other voice I just heard speaking was a girls! What in the ruddy hell did you think—"

Something insouciant compelled Harry to part his lips, only slightly, and the moment he did, confused beyond measure, his wand began to vibrate like before—and then he heard it again.

"You mean this?" came a voice directly from his wand, and now Uncle Vernon had no choice but to acknowledge it, his eyes expanding with unspoken terror. Thankfully, that meant he missed the look of stupefaction that grew over Harry's face. "Don't look so shocked, uncle. I've just been practicing some ventriloquism on the off chance this magic thing doesn't work out. I'm quite dumb, you see, not many profitable options for idiots of my abnormal caliber out there."

As Harry listened to his own wand casually insult him, he had to admit that its voice did sound like a gender-flipped version of his own, which was wholly unnerving by itself, but the most disturbing bit out of this entire situation was undoubtedly the crinkle of an amused smile that twitched under Uncle Vernon's bushy mustache.

Was he… actually smiling?

"Hey, bigger me," his wand called, and Harry flinched, "don't just sit there like a great lump, you've got an audience to entertain. You're going to have to do something other than your best troll impersonation."

It was probably the first time that Uncle Vernon had chuckled over something concerning Harry—a moment that probably caused some sort of fracture elsewhere in the world—but Harry completely missed it under the anger that quickly engulfed his senses, that caused him to grit his teeth to the breaking point. He was nearly killed a few months ago, the world seemed to be under the illusion he was some mad nutter squawking that Voldemort was back, his friends were avoiding him, Dumbledore seemed adamant in pretending Harry didn't exist at all, and now… now his wand was not only talking but insulting him to the point where his own uncle was on the verge of laughing?

"Shut up!" he shouted at the wand. "I'm not a troll, you stupid piece of plywood!"

"That's exactly what a troll would say!" his wand thrilled with a vibration that felt impossibly like it were laughing at him. "You know where trolls like you go once they get to Hogwarts, right? Straight to the dungeons! You'll probably meet some of your real family down there!"

"Hopefully there's a fireplace down there in dire need of some kindling, too," Harry growled in response, exhaling with such force it was a wonder he hadn't shot flames from his nostrils.

"As if you could go a day without me, I'm practically glued to your hand," the wand said snakily, "why, I daresay I'm more glued to your hand than a certain other long and hard instrument of yours—"

A fiery red hue bled from the fringes of Harry's hairline all the way down his face, disappearing past the neck of his nightshirt. He was so furiously embarrassed that all he could do was stare, mouth agape, at the instrument that had saved his life dozens of times, seen him through thick and thin, now making jokes about his manhood in a voice very much his own yet drastically different.

It took him a few moments to realize that Uncle Vernon's chuckling had upgraded into a wheezing… laugh? Maybe? It was definitely a humored sound the older man was making but to Harry it sounded a little too eldritch to be considered the literal definition of laughter, more like the strangled rasps of some great beast struggling to imitate it.

"Alright, boy, alright…" He sounded oddly relieved, though still highly suspicious. "Always thought your lot was downright bonkers… using magic to fix things, tch… ain't natural, it ain't, using magic at the drop of a hat instead of your own two hands and some good old fashioned blood and spit."

The urge to point out that his own son Dudley was the very antithesis to everything Uncle Vernon had just mentioned burned behind Harry's chest; he wanted to take the piss out of Uncle Vernon so bad, but it was the first time the man seemed somewhat relaxed in his magical nephew's presence, so much so that his belt-hand fell away and he gave an unbothered wave.

"Just… keep it down next time, boy, but keep at it… better'n all that magic nonsense," he muttered gruffly, turning to leave. "I'll tell Petunia about this—she'll be thrilled."

Harry very much doubted Aunt Petunia would care one way or the other but again, he wasn't about to correct Uncle Vernon, choosing to simply stare after his uncle's retreating form until the door closed behind him.

Waves of tension that Harry wasn't even aware he had built up bled from his shoulders and he tilted sideways with exhaustion, tumbling from the bed to the floor in one smooth motion that left him on his back, short on breath but wide awake.

"This pain I'm feeling in my spine… I guess I'm not dreaming," he surmised dispiritedly, and he felt his wand, still clenched his hand, vibrate with what he could only assume was a muted laughter.

"Of course you are aren't, daft boy."

"It's just hard to believe that Uncle Vernon actually laughed…."

"I don't think the noise that came out of your uncle can be legally classified as laughter. That sounded more like a troll and giant produced an unholy offspring and then it stubbed its toe but rather than cry it took some twisted delight in the pain and strained it out."

While that painted a pretty unnecessary picture in Harry's mindscape, he honestly felt that was the most accurate way to describe it.

He lifted his wand hand directly over his face, visually tracing it up and down for some kind of irregularity that he obviously hadn't noticed before. There had to be something there, a little button—a notch, even—maybe some little holes for a microphone, something.

"If you're looking for some explanation for my being able to talk, I assure you it's not some burdensome secret that you'd have to defeat a dragon over to find the answer to, Harry," it spoke, and Harry twitched, breath catching in his chest. "On another more introspective note, your face has been steadily getting paler with each passing day. I've also noticed you've not been sleeping as well, either—or eating much. That's typically the signs of someone laden with stress…."

Stress didn't even begin to cover it, that was the equivalent of scratching the surface and chipping whatever poor device was utilized. He was stressed, tired, paranoid, hungry, drained, and anxious all at once coupled with a frazzled mind that continually raced with possible reasons for why seemingly no one wanted to inform him of what was going on. Sometimes it was only the simple fact that two months were indeed a finite amount of time that kept him from going completely off the deep end.

Heaving a sigh, Harry sat up and leaned against the frame of his bed, making sure to hold his wand an arms length away, like it might shoot off at any moment. He worked his jaw in silence for a moment, mulling over the wands previous statement. "H-how do you know that? I… that I haven't been sleeping? Or… or eating?" he questioned slowly, struggling to keep his voice steady and calm so as not to incur a second visit from his uncle. "Can you, like… see?"

"In a manner of speaking, obviously," said the wand and Harry could swear he heard it give a scornful sigh. "You gave me sight from the moment you first grabbed me at Ollivander's—and what a rather shabby way to introduce yourself to a lady, if I say so myself!" the wand added with a clear huff and it was the weirdest thing, hearing this feminine version of his own voice giving him disdain. "Do you know how long I'd been waiting for you to appear? No, beyond even that—do you know how long I've had to live with the humiliating knowledge that my sister was picked by her master years before you were even born?"

His wand was vibrating intensely now, almost to the point where Harry dropped it, but while he kept his grip he was unable to keep the bafflement from his face.

This… this was actually happening.

Wasn't it?

"Whoa, whoa—hey, hold on—if you'd just calm down for a second—" Harry started, struggling to get a word in, but his wand had barreled down a full list of all the indignities she had suffered in wait for him.

"—and that man, I swear, do you think Mr. Ollivander had the wherewithal, or even the common decency, to at least rearrange our boxes every once in awhile? No! I sat there in that same musty box on that same musty shelf in that saaaaame musty shop for years! Decades,even!"

By this point, Harry's entire arm was trembling with the force of the emotional vibrations surging through his wand. She—it—was truly, truly upset.

"Why do you sound like a girl, though?" Harry blurted out amidst his wands grumblings. "Mr. Ollivander, he… back then he told me that you were the 'brother' to Voldemort's wand, that mine and his were brothers thanks to having the same core from Fawks—"

"Fawks? Oh, tell me, tell me—is that old bird still kicking?" his wand interrupted, almost conversationally.

Harry shrugged impatiently. "I couldn't begin to tell you—maybe? Last I saw? He should be, he's a phoenix after all, ain't he? They're immortal birds."

For some reason, in his mind, Harry could see the shape of this tall, long-haired woman with no facial features shaking her head in a piteous fashion, and then his wand yet again sighed. "Ten points to you, Mr. Potter, for your very astute and frankly mind-blowing assessment that Fawks the phoenix is immortal." If his wand could have awarded him a few claps, Harry felt it would have. "Have you any other painfully obvious facts that you'd like to share, hm? Perhaps that the sky is blue, or that fire can burn?" The vibrations died away in a mocking fashion before starting up again. "No? Well, alright then, stepping back into the realm of common sense, yes, they are immortal birds, but that does not mean they can't die."

Remembering the last time that Fawks had 'died' only to rebirth himself from the ashes of his own combustion, Harry had just opened his mouth when the wand talked over him and he promptly fell silent.

"And to answer your previous question, while Mr. Ollivander fancies himself knowledgeable in the study of wandlore, there are a great many things he does not know—and for good reason, as attempting to fully understand wand magic, such that it is, is a very strenuous endeavor that's been known to break minds and drive people mad."

That much had to be true, Harry figured, as the little bit of wandlore he was learning now had his brain sizzling.

"Every wand that finds its master will habitually adapt the opposite gender," she told him matter-of-factly.

"What? Why?"

"Simple. Were we to align ourselves completely with our masters, there would be nothing to glean from one another; the friction such a thing would undoubtedly cause allows for a greater understanding—and incidentally," it continued, and the sudden sheepish lowering of its voice—or vibration—caused Harry to quirk a brow, "if you could be so kind as to watch where you're rubbing your thumb, Harry…."

A fiery blush overtook Harry's entire face and he immediately shifted his holding, until he was awkwardly wielding his wand between his ring and middle fingers. He wasn't even sure what he had done, or what he could have possibly touched, but that didn't stop him from feeling an odd bout of shame that confused him as much as it had him fumbling over a way to apologize for something he didn't even know was a thing.

"I'm kidding," his wand said, and Harry paused, the look over his face growing murderous. "Oh, come now. Are you absolutely positive there's no troll in your lineage? Maybe a few drops? Did you really think you were touching me—a wand—somewhere inappropriate? I'm a wand, Harry!"

"I-I thought—but you shouldn't have said it like—" Harry blustered angrily, spitting words in a strained whisper and shooting furtive glances at his bedroom door. He couldn't be so sure Uncle Vernon wasn't eavesdropping, it was one of his more common practices. "I'm not a bloody wand expert!" he hissed.

"Clearly," his wand thrilled, and Harry could swear that faceless visage of a woman in his mind had just rolled her non-existent eyes. "Here, to save you from embarrassing yourself further, you should know that the link between wand and master go deeper than anything you could find even in the darkest depths of the Hogwarts library. Oh, make sure you tell that to your little friend, Hermione, I'd love to see her flip out on one of her 'that can't possibly be' tirades."

Harry blinked, subconsciously bringing the wand closer. "Wait—you know about Hermione? How—"

"My word, I didn't think it true when Professor Snape said you had the memory retention of a thimble, but I guess you must have since I clearly said, less than five minutes ago, that the moment you touched me, the moment we bonded, you gave me sight," his wand reiterated crisply. "I know about Hermione, I know about Ronald and all kabillion of his siblings, I know about the chocolate frog you stole from Dean last year in the common room—your thoughts are my thoughts, I live through you, Harry."

It was just one thing after another, his wand firing off bullets of information straight into his brain, quickly, too quick to fully process before the next round was burning through. He barely had a grasp on the fact that his wand was talking, that he actually wasn't as mad as he first suspected, but everything else was filtering through in fragments, pieces here and there, and it was starting to make his scar throb.

"So… so—I didn't know anything about masters, about talking wands—none of this," Harry said, and he dragged his fingers through his hair. "It's just… weird, innit? You… you're a bloody wand! A talking wand!"

"I see you did indeed have another painfully obvious fact to point out," his wand replied. "Ten points to me, I reckon."

"Why are you… why do you act like that?" wondered Harry with the smallest trace of annoyance. "You're all snarky and—and it's like, you have my voice, however creepy that is, but you are nothing like me so I'm just… confused. Shouldn't you be more like me?" There was a sort of exasperation in his shrug. "I mean, you're almost like a Ravenclaw wand…."

When a blistering heat suddenly erupted from the stick in his hand, damn near singing his fingers, Harry knew, deep down in his very soul, he knew he had just said the wrong thing.

"Don't. You. Dare," his wand started tersely, and each word was punctuated by an intense rumbling that shook Harry from his fingertips all the way down to his feet. "We wands take whatever house our masters are drafted into very seriously! I—WE—are Gryffindor bred, Harry! All other houses wish they could match our bravery and courage in the face of impossible odds! You, as a matter of a fact, as dim as you are, are a testament to what a true Gryffindor should embody! Always overcoming, always storming through, never bowing, bursting with valor—I greatly pity the other wands of the other houses who will never know what it's like to be held in the palm of a true hero!"

A ringing silence followed his wands empowered words and, for the first time in a long time, Harry felt his heart swell. It was… nice, overwhelmingly so, to hear such good things said about him when for the past month or so all he had to go on where the rather nasty snippets in the Daily Prophets and unending silence from the others.

His wand was still highly incensed, he could tell as much by the thrumming vibrations, but it… she… was starting to calm down; Harry could envision that woman in his mind taking deep inhales to slow her heaving chest.

The smile on Harry's face was the softest it had ever been and in the process of wrapping his arms around his knees, he brought his wand in closer, taking the barest amount of refuge in its rhythmic trembling.

"I'm… I'm sorry I said that… I really shouldn't have," he muttered.

"Too right you shouldn't have," his wand snapped, like the very thought were mortifying, "I mean, honestly… me, a Ravenclaw wand…" It shuddered with obvious disgust. "I'd sooner tell you my name…."

Amidst the newfound admiration Harry was experiencing over his wands strong sense of house loyalty, he felt his eyes snap open.

"Your… name? You mean, wands—you—have a name?"

"Indeed we do, Harry. Every single one," it explained, sounding grave. "Although I don't think it in either of our best interest to divulge it just yet. The consequences of mishandling a wands true name can be quite… dire, to say the least. It's a magic as ancient and dangerous as an elder dragon."

Harry had heard the warning just fine but that did nothing to satiate his piqued curiosity. "Well, I mean," he began, trying to sound as conversational as possible, "you can tell me, can't you? It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone, give 'em more reason to think I'm off in the head."

His wand bristled with a sharp tremor that might have been a laugh. "Harry, Harry, Harry… you are off in the head," it clarified in the same gentle tone one might use when talking to someone with brain damage. "You took a killing curse in your infancy and it gave you a scar more famous than the one who gave it to you, you have every right to be a bit troubled—it's naught but the marking of a true hero."

It was tough trying to figure out if Harry had just been complimented or insulted just then but what he knew for certain was that his wand had just sidestepped his inquiry, which was probably as good an answer as he was going to get.

"As a matter of fact, Harry," his wand began rather energetically, "you really must thank that Lord Voldemort fellow when you see him next!"

"And why the ruddy hell would I do that?" came Harry's response, the words flying from his mouth reflexively with all the sharpness of a knife.

"Because, you scarred up ninny, he just unknowingly gave you the very tool you'll need to kill him, obviously!"

"Wait—what?" It was disorientating, being flung this way and that down the hallway of emotions his wand seemed destined to take him through. One moment Harry was feeling empowered, then insulted, then elated, then furious, and now he was more confused than ever. "Did you say… kill him?"

The vibrations stopped completely for a few contemplative seconds, and Harry could clearly see that mental woman eyeing him up and down. "Oh, Harry… you can lie to yourself, you can even lie to the others, but I'm your wand. Understand that. I'm connected to you—with you—in a way that no other human will ever be able to reach. I know how you truly feel, Harry… and your hatred toward that fellow with the snake-nose, you've done an admirable job at keeping such murderous intent sedated. It's only natural, really," it added spryly, at the look of remorse crinkling Harry's brow, "he did murder your parents in cold blood, after all."

And it was a somber truth that Harry wrestled with everyday he awoke in Dudley's hand-me-down bed. Before he had gotten the chance to know them, before he was even capable of uttering their names, he had taken them away, Lord Voldemort….

"That right there, what you're feeling right now? It's called a 'drive', and it's what's kept you alive for so long despite the hilariously numerous attempts on your life," his wand told him, and the vibrations were harder, almost rousing. "Stuck with no way out, facing almost assured death… it was your drive that gave you the strength to duel that snake fellow. Well, that and a bit of heroic stupidity because I don't think, outside of Professor Dumbledore and your mangy godfather, I don't think anyone currently breathing would have dared raise their wand to him like you did."

There was nothing Harry could say to that so he remained silent. He very much remembered the sheer fear that streaked through his veins on that fateful night… it had nothing to do with bravery and everything to do with not giving Lord Voldemort the satisfaction of killing him without a fight.

"Yes, you were ready to die, and if weren't for me and sister, you certainly would have, Harry," his wand continued, and that heat from earlier was beginning to come back, although nowhere near as searing. "I just… I can't believe she actually allowed that man to use the Cruciatus Curse on you. You! My master! Why, it boils my phoenix feather just remembering!"

That much was ridiculously clear as every word spoken sent a hard tremor up Harry's arm. His wand was far more incensed than before and Harry was very glad that all this ire wasn't aimed at him this time; he was half-expecting his wand to fire off a spell on its own—which did nothing but pierce him with a new surge of anxiety at the very thought.

"Oh, I just couldn't let her get away with such an injustice, could I?" it went on, and the mental woman of Harry's mindscape was pacing up and down now at a furious pace, "no, of course not—not when she was actively assisting the madman attempting to harm my master! My Harry!"

Even though the words—vibrations, rather—were coming from his own wand, Harry took a great deal of joy in hearing someone, anyone, referring to him as 'theirs'.

"It was the second time she had tried to kill you… the first time I overlooked, naturally—"

"Naturally?" Harry blurted out, double-taking with a shake of his head. "You—why? The first time was when your sister—when he killed my parents! And nearly me!"

"—because back then, I was not yours and you were not my master," his wand continued on just as steadily, as though Harry had never spoken. "Looking back, I can only assume that dear old destiny is having a right chuckle… my sister and her master giving you that scar, which would inevitably lead you to me, the sister wand—almost as if this was planned…."

Along with the vibrations, Harry could hear the distinct sound of his own heartbeat, subtly quickening.

"Mr. Ollivander does like to totter about when he makes wands, I found, and when he fashioned me, though I was bereft of true sight, I learned of my sister, of the age gap between us, that I was the youngest…." There was a slight pause in vibrations, during which Harry instinctively held his breath. "I didn't like that, no, not one bit, and I endeavored to make sure that whoever my master should be, that I help them become the strongest, become the greatest. Never did I think that my sister had already been well into such an aspiration with her own master… but her ways were vile, unforgivable, giving strength to one with so murderous a heart…."

Vestiges of the coming morn were trickling in through the bedside window, slotted rays of a bright sunlight heralding a new day for Privet Drive, and noticing that brought to Harry's attention that his rear had grown dangerously numb from the hardwood floor, but he was enraptured in his wands tale, in the way the mental woman of his mind seemed to be the 'core' of the voice.

"But the virtue of a wands master should never matter to us," it said almost ruefully. "We are wands, first and foremost, and we are at the utter disposal of the hand that wields us, no matter if that hand leaves behind a trail of corpses." If his wand could have spat, Harry felt positive it would have. "During our collision in that graveyard—"

"You mean, um… the, uh—nuts, what was it called again…?" Harry raked his throbbing memory, digging and sifting for the proper term—then he snapped his fingers. "Priori Incantatem!

"Very good," his wand praised with the smallest of amused laughs. "So ridiculously inept at your schoolwork yet masterful on battle tact and flyby spells. Yes, clearly a hero you are destined to be. Priori Incantatem is a phenomenon known to you humans as a discussion between wands, and while that is technically correct, it's only the first layer of an incident that goes oh so much further than that."

"How so?" Harry asked.

"When my sister and I met that day… we were very much trying to destroy the other," the voice whispered, and, surprisingly, without a hint of regret. "We discussed a multitude of things during that brief moment we were tangled. I accused her of trying to kill my master, she told me you needed to die so hers could achieve true, unequivocal power, I told her I simply could not allow that and she responded by trying to siphon some of my power—and being the older, wiser, more magically enhanced sibling, she very nearly succeeded, but your mother, Harry—"

A muscle-tightening twitch took hold of Harry's entire being.

"—when she died, she left you a great power, a devastatingly strong kind of magic that neither that bald albino nor my sister could have foreseen, and it was that magic that gave me the edge—it was I who siphoned her power instead. And in doing so, it finally gave me the power I needed to gain my voice, the one you hear now."

When Harry blinked, his eyes stung, they stung really bad, but he kept his tears at bay just as he had multiple times in the past. Hearing his mother's magic still worked in his favor, that she continued to protect him to this day….

"We are are going to have to a very terrible thing, Harry," spoke his wand in that same gender-bent quality of his own, and now he could see the woman in his mind facing him, the air about her resolute. "My sister and her master are determined to kill not only you, but everything about you: your legacy, your friends, even your wand. They want you gone. And that… is something I have no intention of ever letting happen, not while my core burns as brightly as it does. When my sister attempted to siphon my power, I knew then and there that there was no saving her. She wants the very best for her master, as any great wand should, and the very best constitutes seeing you dead. You know what this means, Harry."

Of course Harry knew what that meant but it made the knot of swarming anxiety in his gut no easier to deal with. It was an outcome he had long since suspected was coming, but it was an outcome that he had mostly kept to himself—and even though he felt sure that everyone who knew him had come to the same conclusion, no one had actually brought it out into the open for discussion. Somehow, through an unspoken unanimous agreement, the motion of speaking into existence what they all knew had to be done would have made it seem more… real, given it a terrible weight, and that was the last kind of burden Harry needed to carry on shoulders that were already overladen.

"Yeah… I know," he choked out, increasing the grip he had over his wand.

"Good!" the voice thrilled, and Harry blinked at the sudden readiness. "I was worried that you would be too much of a hero to realize the difference between a forgivable threat and my sisters master. I cannot tell you how old it can get watching the hero get done in due to their own naivety—oh yes, I've seen the same kind of movies you have, Harry, and those are the absolute worst. We will not end up like that, you hear me? So, the way I see it, our goal is simple: kill him before he has a chance to kill us."

The reality Harry had been subconsciously struggling to avoid was very pointedly in his face now, the summation of the battle that started on the day his parents were murdered. Knowing his wand was wholly right, there was little he could do in the moment to settle his nerves besides sigh.

"And… how do we do that?" he asked tentatively. "It should be easy, r-right? I mean, you siphoned your sister's power—this should be easy next time we meet, yeah?"

When the woman in his mind literally threw her head back and started laughing, the act of which sent a rollercoaster of violent tremors lancing through his wand arm, Harry felt his stomach churn.

"Are you kidding me?" his wand half-laughed, half-cried. "Dear heaven's, boy, you really are mental, aren't you? If my sister and her saltless master happened to swoop in right now, we would both be Avada Kedavra'd out of existence!"

"But—but"—Harry's heartbeat was deafening, right between his ears—"you said you took your sister's power!"

"Yes, enough to get my voice, you adorably dimwitted hero! And even that was a struggle that almost broke my core! My sister has had true sight for almost six decades. Me? A very generous five. Had I tried to take anymore, she most assuredly would have eviscerated my core and killed you. My sister is absurdly powerful, her magic festers with a wisdom and drive the likes of which made it so that her masters name is virtually taboo to even be uttered out loud. Now, you tell me… does that sound like something we can defeat?"

Well, now that it was spelled out to such a ridiculing degree, Harry just rolled his eyes impatiently.

"Okay… alright, fine, okay, so… how do we do it, then?" he asked again, with a touch of desperation.

"As comfortable as you are with speaking the name, you'll have to grow accustomed to speaking what you plan to do to the person who wields it, Harry," his wand told him severely. "Your hesitancy to say 'how do we kill him' speaks volumes about your lack of willingness to carry through… and that will not only get us killed, but with you out of the way, countless others will fall as well."

Harry could barely keep it together with the gut-wrenching knowledge that he would have to someday duel Voldemort to the death, but knowing that the outcome would decide the lives of people he had never even met? That his failure undoubtedly meant a wave of bloodshed? He was starting to feel nauseatingly heated, trapped within his own skin. "But… why me? Huh? Why's it gotta be me?"

"Because he chose you, Harry. When he gave you that scar, he chose you… which works fantastically for us." It was the most encouraging vibration that Harry had felt thus far and it vanquished some of his fear. "You see, on the very same day that that ghost in human flesh took away your parents, he also unwittingly marked the one to kill him. You've been given a great opportunity and a terrible task all at the same time… the only question is, will you continue to sit, or will you stand?"

Common sense attempted to freeze Harry's legs with horrible mental images of all the twisted ways he could die dueling Lord Voldemort, all the different tortuous methods sure to be used against him from the Cruciatus Curse to using someone he loved as a shield, just despicable deed after despicable deed, all of them well within Voldemort's sadistically twisted moral limits of doing….

So when Harry found himself fully on his feet without remembering the motion of standing, there was no confusion. In all likeliehood, he was very much aware of the fact that facing the man who struck fear into the heart of the wizarding world would lead to his death—

"But he'll breathe last before I do," Harry muttered aloud, and he felt his wand give a delighted thrum between his fingers.

"That's the spirit, boy! Okay, so we have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of planning and the like—even though we've been together for half a decade, there's much about me you don't know and very little I don't know about you. We have to catch up, it helps make our bond that much stronger and it really rustles my core knowing my sister probably knows her master better than I do mine—but we're going to fix that, you hear me? We're about get very intimate about some things so come, come, you need breakfast, your stomach's going to start growling any second now—"

A deep burbling from Harry's stomach caused him to sling an arm around his waist.

"See? I told you so! Let's go, quickly—oh, but we're going to have to be careful about communicating, aren't we? We can only have your repugnant aunt and uncle thinking you're a tolerable level of crazy—"

"I'd rather them think I'm not—" Harry started, wincing from the hunger pangs, but his wand was off on her own little tandem.

"—so we'll try to keep conversation to a minimum, not too much, not too little, because there is an ungodly amount I have to tell you concerning our new rite of conversation, many dangers that need to be averted since we wouldn't want me exploding in your face, right? Right, so off we go, yes? Before your stomach reckons you've slit your own throat."

There was a great many things within his wands rambling that gave Harry good cause to worry, but with the worst yet to come, he figured being comfortably fed would be the best way to face this new journey he had been thrust into.

"Alright," he nodded firmly. "Let's go eat."

A/N: #yearoftheoneshot