Revelations
Returning to Hogwarts for his sixth year, Harry has found a new determination to strike out on his own and prepare for his looming battle with Voldemort. Along the way he will find; a teacher, a mentor and a friend in the unlikeliest of places. (As with all my stories visit my profile for an alternate version where Harry and Draco are platonic.)
-Elebelle
AN:
June 7, 2019
It seems as though I'll never be totally pleased with the editing on anything I write. In that spirit; another year later and another series of edits and content begin. Standby for cleaned up chapters and new chapters. Hope you all enjoy!
-Elebelle
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of the Harry Potter verse.
Altered as of:
12/13/2012
8/22/2013
1/6/2015
4/12/2018
6/7/2019
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-Revelations-
Chapter One
Final Days
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Dim light from the full moon, outside, filtered through the rain-spattered window of the smallest bedroom on the second floor of Number Four Privet Drive. In the melancholy dimness, Harry felt that these last seven days of summer would dither and drag on for months, somehow prolonging his banishment of an existence. Or maybe time had simply decided to come to a complete standstill, just to prolong the negativity he'd drenched himself in.
Every year; thrust out of the world that he has come to know and love. Thrust away from the friends he has come to love. Thrust away from his…from Sirius. Not that he'd reunite with Sirius once his banishment ended, anyway.
'Maybe time is actually a magical creature. Living somewhere that no wizard can find it and maybe it's related to dementors.' He thought to himself. 'Time certainly seems to slow down for everyone when anything horrible happens. Maybe time feeds on suffering.'
Harry amused himself with drawing patterns in the condensation of his window while he thought.
'I wonder where Remus is, How he's doing.' His mind was more than happy to conjure up the most horrific images of a werewolf without wolfsbane potion, running unchecked across the countryside… and all the possible repercussions of that.
His hand dropped from the bedroom window and slipped inside the back pocket of his denims; where the largest shard of the mirror that Sirius had given him rested, safely wrapped in shredded scraps from an old shirt of Dudley's that he had dug out of the bottom of his trunk.
He hadn't been able to bring himself to unwrap it and look at it since digging it from the bottom of his trunk. It stayed on him all the time though, and under his pillow at night. As he ran his fingers over the cloth, he could almost imagine it warm somewhat under his fingers. But no. He sighed and dropped his hand out of his pocket, turning his attention back to the dulled colors of the outside world, half lit by the moon.
"Harry!" Came the sound of a frantic, muffled whisper. It almost seemed to echo about the room. As if it had both come from very far away, and also right by his ear.
All the blood drained from Harry's face as he stood and spun about, searching for the origin of the voice he'd heard whisper his name so urgently. There was no-one. There never was. Apparently, this was Voldemort's new game. Whisper into his head when he was distracted and depressed.
Well, Harry wasn't going to play that game. He wasn't going to let Voldemort make him think he was going insane. It wouldn't work. Not after the ministry.
Seven more days. Seven more days until he'd be free of his hell here, back home at Hogwarts and into the hell of the war, but at least there he'd have his friends.
Harry could scarcely imagine a time where he wouldn't be on edge anymore, he tried to remember how it felt to be carefree and it seemed as though the memory of it was so faded that he just couldn't seem to get a grasp on it.
Like taking a drink of lemonade only to find out it had been water the whole time... something was missing, and he was beginning to feel that it would always be this way ... even though he really did know better. Usually.
Being back home at Hogwarts would be better than this. It had to be.
He knew there were times in the past that he'd been happy for no apparent reason. Happiness for the sake of itself... He knew that there was a time not too long ago when he didn't worry day to day, second to second about what could… or what terrible thing would happen next. He couldn't remember how it felt to be happy just to be happy though. At least right now, he couldn't.
He hoped that going home to the castle would let him be able to feel that happiness, at least sometimes, or at the very least it should allow him to get to where he could breathe again without being on edge all the time and that maybe he could shed some of the stress he was under on a constant basis. At the same time, he feared that maybe it was a dream. Thinking that way, what with Voldemort running rampant now, not even trying to hide from the muggles… the ministry seemed to be keeping up with wild stories and obliviations but who knew how long that would last.
Probably not long.
The confrontation with Professor Dumbledore at the end of last year had left him so drained of hope that he didn't know where he would find the strength to do what he now knew he must.
Things had just gotten worse from that moment onward.
Harry tried to owl his friends, tried to keep in touch, and tried so hard not to lose himself in his grief over what had happened to Sirius and his friends. He wrote regularly to each Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Luna and all the others that were with him that night. Only Luna had been keeping up with him. The others wrote occasionally. Luna and he had been exchanging mail every four days or so.
He smiled to himself as he thought of her. She had proven to be a very insightful person and he sometimes wished he'd gotten closer to her earlier.
At some point, he had gotten a letter from Dumbledore. It wasn't even really a letter, more of a missive... and not even in the curling script he had come to know from him. He hadn't even taken the time to write it himself.
"Headquarters at Grimmauld Place is simply not safe, Harry." Dumbledore had told someone else to tell him.
Exactly how much safer could Harry get than under Grimmauld's Fideleus Charm, anyway?
"We cannot risk your safety and well-being without the protection that your aunt's home provides." He had said to whomever had added it to the letter.
At least the headmaster had the decency to refrain from calling this place his home. The last line in the not-so-much-a-letter had cemented his disdain though.
"We will have to take care this year to limit correspondence to and from Grimmauld Place." The letter had been that single one paragraph, plus a few scribbled sentences; written jointly by Ron and Hermione, in which they had given him zero information on either themselves or the order's efforts.
The few sneak peaks he'd had of the telly while cleaning up meals for the Dursleys had given him more information than anyone in the wizarding world seemed to think he needed. Seemingly random home invasions and grisly murders with no suspects and no leads were common across the country. People were scared… and still, they were not scared enough... had no idea what they were afraid of, and worst of all… no way to help themselves.
Harry was restless.
He was angry.
He felt at fault. At fault and unable to do anything about it. So, he busied himself with menial tasks around the outside of the house whenever he could. He thought that maybe getting out and doing something exhausting might keep his mind off of what had happened at the end of the school year, and he was right.
Weeding the flower gardens and digging a new vegetable garden with the sun beating down on his back each day did just that. The burning in his chest from exertion and the soreness in his muscles were very adequate as distractions.
Each night when he lay in bed, showered and exhausted... he still found sleep hard to come by.
Distractions though they might be, his self-imposed chores were not enough to keep at bay the nightmares he suffered in his isolation.
He took to keeping a journal instead of writing most of his friends, as it seemed that they were plenty satisfied with doing exactly what the Headmaster told them to do; namely, not writing to him more than a handful of times all summer.
So, he would lay in bed for a while every night, then he would sit up on the edge, head in his hands... just thinking and regretting. Then he would write in his journal until he physically could not stay awake anymore. He would either crawl into bed and sleep for a few hours. wake up and write until the sun came up or he would find himself unconscious come morning, still at his writing desk.
Either way, the result was the same. He slept, but no true rest came for Harry Potter for the whole of summer.
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The last days leading up to his departure for Hogwarts was when Harry realized how quiet it had been all summer around Number Four.
The Dursleys had left him to his own devices and the last week proved the same as the ones before, except that Harry noticed the unusualness of it. He couldn't remember one snide comment or truth be told, one comment at all sent in his general direction from any of the Dursley family members. With a halfhearted shrug, Harry stored the information in the back of his mind and in his journal to ponder over at another time. At the moment, he had friends waiting outside for him.
The few items that he did unpack from his trunk were replaced and most of the last days of his summer were spent staring out the window at night with his open journal in his lap, writing.
The days were filled with sitting in the back garden chatting with a small nest of tiny green garden snake hatchlings that he had rescued from a cat; an angry orange and white striped thing who had found them behind the tool shed early on in his construction of the vegetable garden.
On rainy days he would bring all of them inside, to sleep in his bedside drawer, and toss dead flies to the hatchlings while the mother hunted.
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Finally, the day came to leave Little Whinging, and Harry sat atop his trunk by the front door; awaiting a taxi his uncle had called for. When it arrived, he stuffed his trunk into the rear and took up his new habit of staring out of windows. It at least made the long trip pass quickly.
Harry had come to a conclusion on the night of his birthday that summer. He needed to step up his determination to be ready for Voldemort when the time came for their confrontation. His luck would run out one day. He needed to be prepared. The problem with this new realization? Determination and motivation went hand in hand and he simply was not feeling very motivated to find a way to confront a maniac.
Ron and Hermione could barely get two words out of him on the train and the carriage rides to the castle. Yes, he was very happy to see them. No, He was not angry with them for not writing. No, he was not depressed. Yes, he was sure.
As the trio filed into the Great Hall with the other students to await the first years Harry smiled thinly. He was home. His eyes sought out Luna and he gave her a smile and a nod as he sat and turned his attention to the Sorting Hat, who was just beginning his song.
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The whole school waited with bated breath as the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and song burst from it, loud and slightly off-key:
In times of old when I was new
And Hogwarts barely started
The founders of our noble school
Thought never to be parted:
United by a common goal,
They had the selfsame yearning,
To make the world's best magic school
And pass along their learning.
"Together we will build and teach!"
The founders then decided
And never did they dream that they
Would someday be divided.
Were there such friends, anywhere
As Slytherin and Gryffindor?
Unless it was the other pair
Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?
So how could it have gone so wrong?
How could such friendships fail?
Why, I was there so I can tell
The whole sad, sorry tale.
Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those whose ancestry is purest."
Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach all those whose intelligence is surest."
Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those with brave deeds to their names."
Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot and treat them all the same.
These differences did cause much strife
When first they came to light,
For now, each four raised up their voice
And Hogwarts was divided.
Where six once stood, two had died
To stop the pointless fighting.
And buried deep, the shadows keep
The key for those Invited.
As silent guard, in times of need
Descendants shall appear.
Of the two who lost their lives,
To teach you, fight the feared.
Now she comes to set things right,
As one we'll stand United.
Right now,
The Sorting Hat is here,
And all now know the score:
I sort you into houses
Because that's what I'm for,
This year I'll go a little further,
Listen closely to my song:
Though condemned I am to split you,
Still, I've seen that it is wrong,
Though I must fulfill my duty
And must quarter every year
Still, I wonder whether sorting
May cause that which we fear.
So, know the perils, read the signs,
The warnings history shows,
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From many, deadly foes.
We must unite inside her
Or we'll crumble from within
I have told you, I have warned you...
Let the sorting now begin.
With that, the torn brim of the hat sealed itself shut and it sat very still on the wooden stool… the same way it did every year; waiting to be lifted on to the heads of the first years who were all gaping at it in astonishment.
"Branched out a bit this year, hasn't it?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.
A shush from Hermione and shrug from Harry were his only direct responses, but the hall was filled with the buzzing of murmurs. No one knew what to make of the Hat's cryptic messages and many were confused by some of the things it had said. Even the head table was restless, the teachers all looking at one another for answers.
The Sorting hat usually confined itself to describing the different qualities looked for by each house and its own role in sorting them. Harry could not ever remember the hat trying to give the school advice before. He resolved to remember the song as best he could and write it in his journal once he got up to Gryffindor Tower.
The hat's song had struck something inside him and he felt as though something was going to happen this year that had not happened in a very long time in the wizarding world. If the hat's hints were to be interpreted as he guessed, Hogwarts could be united in a way that the magical world had never seen before.
Harry couldn't decide whether he was romanticizing it or not. Equal parts hope and dread filled him as he felt the ever-familiar sting of walking on knife's edge yet again.
If the Sorting Hat meant that somehow the wizarding world was going to come together to fight Voldemort ... then he wanted the hat to be right. He needed it to be right. This war was killing their world and the proof was staring at him through the faces of the eleven-year-olds that came to Hogwarts this year.
There were fewer new students attending this year than he had ever seen. Twenty or so, if that. Their names and houses passed over Harry as he stared at the head table… and into the new face he saw there.
There sat a woman with the strangest coloring that Harry had ever seen. He, along with the rest of the school easily assumed she wasn't fully human- and Harry wondered if the Headmaster remembered what happened the last time he hired someone who wasn't fully human. Remus Lupin had been their best teacher to date, sure... but he did, after all, try to eat them at one point.
The headmaster must have been hard-pressed to find new DADA teachers after the past few had left and shared and their experiences. His attention turned to his classmates and he observed the relaxed conversation, the smiling, and laughing... but in the back of his mind there lingered something he didn't want to name. Something that made him think that he might, in fact, be able to muster up some of that elusive motivation he needed to prepare himself for the future that awaited him.
As he glanced again at the new teacher and caught her eye, there was a sneaking suspicion that Dumbledore had even more secrets this year than the last, and that didn't sit well with Harry.
"Hermione." Harry poked his friend in the side, in attempt to gain her attention. She snapped her head around to look at Harry, eyes wide, with a hand clasped firmly over her nose and mouth. A small giggle had escaped her, taking with it a flood of pumpkin juice through her sinuses.
Harry bit his lips to contain his own laughter, and handed her his napkin from beside his plate. She took it with her free hand and covered her face with it, wiping away the sticky juice and replacing her startled expression with a mild glare.
"Harry!" She hissed at him. "You know how ticklish I am."
"Sorry, 'Mione."
"Why are we whispering over our food?"
"Probably habit, at this point." A smile crossed Harry's face, briefly, as he replied.
"Fair enough."
"Any thoughts on the new Professor?"
Hermione glanced up at the Head Table, and the new Professor with the silver-purple hair.
"She has great hair." Hermione gave a slight shrug and threw a bewildered look at Harry, only to receive an exasperated sigh in return. "Well, what do you expect, Harry? I've been back as long as you have. She doesn't seem the type to try and murder you, if that's what you're after. Then again; neither did Quirrell, Lockhart, Lupin, Moody- or Crouch, rather. I'll not even start on that toady woman. Everyone knew she was evil from the get-go."
"Every time I look up there, she's staring at me, though."
"Well. This was bound to happen, eventually, I suppose." She replied as she stared at her plate, pushing around her food and avoiding Harry's gaze.
"What was bound to happen?"
"You've gone 'round the bend." She stated it matter-of-factly and with a great heave of her chest in a sigh, dropping her spoon into her potatoes. "You've succumbed to paranoia. It's reasonable, really." She shot a mischievous grin at Harry and they both laughed quietly.
"Really though, 'Mione, any impressions?"
"You're getting ahead of yourself, Harry. Let's just wait until after Defense, at least. What sort of impression could she possibly make on the first night back? At the first meal, and from the Head Table no less?"
"Umbridge."
"Touché"
"If you two are planning for us to do something stupid, can it at least wait until tomorrow?" Ron broke into the conversation, startling his two friends. "I'm beat, guys. Let's go to bed before we talk about saving the school this early in the year."
Ron stood up and headed to the doors, Harry and Hermione following after him with smiles.
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A/N:
I hope the new edits and content are satisfactory.
-Elebelle