Harry Potter and the Soul Within

Chapter one (1): The Attack of the Creatures

Harry stood by the lake resting his back on the beech tree he used to sit beside and revise, or have some leisure time with Ron and Hermione. But no more leisure time now that Voldemort's roaming freely around England, with god knows how many Horcruxes. He planned what he was going to do after his back to the Dursleys trip which he was not really looking forward to. He silently chanted the remaining Horcruxes: the cup, the locket, the snake, something that belonged to Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. He felt a hand pat on his shoulder, he looked around and saw Remus Lupin looking at him wearily. He looked more tired than ever. He didn't have the marauder smile on his face and with that gone he looked older than ever. Harry wondered at what Voldemort did to people.

"Harry," he said quietly "you need to meet someone."

"Whom do I need to meet? More than the people I have already met?" Harry replied.

"Well, you'll know when you do," Remus said.

"Okay," Harry said with a sigh. Wondering about the 'someone' he'll meet.

Remus led him towards the castle. Right at the doors stood Firenze, the centaur, conversing with someone in black robes, a male with tall black hair, black gloves and black boots to match. He seemed to be almost Harry's age or perhaps a year older. He had an angry look on his face although his conversion with the centaur seemed quite. Remus pointed at the boy and said "This Harry is Jack William Potter. To be more accurate, your cousin."

Harry listened to the last spoken words with intent he had a cousin? If he did, where was he all this time? The thoughts rushed through his head as he approached his cousin.

The boy or Jack turned around and in a minute a smile replaced the angry scowl.

"Jack Potter," he said holding his hand out for a handshake. "Nice to meet you"

"The pleasure's all mine," Harry said, more rudely than he intended, taking his hand.

Harry needed no introduction. He knew that his so-called cousin knew who he was.

"I know that you are confused," Jack said. "But if you just give me a chance to explain…"

"I don't need an explanation," Harry replied. "If I'm always the last one to know, then be it". Harry knew this wasn't true. Dumbledore told no one but him about the Horcruxes. But he was angry and annoyed for a reason, and whatever the reason, he gradually became angrier. His scar throbbed but he didn't care. It did that a lot the past few days.

Jack looked at him and as if he read his thoughts he said, "What are you feeling right now?" Harry's shock to the question didn't overcome his curiosity to know how Jack knew about his scar and unexplained anger.

"Angry," said Harry.

Jack seemed to think about something then looked up at Harry and said, "Come along," and walked away towards the funeral seats overlooking the lake. Harry followed.

Harry could see three new faces sitting on the seats in the front. One of them, a boy with green hair with some of it covering his right eye completely. The other two were girls, a blonde and red-head. Once Harry saw the red-head he thought of one particular girl, Ginny. But when they got closer he saw that the girl was much older than his Ginny. She was about 19, wearing some fancy red-black robes. Jack walked over and stood in front of them. The boy with the green hair said, "Abou' time. C'mon now I don't wanna stay here for long."

Jack did some introduction. The boy was Jason, the blonde was Sara, his sister, and the red-head was Rachel. Rachel seemed to be Jack's girlfriend, because they kissed when introduction was over. "Okay time to go," Jack said.

"Go where?" Harry asked.

Jack looked at a watch on his wrist and said like Harry was mentally disabled "Go to the Dursley's. Ever thought of that?"

"Wow, how do you know about the Dursley's?" Harry asked. "I didn't tell you."

"I do my homework," Jack replied with a sly smile.

"No seriously."

"Oh c'mon Harry, Remus told me of course."

Harry felt the anger inside him diminish while Jack took them to the Quidditch Pitch, moving around like he lived there. They walked and the more they did the anger within Harry slowly vaporized. Until they saw Ron, Hermione and a teenaged boy sitting on the stands having a chat about what seemed to be Quiditch. Hermione however seemed to looking at some instrument, which glittered in the sunlight.

"Harry, do you know what this is?" Hermione squeaked in excitement, holding the instrument in her hand. "It's a time turner!"

"Hang on," said Harry. "Didn't we destroy all the time turners at the Ministry fiasco?"

"Well, apparently Richard had one with him," Hermione replied pointing at the boy chatting with Ron. "He says…"

"Richard?" Harry exclaimed. "Who's Richard?"

"He seems like he is Jack's partner," Hermione replied. Ron was arguing loudly with Richard about something.

"His partner in what?" Harry questioned. "And how did you know about Jack?"

"Well, for the second part Richard told us," Hermione replied unsurely. "For the first however, it's not really clear. But Harry," Hermione said tentatively. "Enough about that you…umm… have a cousin now, a real relative."

Harry didn't know how to reply or what to say. He never thought about it from that perspective. The anger that was consuming him fifteen minutes ago blinded his thoughts, but now another thought surfaced in his mind. The sudden rush of anger reminded him of the many times he felt unexplained emotions of anger and joy. Harry knew one thing, he wasn't the source of the anger. It was Voldemort. He didn't really have much time to think about it as shouts and screams erupted from behind him. He looked around and saw that Jack, Richard, Jason, Sara and Rachel had their wands raised and were shouting spells everywhere.

"Stupefy!"

"Reducto!"

"Incarcerous!"

"Incendio!"

"Impedimenta!"

Harry looked over towards the side they were targeting and what he saw sent a rush of horror through his body. Beasts of all kind were approaching them. Inferi, a single werewolf, banshees (Harry recognized the creatures from Lockhart's meaningless classes), and to increase Harry's horror, cloaked creatures were in the lead. He took them as dementors at first, but they were much thinner and looked more like a bodiless cloak than a cloaked creature. Harry speculated at the absence of the familiar coldness that accompanies the presence of dementors.

"USE YOUR PATRONUS PEOPLE!" Jack's cries echoed through the air. "THESE AREN'T DEMENTORS THEY ARE LETHIFOLDS!"

Richard took it from there. "THEY GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO YA," he shouted, "THEY ARE GOING TO DIGEST YOU!"

Harry didn't know and didn't care what Lethifolds were, he had one thought in his mind; a happy one.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" he shouted along with the others as he saw Ron and Hermione join the clash.

He saw seven patronuses join Prongs in his march towards the Lethifolds. What caught his attention was the two patronuses at the middle of the group. A lion and an eagle. They weren't the usual silverglow; they looked as if they were made of fire. Harry never saw such a patronus, he watched as the two torch-like animals ripped swiftly through the lines of the Lethifolds. Harry switched his vision towards the casters; he saw Jack and Rachel pointing the fiery patronuses towards the nearest Lethifold.

A few minutes later, the Lethifolds were gone, the Inferi burning in flames, and banshees lying dead. Two targeted by a well performed Sectumsempra from Harry. The werewolf was no where to be seen, probably fled after seeing his companions fall to their deaths. Jack looked exhausted; Harry could have sworn his hair had new blond stripes in it. Harry heard footsteps behind him and a muffled sound of wood hitting against earth. He looked around and saw Lupin, Moody, Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt walking towards them. But before any of them could even speak, Jack was storming towards them cursing under his breath although audible enough for them to hear.

"Where the hell were you people?" he said loudly.

"Listen lad," Moody growled, although his magical eye was whizzing in every direction. "You were not the only ones fighting Voldemort's creatures."

"Calm down, Jack," Lupin said steadily. "We know that you are angered and saddened by it, but letting it all out on us isn't an effective way of dealing with it."

"You…y…don't know," Jack said weakly. "You don't understand."

"I perfectly understand." Remus replied. "You know it affected all of us."

"Okay," Jack said lowering his voice. "I'm sorry I…I didn't mean it."

Moody smiled and said, "Now, I need to have a slight chat with you po…Clawfang"

"Clawfang?" Harry questioned. "Who's Clawfang?"

"I am," Jack said "it's my nickname."

"Oh." Harry managed to say.

"I'll be back in a moment," Jack said and strode off with Moody and as he did, Harry could now see a clear lock of blonde hair cascading over his face.

A/N : Big thanks to my beta reader Shannon. please review what you think, your reviews feed my ideas. hope you liked it. 2nd chapter coming up in about a week or so.