Harry Potter & the Knights of the Old

Chapter I: The Beginning

By TGB

Harry found himself sitting in some dungeon lighted with sickly green torches, the throne, for it was it, appeared to be made of bone, hopefully not human. There was a meeting of some sort, a lot of people in dark robes with white masks stood in half-circle around Harry with exception of one standing right in front of him. Slick blond shoulder length hair were noticeable, despite the hood. And referring to him, Harry said, him voice slightly raised:

"Tell me exactly how exactly you lost the prophesy?"

"My Lord" – said a slightly nervous voice at his feat. "It was Potter, he …"

"Silence", said Harry in dangerous hiss, as the Death Eaters started to whisper. "So tell me, Lucius, how exactly a scrawny school boy managed fight off ten members of my inner circle ruining my perfect plan and getting away in one piece?"

"He was helped my Lord" , came the response, as Harry noted he wasn't completely truthful with him.

"Crucio!" , cried Harry, watching with sick pleasure as the man was twitching on the floor, as his cry traveled through the room, making every last of the Death Eaters shudder and thank the god of not being in his place. Meanwhile Harry continued the interrogation: "Don't lie to me Lucius, I know he was accompanied by his little friends", the last word was said with contempt, "but they were just children and were outnumbered by fully grown purebloods".

"But my Lord …", whimpered Lucius.

"What, you wanted to say that a bunch of children can defeat my most powerful man?", it is understament to say that Harry was angry, he was furious, ready to kill someone and Lucius noticed, so he decided to shift Dark Lord's wrath onto somebody else.

"It was all Bellatrix, she was toying with him", he desperately cried as it was the first thing that came to his mind, and he knew he would pay for this. "Of course if she will survive this", he thought with a smirk.

Harry felt the truth in this sudden outburst and shifted his gave at the death Eaters in his close vicinity, "Bella", he said to one particular feminine figure, "Explain!"

"My Lord, those little brat was insulting you, filthy little liar, he was denying your power", Bellatrix wasn't looking in his eyes but he felt she was truthful, nether the less:

"Crucio!", he bellowed once again. "And you felled for it? Fools, Potter will get what he deserves anyway but not before you. Crucio!" And suddenly the dungeon was filled with unearth screams of pure agony.

oOOOo

A lot of miles away a boy awoke with, a boy who was not ordinary even by the wizarding standarts, not every boy defeated Dark Lord at the age of one after all, even less continued to escape from Voldemort grasp on numerous occasions through out their life. The Boy-who-lived still remained too short for his age, which he could blame on Dursleys more than ten years of mistreatment and abuse played their role, "At least I' am not scrawny now", he mused himself. and indeed five years of Quidditch played their role as much as his annual special activities, including saving philosophers stones, killing basilisks, saving dangerous convicts, assisting in resurrection of Dark Lords and of course running into different traps, nearly killing himself in process, not that this mattered. He could now think of himself as slender

Right now the greatest hero of the magic world was trying to stifle a scream and clutching his lighting bolt scar, which wasn't necessary at all: as soon as he arrived from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry he asked the order member on duty at #4 Private drive to place silencing charm around his bedroom, Kingsley (cause it was him) looked surprised but decided against asking questions, he knew also that he wasn't the person Harry really needed to talk to. Privately Kingsley wondered how the boy was coping with his most recent lose, but he wouldn't be dare to ask Harry, he needed time to mourn, to understand and let go, Remus was in slightly better condition but loosing his friend twice caught him unprepared, and as Harry he blamed himself.

In present however Harry was trying to desperately recall all details of his vision, considering that Voldemort didn't finish his torture session and thus his scar hurt as if somebody poked it with a hot rod (he was actually convinced that his scar was hot to touch), it was an immensely difficult task to fulfill, however since his possession by the bad man himself the connection weakened a bit, he was know able to distinguish his own feeling and echoes of Voldemorts one, not that it helped with visions, but the aftermaths of visions were now numbed, for which he was immensely thankful. As he remembered the vision a little smile appeared on his face. "So the snakeface is pissed of", he mused, "Good, people tend to make more mistakes in this state", he thought, but argued with himself of Voldemort being a human. While Snape was a little success as a spy because of Voldemorts distrust to anyone, Harry was able to give a more insider information than anyone else. "Yep, right, try yourself sharing a mind with this crazy megalomaniac"

Two neat stacks of letters lay on Harry's table, some unopened, some even answered (which was even worse option). Since the beginning of summer Harry became the true master of two thing: short informative letters and long ones, filled with a lot of creative word combinations which would make anyone including sea-worn sailors gain the Weasley's infamous blush(tm) even without read hair. The purpose of those was to express his opinion to people voicing (if this can be applied to letters) their condolence about his loss, of course Remus was an exception, he was one who didn't try to pity Harry, but tried to comfort him. Remus after all lost three of his best friends, two dead, one even worse than dead, the traitor will pay, no doubt of it, Harry even thought about leaving the little rat with Remus during his transformation, but knew it will be far more satisfying to let him consciously kill the bastard, but of course Harry won't let him do it, this was just a voice of his dark side, "No matter what I always must stay in control", but it was getting progressively more difficult to be in clear state of mind, Sirius' death was still a raw wound.

Harry mourned Sirius, he really did, however he couldn't let his death lead him into despair, "What good it would do anyway", he thought, "besides Sirius wouldn't want me to". Harry also remembered what Dumbledore said at the end of his third year: "You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us?", "They don't", Harry thought confidently, even now he felt Sirius somewhere on the outskirt of his awareness, his lingering presence, soothing him, apologizing for leaving him completely alone. "But I' am not alone" Harry understood suddenly, a lot of people are there to help him, to give him a hand when he needs one, as they shown in Department of Mysteries. With this new found knowledge his anger left him.

"But there is a thing I am forced to do alone"

The prophesy. The fight. "Neither will live while the other survive", he will forever remember that fateful dawn and the forerunning occurrences, when Professor Dumbledore unfolded his destiny before him, not really the one he was looking forward to, "Still I must thank god for the years I already lived", somehow Harry always knew he was living the borrowed time, first his mother and now Sirius, they sacrificed their own life to give chance for Harry and consequently gave him time to prepare for his fate, cause without his help this world won't survive, whether it knows it or not. He was after all the child of prophesy, he never even considered the possibility of Neville being him, he would never condemn anybody to this awful fate and Neville already had his share of that kind of experience. "Although better than the previous title", Harry chuckled slightly, but he couldn't lie to himself - he was afraid, not for himself, no far from it, for his friends, Voldemort would do anything to hurt him, his friends were the first target, friends who proved their loyalty to him on numerous occasions, including the most recent one, he won't risk their lives anymore, but Voldemort will do everything to get them, he was still oblivious to content of the prophesy (which is believed to be lost) so he couldn't do much, except tormenting Harry and the best way was doing it through the people he valued, Harry was absolutely terrified of loosing Weasleys. The Boy-who-lived promised himself at that very moment that he won't let it happen, he won't let anyone else die for him again, he will train, he will fight and he will (at least Harry wholeheartedly hoped so) win. Grabbing his glasses from his bed table he took his quill and some parchment – he had to think about it his plans more.

Ten crumbled pieces of parchment and a couple of quills later he was the proud owner of the final edition of "Harry Potter's To Do List"(tm):

Learn occlumency (pathetic excuse for one he used one was absolutely useless, no matter how much he tried)

Do your summer homework

Learn proper dueling techniques and some new spells, charms, curses etc.

Unravel this mysterious power the Dark Lord knows not and put it to the best use.

Some physical training won't hurt either (see point 11)

Prank the Dursleys and the greasy git (alias Snivellus)

Crash Dumbledore's office once more (preferably yelling at him)

Shop in both Diagon alley and London

Kill the Dark Lord and his little rat(a.k.a. Censored)

Wash clothes (due respect to muggle's To Do Lists)

Get yourself a girlfriends.

With these new found goals in his life (especially the last one), Harry Potter drifted into a deep dreamless slumber, for the first time in many years he was at peace with himself. So he slept oblivious, that his awake tomorrow will be spoiled by the fact that he fell asleep still being in the chair and announced by the loud crack in his neck as much as quiet swearing(he was constantly expanding his vocabulary this summer to write far more interesting letters to people than he already did).

oOOOo

The Dursleys, with whom "the arrogant little brat"(in Snape's terminology) lived never felt positive emotions about him, but this summer opened new edges of loathing for them, but with little help from the order especially Moody, were tightly leashed in their actions, in fact, Harry wasn't even forced to do his choirs and his share of food increased considerably, not that be paid a lot attention to it, all his time was devoted to his personal studies (his homework was done long ago) and of course some physical workouts, morning jogs were especially hilarious, since wizards are known for their neglect of physical condition, and Harry who spent half of his life running from the bullies and other half playing quidditch experienced no such problem, however the order members were having a hard time, when Harry saw heavily panting Mundugus Fletcher(the invisibility cloak slipped from him) muttering something about crazy muggles while clutching his heart, he laughed almost to the hyperventilation and had to spend at least ten minutes to recover.

While his physical exercise were a success, his personal studies were brought to a halt, he read all the books he had but he couldn't practice, mainly because of fear of expulsion from Hogwarts and more importantly of his wand being snapped, so Harry had to find some means to fool ministry. And in one of Hermione's arithmancy books (must have grabbed accidentally), nearly sleeping by the end of it, he found the answer, apparently arithmancy required most precise measuring without any magical interference, so to achieve it special devices were invented, the so called null magic fields generators were used to isolate the area, most usually a moderate size room, from any magical influence, while permitting the use of magic inside, that way nobody could detect any magic used inside it, so Harry was positively thrilled with opening possibilities. However some problems were in his way as always.

First and most irritating of all was the Order, Harry made quite a few attempts to go to the Diagon Alley for shopping, even using invisibility cloak, however Mad Eye seems to be almost stationary at Private drive and escape proved itself to be almost impossible. The other big problem was in his legal status in the magical world, nobody would ever sell such equipment to a schoolboy, no matter how much money, and Harry had quite a lot, he had. So Harry had to find another means to acquire needed equipment. After some time he found almost perfect solution. So he wrote his first "normal" letter this summer:

Hi Fred, Hi George

I think I must apologize for my previous letter, however I' am sure you found them amusing no doubt.

Now I think you are indebted to me so I am sure you won't reject your financial banker in his little wish. I want you guys to buy me and most importantly secretly deliver to Private drive, the null magic field generator, I'll cover all expanses at first chance of course. And please keep it quiet, especially from the Order.

P.S. I would also appreciate some little short lasting not very damaging prank items to have a little revenge at my relatives.

Cheers,

Harry Potter

Harry also decided to write a letter to Flourish & Blotts, after all he already read his books so he needed some new ones. The letter was basically a request to send him some order forms for the books and the list of the current choice of the store. Harry did asked about a way of delivering the books directly to him, not bowering the owls, cause this was a magical world after all and nearly everything is possible

A pity but he had to awaken Hedwig, letters won't deliver themselves after all, so he called her name quietly, which made absolutely none effect and Harry had to shake her (literally) into the world of living, which she didn't really appreciate, but raised no objections to leaving this hellhole for a while. "At least she could be free" thought Harry.

"Safe flight, girl", he said, and his trusty owl soared into cloudy night sky, blending with it quickly, leaving Harry with nothing better to do than reading Daily Prophet. "My god if they write this here what the hell they post in Quibbler". Daily sightings of Voldemort, conspiracy theories, most ridiculous ministry acts – everything found its place in this very newspaper. Fudge was obviously hysterias, he was desperate to hold his place, everyone knew he loved power and for many years stayed unchallenged, and now his happy little society was falling apart with only one man to be blamed – himself. It was his arrogance that gave Dark Lord a one year head start, as much as desire to compromise Harry and Dumbledore(well he might have been right about Dumbledore being senile and crazy though). The only positive notion was restoration his status as a hero of the wizarding world, it was much more comfortable (he won't of course ever admit it) than being lying attention seeking little boy with inflamed brains. However even this days Prophet brought good news, Harry was positively delighted when Umbridge got fired, apparently some school children were even less tolerant about her policy at school than himself, and situation nearly gone out of control, so Fudge had to sacrifice the toad to gain publics favour. Percy Weasley was sent to the Centaur Liaison Office which also was unofficially known as "point of no return", because anyone in this office was one step from being fired. Harry couldn't say this was really good news, but a little evil smile lingered on his face for some time.

He couldn't help but wonder what lead little boy Tom to becoming that monster, that demon, who haunted his dreams. Prejudiced muggle father, the childhood in the orphanage, the wrong company, but Harry had similar childhood and raising, if not worse, and still he wasn't half as bad as Voldemort (quite the opposite). No he just couldn't find the reason and perhaps no one will ever, except Dumbledore of course, this little manipulating bastard always seems to have the right answers, but hardly ever made right decisions, "If only he said the prophesy to me after my first year, how much things would have been different, how many people would have been alive, but this bastard cared about my childhood, hell, he took it from me the moment he condemned me to eternity(or so it felt) of this torture". For now he simply decided not to think about it, all of it, like Hagrid once said: "What's coming will come", "And I'll face it when it does", concluded Harry. With these thoughts he slowly drifted to sleep, which miraculously wasn't interrupted by any nightmares.

A/N: So what do you think people, be good (makes his best puppy dog eyes) and review all questions will be answered, all propositions considered, etc. And I will try to keep the story filled with enough humor, but action will still be there, it will be more action/adventure like "The awakening Powers" by sib-ff, here on fanfiction. Also English isn't my native so don't be to harsh with my language or style. The title will be explained later, the first couple of chapters are just filler. About ships: there would definitely NO slash, the other is undecided.

Sincerely yours TGB