A/N: Ok, so this idea came by me while I was comparing Eragon to Harry (while I started the last Eragon book, which I still haven't finished) As you can see (by the very short drabble) I found them to be quite similar. You don't need to have extensive knowledge of either books, there might be spoilers depending how much you have read, but for Eragon probably not much farther than the first book, and Harry Potter its somewhere in the 5th book. Right now it's just this one-shot, if I'll make it longer, who knows.
6/13/2015: Wow, it's been such a long time since I've seen this thing. I'm kinda cringing just giving this a quick read over. Then again, I wrote it back in my Sophomore year of high school, 3, almost 4 years ago. I never thought that this little drabble would get the attention it has, so thank you for giving my little high school self a chance. I'm giving this drabble an overhaul And who knows, I might actually continue the piece eventually. No promises though. I'm leaving the original A/Ns for nostalgia's sake. (and I still haven't finished Inheritance, but one day. maybe)
As for SPOILERS assume I might reference anything and everything from both series.
Reincarnation (Latin: to be made flesh again) -
1) belief that a part of a living being survives death to be reborn again in some way. This reincarnated self carries with it some essence or identity of the past life into the next life, although it is usually not aware of it.
2) a HP/Eragon crossover starting from Order of the Phoenix, referencing all Eragon books.
Everyone is reincarnated, and many live their next life ignorant and unaware of their previous. But sometimes a past life could be so vivid, and the bonds formed so strong, that the reincarnated soul couldn't help but to remember the past. This is the story of bonds that could never be broken and memories that still remain. Neither time, nor space, not even death could erase these events. Those recollections of friends and foes, and a land so fantastical every breath was full of magic, could never be erased.
Harry Potter believed himself to be an average wizard, having nothing more spectacular than the next member of the wizarding world. Save perhaps, the two brilliant friends he would do anything for, and an archenemy he would do anything to get rid of. These friends were of course Ron and Hermione, his best and closest friends since first year, when they bonded over the troll in the bathroom that fateful Halloween night; and cementing their friendship while protecting the Sorcerer's Stone from Lord Voldemort, Harry's archenemy, at the end of the year. Unbeknownst to Harry though, he was living through his second life. This was not unusual. Indeed, many people were not living for the first time. However, what made Harry unique was how closely his current life mirrored that of his first. And because of the similarities, there was a bleed-over effect that would have far-reaching effects. Changing Harry's very destiny.
In his first life, he was looked to be a savior, someone to rid the land of an insane tyrant. This and many other great burdens were laid upon his shoulders at a young age. For the boy now known as Harry Potter, his first land was a distant one, a land whose history and knowledge is now forever lost upon the sands of time. This land was broken, fragmented by the civil war that had ravened throughout its borders. A war caused by one man's magic and madness. This mad king and his twisted followers had caused the other races to scatter and hide. The dwarves to their citadels under the earth, in the great mountains beyond the vast desert, and the elves to their enchanted, deadly forests, breaking their ties with the human race. The dragons, those proud and fierce creatures, had been decimated, hunted down and killed until only one dragon, the Mad King's, and three eggs remained. This was the land that the boy had been born into.
Harry Potter's second life was quite similar to his first. He was an orphan once again, given to and raised by his aunt and uncle as an infant with minimal explanation. And an entire land's, no world's population looked to him as a savior, once as Eragon Shade-slayer, and now as Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. But this boy, no, young man now, was unaware of this. He knew nothing about his past life, his first life in which he saved his world. All he knew was that now he was called to save the world he was introduced to when he was eleven. He had been given insufficient training, no way to prepare himself for the increasingly more dangerous tasks and trials that he found himself facing, time and time again. Yet, they expected him to survive, to do more than that, to win. He was considered only a boy by the adults, too young to be told of what was truly happening in the world around him. But, he was asked to save that very world, blind and unprepared. He was expected to vanquish the foe whose name could be said by so few, either allies or enemies.
But memories from his past life began to leak into his current, starting on his fifteenth birthday. First, Harry dreamed of a farm and a peasant family, his relatives who raised him. Then, hunting in a vast wood with only a bow and arrows. Time passed and as the end of summer drew near, his dreams took on a more fantastical quality: a brilliant gem turned dragon's egg, stories of great dragon riders of old, a flight from the his sleepy childhood village both literal and metaphorical, and an ambush in an abandoned desert village. The last image haunted Harry; it was a massacre, bodies piled high in a grotesque fashion, arrows protruding from them like a porcupine's quills. A young child at the top of the giant pile, like a macabre Christmas topper. Later in dead village, he was cornered in an alley by a hideous monster, Urgal, his mind supplied and shooting it dead with a flaming arrow.
Harry was currently walking along Magnolia Crescent, trying to come to terms with the latest in his strange series of dreams. Last summer they had been filled with visions of Voldemort and Wormtail, now they were scenes from someone else's life. No, that didn't sound right. Those dreams before the Triwizard cup had a muddled feeling to them, as if he was viewing them through a dirty window. These new scenes felt clear and crisp, almost as if viewing memories through a pensive. The only difference was that he was seeing these memories from the perspective of the boy, Eragon, not as an observer.
There was something especially vivid about this last vision, that of the pair of monsters, killed by his own hand, but yet──it wasn't Harry. He had never tried archery, had never even held a bow. But yet it felt as if he had been practicing for all of his life. This entire summer had been filled with changes; the Dursleys had started giving him more appropriate amounts of food, and had even started gaining some muscle. Harry felt as if he could do all the feats that his dream-self had, everything from farming to hunting, horseback riding to swordsmanship. And all of these changes confused him. Not paying attention to his surroundings, Harry realized that he had reached the old playground. Harry sat on the swing set, contemplating.
The boy in his dreams had to have been around his age, living centuries earlier. It seemed to be more than visions of the past though. Harry could feel magic in the air, pulsing along the veins of that dream word. The odd creatures that inhabited the world seemed surreal, even compared to everything he had ever encountered in Care of Magical creatures. These dreams couldn't have originated from Voldemort, and the more Harry thought about them, the more sure he was of this fact. There was a fantastical quality to these dreams, even for all of the pain that could be felt in the memories. Harry could feel something joyous and free, magical even about his visions. So different from anything that could be found in modern-day England, even within the Wizarding World, his dream-world could have jumped off the pages of an Arthurian legend. Complete with knights and dragons his dreams could truly have belonged to myth. In a way it felt like a medieval parody of his life.
And in a way it was, because in a way, that boy he saw in his dreams, was himself.
End Notes: So not sure if I'll continue this or not, I wrote this back in April and just found this on my computer and kinda liked it. Feedback would be appreciated. Oh, and has anyone else seen the parallels between Harry and Eragon?
6/13/2015: God, while editing this thing I kinda wanted to bleach my brain and rip out my eyeballs. That was PAINFUL. I was such a pretentious idiot back then. I think I wanted this to sound as sophisticated as possible, believing that the bigger and fancier the words you use, the better the story you write. Now I (hopefully) know better, but any criticism is appreciated. Thank you again, anyone who gave me feedback in any form in the past. Looking back this might be a pretty clichéd concept, but hey, indulgent writing, is indulgent. And fun.
This was pretty much just setting the scene, but the story might just go on…
Until next time.