Disclaimer: This prologue is set three months after the "Battle of Hogwarts" in Final Confrontation If you have not read Final Confrontation I recommend that you do so before you read this because the two stories are connected. All the characters here with the exception of Seth-Ra belong to J.K. Rowling and her publishers. Seth-Ra is my own evil creation. Enjoy!
In His Memory: Prologue
By WeasleyTwin2
These are the times that try men's souls…
The American Crisis
Thomas Paine
One hero dies-a thousand new ones rise…
Nathan Hale
William Partridge
Sunlight reflected off the lake at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry turning it into molten gold. In the distant forest birds were singing but this was the only sound carried on the otherwise still and silent air. It was extremely odd for the school grounds to be laying in total silence on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Usually by this time of day the grounds came alive with students relaxing after a week of studies but there were no students here though September first had already come and gone. For the first time in the hundreds of years since it's founding, Hogwarts was not in session. Letters had been sent home with surviving students after the "Battle of Hogwarts" telling parents there would be no classes for the next six months to a year while repairs were made to the castle and grounds and new teachers sought for vacated positions. The letters, written in emerald green ink, were sighed by Hogwarts' new Headmistress Minerva McGonagall.
Professor McGonagall had wanted things at Hogwarts to return to normal as quickly as possible because a bit of normalcy would have helped her to deal with the deaths of so many people she knew. Realistically she knew things would probably never be "normal" again. For herself, she would always be looking for students and friends who were no longer among the living. Three months after the battle, the castle was still barely habitable and they were still clearing rubble and finding bodies. McGonagall shuddered at the thought of discovering any more bodies of people she knew amid the wreckage of the castle. She hadn't handled the last one well and soon after she had pulled herself off helping to clear rubble and began to concentrate on the day to day running of the school instead, although this did very little to take her mind off those lost.
"Things will be better when we've reopened. I hope," she thought.
She had found teachers for most of the now vacated positions except one: Defense
Against the Dark Arts. She had a person in mind that she wanted to ask to take the job again; she just hoped that after last year he would be willing and able to teach. The death of Harry Potter was hard on everyone of course, but it seemed to have hit Remus Lupin hardest of all. He had requested an indefinite leave of absence after the funeral and seeing how bad Remus had looked McGonagall had agreed. She had sent Sirius with him so that he wouldn't be alone. Sirius had been in almost as bad a state as Remus and McGonagall thought the two friends should grieve for their loss together. They had looked as if they had lost their best friend again and in a way they had. Harry was so much like James it had been like having him back and to lose Harry was like losing James all over again. She looked out her window, tears blurring her vision for a moment as she remembered the father and son who had seemed to be so much alike. They had been almost like twins though they had been born decades apart. Harry had done exactly as James would have in his place.
Professor MaGonagall shook her head trying to clear it of the memories that were threatening to engulf her.
"I just hope Remus will come back. We need him here," she thought as the sun glinted off the granite stone that now marked Harry's grave.
Picking up the letter she was sending to Remus, she left her room for the owlery.
*
Ron and Ginny Weasley had been asked by Hermione and her parents to stay with them until they sorted out where they were going to go. Ron accepted the invitation because he wasn't ready to go back to the Barrow and because Fred and George were still in the hospital recovering from the injuries they had sustained in the battle. They had been found several days after the end of the battle, barely alive, in the rubble of a collapsed tunnel. George said they were lucky they weren't in the main building when the tunnel collapsed on them because if they had been then most likely they would have died. They had been visiting the school the morning of the attack and had offered, when it became clear that they were surrounded, to try and take a couple of the school owls outside the ring created by Voldemort's creatures via a secret passage they knew of that lead to Hogsmeade. Once outside the ring they would send the owls to the Ministry of Magic warning them of the attack and requesting their aide. They were just returning from this errand when the tunnel collapsed just as the last of the magical defenses around Hogwarts fell. In a matter of seconds they were buried under rubble and dirt but fortunately none of the walls had fallen on them.
Though Fred and George had a house near the school and although they had told Ron and Ginny they could stay there, Ron and Ginny felt uncomfortable staying alone somewhere strange and Hermione didn't want to be alone either because she was having nightmare replays of the battle nearly every night. She was glad when her parents offered to take the Weasleys in. Hermione had also asked Draco Malfoy to stay with them but he had politely declined the offer. Ron thought it was because Hermione and her parents were Muggles but Hermione had the feeling that though that would have been the case in the past it was not the case this time. She had detected something different about him lately. Ever since the battle Draco had been acting strangely and totally unlike his former self. It was almost as if the death of so many had caused him to reevaluate everything in his life and make changes in it before it was to late. She wondered what he was doing and where he was now. They had not heard anything from him in months and she was beginning to worry. After all they had been through she hoped he was doing all right.
*
Draco Malfoy had not returned to Malfoy Manor after the funeral of Harry Potter. He felt it was too big for one person to live in alone and though he wanted to be left alone, he did not want to be rattling around in a huge house full of Dark Arts objects, nosey servants and unhappy memories. So he had sold the house, released the servants with full pay and disposed of the Dark Arts objects that had nearly cost him his soul and had cost him his family. He took the money from the sale and gave it away first to the orphans of the "Battle of Hogwarts" and then to the school so that the castle might be restored properly. He also gave money to the fund set up for the memorial to those who died in the struggle against Voldemort and with several others started the Harry Potter Scholarship Fund for promising but poor wizards who wished to attend Hogwarts whether they were of Muggle or wizard blood. He knew his father would have sneered at this but he didn't care. Draco wanted the Malfoy name to carry a new and better meaning then it had in the past. He was tired of everyone fearing him because of his name and he was tired of the Dark Arts which had cost him nothing but pain and suffering. On the day of the funeral he had renounced the Dark Arts forever and had vowed to make a change in his life. He intended to just that.
With the remaining money from the sale of Malfoy Manor he had bought a small house in a secluded area near Godric's Hollow where he lived alone or so he thought. Every once in a while he had the feeling someone was watching him, waiting for something but he didn't know who it could be or what they were waiting for. When this happened he would look carefully around to make sure no one was there and he never found anyone.
"Am I going mad with grief and guilt?" he wondered, as he left his house for what he hoped would be a nice relaxing walk in the woods.
*
Deep under the burning desert sands of Egypt, far to the south of Hogwarts, a tomb that had been sealed with the strongest of spells for countless ages has been reopened. At long last the evil imprisoned within it has been unleashed on an unsuspecting world. The curse upon this tomb back lashed on to the curse breaker and Seth-Ra's spirit, which had been sealed in that prison more then a thousand years before by Godric Gryffindor, was able to enter the body of the curse breaking wizard by destroying his very soul and placing his own soul in its place using an ancient spell that Voldemort had been unable to completely master.
"I live again!" he cried as he left his prison far behind him. "This time there will be no mistakes. Mine ancient enemy, I come. You will die and the world will be mine!"
*
The spirit of Harry Potter floated above the red granite stone that marked his grave and pondered. He had felt Seth-Ra's spirit reenter the world of the living, stealing the body of another. He wasn't sure how he knew, he just did. It was like the warning that came before a bad storm. There was something that he could read on the wind. He shivered and tried to remember what he knew of Seth-Ra and his battle with Godric Gryffindor in a time long before Hogwarts founding, a time before Gryffindor had earned his name, to a time when he was still a very young though powerful wizard who went by the name Osirius in Egypt. The trouble was there was not much written about this battle, in fact it had no name. All that Harry had been able to dig up were a few fragmentary records that warned of Seth-Ra's eventual rise to power and said that only the son of Osirius and the weapons that were in his possession had a hope of defeating him. That was why he had asked Ron, Hermione and Draco to guard those same weapons. They must never fall into the hands of Seth-Ra or his minions or more lives would be lost then had been in the "Battle of Hogwarts"
Harry bowed his head, remembering all those who had already given their lives in the fight against evil. Of the Hogwarts class of 1997 fully half were killed outright or had, like Harry, died of wounds received in battle. The remainder of the class had become a close-knit group setting aside all house rivalries in the face of such deep sorrow and grief. Harry looked toward the castle and saw the monument to those slain in the battle against Voldemort. The "Hogwarts Wall of Honor", as it was called, normally glowed with a soft magical light though right now sunlight was glinting off it's polished surface. The house flags that flew above the monument rippled in the wind, looking for a moment as if they were alive. Each of the four Hogwarts houses had a section of the monument made of stone that magically reflected that house's colors and all the names carved into the wall were inlaid with shimmering silver that reflected even the dimmest light. Across the top was carved: In Remembrance of those who gave their lives that others might know peace. The Gryffindor section of the wall was glowing with a faint scarlet light that Harry could see from where he floated. Harry knew that among the names on that part of the wall were the names of his parents. He looked heavenward and hoped they were happy wherever they were now.
"I hope I've made the right choice by staying," he thought, as his eyes traveled the length of the "Wall of Honor"
He sighed and wished for the hundredth time that he hadn't died because this had only complicated things. He had been the last living heir of Osirius/Gryffindor and only he would be able to defeat Seth-Ra according to all he had read. But exactly how much of a chance did a dead heir have against him? Could he still defeat Seth-Ra even though he was dead? Harry didn't have any answers to these questions and what's more he wasn't sure his powers could still have any effect in the living world.
"I should have been more careful in that last battle. I should have let Draco handle things. He is perfectly capable of defending himself, after all. That was really a SMART move, Potter," he shook his head, remembering himself running forward to aide Malfoy and the feeling of pain as the knives had entered his body.
Harry floated back down to the ground and headed for the castle to check on the progress of the repair work still grumbling about the hand fate had dealt him. He could only hope that they would have enough time to prepare and that somehow the others could weld the powers of Gryffindor. For if they couldn't … he shuddered to think what might happen.
To be continued……..