To Be a Master

Prologue – The Year 2039

She found the man standing alone in a small clearing where he had built a hut. The forest was everywhere around them, thick and green and shadowed; some primordial remnant of an older world. The clearing, then, was presumably man-made for it was clearly out of place in the wilds of this wood.

She found herself filled with nerves and a degree of uncertainty she had not been feeling before. So much had happened for her, so much had changed. Everything in her life had seemingly been leading to this moment. Every trial and every struggle. Each night spent sleepless and in wistful longing. And the whirlwind of adventure that had swept her along out of nowhere, with no regard for desires or choice. All of it had led her to this moment: a German forest and the haunt of a man who until recently may as well have been a myth to her. And yet here she stood; a girl, orphaned and alone, holding on to one shred of hope that this man, this complete stranger, might hold the key to her troubled heart.

She could feel it again, as she'd felt it before…with him. No, not the man in the woods; the other him. The monster. She felt it in this place more strongly than ever. The magic. It called to her. She could feel it gently moving in the very air of this place, being carried along by the wind. She could feel it in the soft crinkling of the leaves and the hard, weathered bark of the trees, so old that perhaps no age could be given them. There was power here, old and strong and true, yet…new as well. To her, at least. She was clumsy as an infant in this world, this realm of magic and power that you could feel; but she felt now for the first time that perhaps, just perhaps, she might have been coming home. For it felt familiar to her, even as it felt so strange and new. And there in the middle of it all stood him; the very embodiment of myth and legend, but very much flesh and blood and alive. That is what she felt most of all. This place was alive and she could feel every inch of it flooding her senses.

The man was wearing robes that had once been black but had long since begun to fade. He was hooded like some mythical wizard, the billowing of his robes in the wind only adding to the mythical appearance of it all. He was not looking at her, for his back was turned. She wondered if he even realized that she was here.

Almost as if in answer to her thought, the man began to slowly turn her way, as if he had been standing still for years and had forgotten how to move. Her heart began to hammer and thud so loud she could swear the dead could hear it. And in a place such as this perhaps they could. To see his face…she was about to see his face.

The way his name was used it was almost like a prayer. As a child she'd heard it whispered in awe and admiration. Among the Order, those people she'd only just met before embarking on her journey, she'd heard it spoken with something else: reverence. To put a face to the name, after all these years, was indescribable. How could she ever prepare for a moment like this?

What she had expected, well, even she did not know. But as the man completed his turn to face the new arrival it was something of a surprise, and perhaps even a little bit of a letdown, to see that he was…just a man.

His hair, like the robes he wore, had once been black as pitch, but was now liberally streaked with gray. His face was lined and he wore a beard that, frankly, was a tangled mess. Casting her eyes to his forehead she would have missed it had she not known that it was there. In among the other lines and creases mottling his brow was a jagged scar, crudely shaped like a bolt of lightning. She'd thought that it would stand out more, the way people talked about it but in his old age it was barely even noticeable. In fact, he looked entirely ordinary and, again, perhaps a little disappointing. He did not stand particularly tall, nor was his frame especially corded with muscle. Whatever she had thought the mythical Harry Potter would look like, it was not this.

The one element of his appearance that gave her pause were his eyes, for they were the brightest color she could see; a vivid green that seemed to live even as the green of the forest in which they stood. She took the opportunity to look into his eyes and saw that they reflected pure surprise. It appeared she had startled him.

Slowly, she began moving toward him.

With trembling fingers, she undid the clasp at her side, unsheathing the ancient artifact that had been entrusted to her. During her long weeks of travel she had taken much time to examine it, carefully memorizing its every detail, from its length and width to the intricate carvings adorning its outer shell. As little as she understood, she realized that the artifact's true power lay on the inside. She also understood that what appeared to be a foot and a half long stick was in fact the most powerful weapon in existence. At least, that's what Hermione had said.

And so it was with reverence for its power that she tentatively extended her arm and offered to reunite the Elder Wand with its master.

A stiff breeze jostled them both, old timer and newcomer alike. Her wind-whipped hair surely made her appear somewhat foolish, a sensation that grew only stronger the longer she stood with her arm outstretched, extending the fabled wand to a man who seemed reluctant to take it. Long moments passed in silence, neither one of them making a move. If something did not happen soon her arm would tire; it was already beginning to shake.

Just as she was wondering what on earth it would take to get this man to make a move, a chance flicker allowed their eyes to lock. Now she was by no means an expert at reading emotions, particularly emotions conveyed only through a person's eyes, but she was certain the blend she saw was an odd one. There was surprise; that one had been there from the beginning. She also noted confusion, anger, and could it possibly be even a little bit of fear?

Curious.

What happened next set the girl's heart hammering even more fiercely than before; he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, a look of apparent resignation on his face. When he opened his eyes, he reciprocated the girl's action, reached out his arm and clasped the Elder Wand with calloused, weathered fingers.

Taking it from her, he cradled it in his hands as though it were a newborn baby and fixed it with a gaze that was virtually unreadable. Certainly it was beyond the girl's ability to decipher. But her attention was diverted a few moments later when the man suddenly spoke.

"Where did you get this?"

His voice was hard and gravelly, more from disuse than any natural tendency toward roughness. He fixed her with a gaze that shocked her in its intensity; he expected an answer. Deciding not to beat around the bush now that she'd finally gotten the man to talk, she dove right in.

"Hermione Weasley gave it to me. She said it belonged to you and that you would know what to do with it."

Harry Potter's face betrayed no emotion at this. Instead he pressed her further. "How did you find this place? Who are you?"

Ah, of course, he would want to know that. How could she possibly explain something that she did not fully understand herself? Who was she? Well, that much at least, she was able to answer; at least partly.

"My name is Rose. I'm a member of the Order of the Phoenix." It was true…sort of. She had only met the motley collection of freedom fighters and rebels only a few short weeks ago, yet there could be no doubt that they had adopted her as one of their own, and she had followed suit, latching onto the sense of camaraderie and belonging she had been sorely lacking for so long. But was she really a member of this band? Technically, from a certain point of view, what she was doing right now, retrieving Harry Potter from his current state of isolation, might be viewed as her first official mission for them.

As for how she found his forested hideout…well, that was another matter. How did one explain that this forest…this clearing…this hut…this magic had haunted her dreams since she was a small girl? Maybe haunted wasn't exactly the correct word but it was the only one that came immediately to mind. The truth was that her dreams of this place, whenever she dreamt them, were not unpleasant. She always felt as if she were complete whenever she would take her nighttime sojourns into the forest. As though a part of her that was missing from her waking life had been reunited with her in slumber. How did she explain that she could feel the forest calling to her, guiding her, gently nudging her along the correct path to its depths from the moment she had resolved, with Hermione's warm encouragement, to find it?

She did not know how to explain all that, so she simply replied "I've seen this place before."

"Not likely," Potter said flatly. "This clearing has been forgotten since Roman times. It had been hidden for more than 1,500 years when I found it. Tell me the truth. How did you find this place?"

"I dream about it," said Rose in a rush. "On and off ever since I was a little girl. I don't know how to explain it any better than that."

Something in Rose's voice must have stirred something in Potter because he ceased his rather brusque interrogation upon hearing that. He continued looking at her rather blatantly for some time, occasionally alternating by examining the Elder Wand. There were so many questions on her mind, so many things she wanted to ask right away but was unsure how to proceed. So she just stood there silently while he turned the wand over and over with his fingers before resuming his almost frightened study of her face.

"Why did Hermione send you to me? Did you tell her about these dreams?" Rose did not immediately respond, so he said "I haven't seen or heard from anyone out there in a very long time; I'd like to know what's changed. Why now?"

Phrased that way, this was a question Rose was actually able to answer. "The Ministry has taken over all of Britain, magic and muggle alike. Britain is a slave island, ruled with an iron fist by Sallust DeVernai. He's wiped out nearly every magical family in the country and most of the others are either in prison camps or on the run. The Order of the Phoenix is the only light shining through right now. Britain needs you. We need Harry Potter. We need the Chosen One."

At this, Potter did the unthinkable; he actually laughed. It was a cruel laugh, though, filled not with humor or mirth but with bitterness and cold irony.

"Oh that's rich, yes well done! Tell me, did you practice that speech the whole way here?"

Rose was dumbfounded. "What?"

Potter continued to smirk coldly. "Whatever is happening in Britain has nothing to do with me. I don't even live in Britain. Surely you've realized this but we're actually in Germany. Whatever Britain needs, it isn't me."

This was not how this was supposed to go. "How can you say that?" Rose asked. "Britain was your home; your friends are there, your family!"

"I think you might be a bit confused as to the finer details of who I am, young lady, so I'll clarify them for you. I have no family. My parents died many years ago. I have no siblings, no wife, no children, and the two blood relations I once had are also dead. I am not the Chosen One despite what you may have read in old newspapers, though I'll credit you with the fact that you didn't come here looking for the Boy Who Lived…"

Potter's eyes had gone hard now and he gripped the Elder Wand tightly in his fist. "I don't know what Hermione Weasley expected to get out of sending you here but whatever it was, she was mistaken. I'm sorry you had to waste your time making the trip here; I know it was not an easy task to find me. I will keep the Elder Wand only because it seems Mrs. Weasley cannot be trusted not to rob an old man's grave. When you go back, tell her that I wish her all the best but…"

Whatever he had been about to say remained stuck in his throat. A crackle of magic rent the air and sent a chill so far down his spine that for a moment his body reacted purely on primordial instinct. It took several steps back of its own accord.

Nothing had visibly changed. There were no sparks, no lightning bolts, no aura of power. But it was undeniably from the girl Rose that the magic was emanating, in larger quantities than Potter had thought possible.

"Who are you?" This time it was Rose who asked the familiar question.

"What?" Potter said somewhat shakily.

"I said 'Who are you?' I was under the impression that I had found Harry Potter, the man who defeated Lord Voldemort by offering his own life in exchange for his friends. But it seems that you are not that man. Could you kindly direct me to where I might find him?" Her words were spoken with steel and flint, and edged so sharp that Potter outwardly grimaced.

"You don't understand what you're asking me to do," he said quietly.

"Of course I do. I'm asking you to come back home and help us in the fight against the darkness. I'm asking you to be the hero everyone knows you are. Or at least the one you used to be."

Something about her tone, her self-assuredness, reminded him so much of Hermione that he had to smile, just once, despite himself. "It's been a long time since somebody spoke to me like that." Potter heaved an enormous sigh and looked far more elderly than his fifty-eight years. "Rose," he said more softly, "may I call you that?" She nodded her assent.

"Rose, you have to understand that I never expected anyone to find me here. The fact that you did is…frankly, astonishing. I came here for a reason. Britain is better off without me, despite what some well-meaning people might believe. I am truly sorry to hear of the suffering that's taking place but I…I've been here for so long. You don't understand…"

"Then help me understand." She had taken a step forward and placed a hand on his arm, causing his eyes to dart upward. It was only then, at that precise moment, that Harry Potter noticed for the first time something he had somehow overlooked before. Rose's eyes were the exact shade of green as his own.

Harry lost himself in their depths for quite some time. Finally, he shook his head and gently extracted his arm. "Fine. Come with me."