NOTE: I would absolutely adore having a beta for this story...(hint hint...if anyone is interested) Please?
by hide-N-seeker
I also write under the name Sylvannastar but I chose to keep this excursion into the HP verse completely separate from my other writing.
I own nothing and give any and all credit to the original creator and brilliant talent of J K Rowlings. All I am doing is playing with her toys!
A quick note, any and all stories I work on are LONG. This in not an exaggeration. Nor is it voluntary. I am absolutely unable to write anything remotely short. I have a habit of twisting a simple plot into an epic novel. Just thought that I should warn the readers...And yes, this is my first attempt of several things. My first HP story, my first fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants plot, my first non-crossover fic and, my first attempt at Slash. winces and depending on how that turns out, perhaps my last. You see, I have a thing about not testing the waters. I just jump right in there and sink or swim...so...holds nose time to dive...belly-flops into shallow water
Derivations: The form or source from which something is derived: Origin
The Historical Origin or development of
A copy or adaptation from an original
To receive or obtain from a source
To arrive at by reasoning; deduce or infer
To trace the origin or development of
To issue from a source; originate
Part One- Family Secrets
Harry James Potter was many things. If you asked Harry himself, he would tell you he was rather short. He would claim that he looked like his father, but he had his mother's eyes. He would say that he was fairly shy. He might mention that he was protective of those he loved. But never would you hear Harry say that he was a wizard. At least not while he was stuck under the same roof with his last remaining blood relatives for the summer break.
It was indeed that time of year where he was once again forced to be away from Hogwarts, the number one wizarding school, and the place he felt most at home. Number 4 Private Drive, was NOT home. Nor were the Dursley's anything more than basic caretakers to the teen, and in all honesty, sometimes not even that. Things were admittedly more bearable than previous summers since the members of The Order of the Phoenix had made a point to inform the Dursley's that he was going to be watched and guarded. And should anything seem out of sorts with The-Boy-Who-Lived, well, there would be consequences.
The Dursley's were now permanently wary of every twitch that Harry made, every step and stumble. They seemed determined to maintain a distance in words and actions since they could not escape with a distance of a more conventional definition. In short, they did all they could to avoid him, which was perfectly alright with Harry.
That didn't stop them from giving him chores, though. Harry had just finished wiping his hands dry on the towel beside the sink after scrubbing the breakfast dishes when his uncle's voice spat out the first words directed at him that morning.
"Here, Boy," Vernon Dursley sneered behind him. "This is yours."
Harry spun around in surprise for three very good reasons. One, his uncle had said less than five words to him since his return from school almost two months past, so the abrupt nature of this announcement caught him off guard. Two, Harry actually owned few possessions and none of them were anywhere that the Dursley's would find them. And three, Harry was always jumping at odd noises and shadows.
This last reason was because of the self-proclaimed Dark Lord Voldemort, commonly known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who (though Harry had a secret penchant to call him "Moldy-Voldy", "The-Creature-Formerly-Known-As-Tom-Riddle"or his favorite "Evil Bastard"), was enthusiastically taking great pains at making Harry more miserable than any sixteen year old boy should be.
Voldemort had managed to kill his parents when he was a mere year old, stripping him of any chance of a normal, secure, loving home life and leaving him with...well, the Dursley's. They had regular annual meetings where they each tried to off the other with various results. Neither ever made it out of the confrontations the same, and there was always a price. A painful price...Harry cringed at the thought of his godfather and the tremendous guilt and grief that was always hovering about him, waiting for any opportunity to swoop in and squeeze his chest tight till he felt the very breath was being sucked from his body. The pain of that loss rivaled the feelings he got from the Dementors that had entered his life during his third year, because this time, it was his fault.
Sirius Black had taken a vital part of Harry with him when he fell through the veil in the Department of Mysteries. Harry felt lost, hopeless, he felt responsible. The weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders was a light burden compared to the weight of his own self-reproach. Somehow, the burden of responsibility was easily overshadowed by the burden of his guilt and regret. The past, the unchangeable past was more real to him, and the feelings from it so much heavier than those wispy dreams he had of a future free of Voldemort and a world with some semblance of peace.
Sirius had taken up a place in Harry's heart as a sort of father figure, though they had actually known each other for so short a time, before he had been ripped violently away. Since that day, the frequency of Death Eater attacks on both wizarding and muggle communities has spiked to a rate that rivaled the activities of Voldemort's first reign of terror.
Every death, every injury in this war was like a blow to Harry. He had to face Voldemort. And he had to defeat him, or die trying. It was fate, destiny, inescapable...and the longer it took for him to prepare and stand against the Dark Lord for the last time, the more people would be sacrificed for his gluttonous desire for power. Harry had started to count the time by death. Every hour was another life. Every day was a massacre. Every delay was another grave marked in blood.
That was why Harry was so quick to react when his uncle's voice cut through the habitual silence, he was rather startled himself to find that he was pointing the wand he kept hidden up his sleeve at all times at Vernon Dursley's forehead. It seems that all those duels and extra work had improved his reflexes beyond what he had expected. If nothing else, Harry was determined to be prepared for another confrontation with Voldemort. He didn't want anyone else to die. Not for him, not because of him, and definitely not in spite of him.
Vernon squeaked a most unmanly sound and jerked his head back, exposing his third and fourth chins to the slim hand of his nephew. Harry took a moment to resettle his nerves and tucked the wand away before anyone could so much as protest about its presence to begin with. Harry was observant enough to catch his Aunt Petunia snatching her hands from in front of her where she had been holding something, as if they had been burnt.
Harry stared dumbly at the three figures huddled at the kitchen table. The Dursley's were alternating between throwing him looks of fear and disgust. While that was nothing particularly new, the reasons for their attention, after almost two months of ignoring him completely, was innocently sitting in the center of the kitchen table, doing nothing more threatening than taking up space.
Harry allowed his confusion to show on his face and shifted his eyes from each of his relatives to the simple wooden box centered between them. Any words that he might have managed to force from his throat were swallowed in the strained silence that sank over them. He settled for a moment of quietly observing them and ignored the battered container in favor of analyzing their behavior. If they weren't so...Dursley-ish, he might have been worried that they were under the Imperius curse. Imagine, the Dursley's giving him a gift...Harry shook his head.
But no, Harry, decided after a few moments of watching his uncle's walrus mustache quiver and his jowls shake with his suppressed rage and fear and his aunt had paled until even her lips were left bloodless and indistinguishable from the rest of her washed out skin. . They were still the same as ever. Even Dudley was acting normal, if that is what you could call staring hatefully at everything around you and making little snorts and snuffs through his pig-like nose. His tiny eyes were half hidden behind heavy eyelids and were darting angrily between Harry and the utterly dull looking rectangle of wood between them. It was obvious that the heavyset boy was battling his urge to snatch the box up and claim it simply because it was not his to claim. It was a habit that had only grown stronger as Dudley got older, and consequently, more spoiled.
A slight smirk lifted the corners of Harry's lips when his beefy cousin met his eyes again. Vivid green clashed with limpid blue and the puffy red of Dudley's cheeks flushed darker in anger and fear and he let out a small girly shriek of dismay and ducked his head down to stare at the table top.
Harry tapped his wrist against the leg of his ratty, oversized jeans and felt the reassuring weight of his wand tucked carefully out of sight. After all, you couldn't be too careful. "Mine?" he queried with every bit of his skepticism plain to see on his face. "I don't ever remember having a box like that."
Harry watched in morbid fascination as his Uncle Vernon changed color from a garish red to a blotchy purple. "That is because we hadn't given in to you yet," the large man forced out between clenched teeth as if he were enduring some great pain. He was much braver when there was no physical evidence around of Harry's abnormality, though he did keep shifting his gaze down to the long sleeve clad arms where he knew Harry kept his wand.
Harry's eyebrows disappeared under the thick fringe of hair hanging in clumps over his forehead. "A gift?" he blinked in surprise. "You got me a gift?" Harry was truly shocked and could have swore that he felt the world tilt off its regular rotations. Last night had been his birthday, his sixteenth, to be exact. Perhaps some planets had aligned or some such when he wasn't paying attention. He couldn't help flicking his gaze upward as if he could find physical evidence of such an astronomical change of the heavenly bodies through the ceiling before focusing on his relatives again. His green eyes landed on Vernon's round squashy shape and shrugged at the planet sized man.
"It isn't like we had any bloody choice!" Vernon suddenly yelled and leapt to his feet with all the grace of a landlocked whale. A fierce glare gave Harry warning that his uncle was only moments from losing his temper. Over the years, Harry had seen his uncle in a similar state so often that it was what Harry actually referred to as the state of normalcy in the Dursley household. This was the way things were. This is what he was used to. This he was comfortable with. This he could handle.
Harry relaxed in a way he had not been able to since his silent stay at his relatives had begun. He cooly met that look with a visible warning of his own which effectively put a strangle hold on whatever his Uncle had been preparing to scream. After encountering, fighting, and dueling with the self proclaimed Dark Lord Voldemort successively year after year, the power of fear that Vernon Dursley had once had over the young Harry Potter had been severely diminished. As a matter of fact, Harry found a certain amount of amusement in his Uncle's attempts to terrorize him into submission.
Quickly stifling his words to an angry mutter, Vernon reached out and roughly shoved the rectangular wooden box at him across the table. He snarled with the viciousness of the enraged bull he so resembled and lowered himself back into his chair which creaked in protest.
Harry automatically caught the object before its momentum could sent it crashing to the floor and examined it without looking at it. The pads of his fingers traced and smoothed over the grain of the wood on the old box as he searched the faces of his relatives for any sign that this was some sort of set up. Harry reminded himself that they would have been showing signs of struggling to mask their glee had they found a way to make his life any more difficult, and finally decided that they were too miserable to have staged something. He shrugged and looked down to examine his newest possession. It was a wooden box, roughly six by eight inches but only about three inches in height.
Nicks and scratches marred the natural surface but instead of making it ugly, it seemed antiqued, used...friendly. He carefully searched the block of wood for a hinge or crack to indicate how it opened but came up empty. Frowning at the simple six sided stick, Harry shot an unamused look a the unhappy trio perched for flight at the table as if he were standing there handling a bomb rather than what appeared to be the most un-ornamental wooden paperweight ever created. "Thanks," he announced stiffly. "I'll treasure it always."
Vernon gnashed his teeth together at the sarcasm dripping from his nephew's words and with a disgusted snort, he shoved himself from his chair and stomped from the room. Harry watched in satisfaction as Dudley followed his father from the room and turned his eyes to his aunt. He was surprised to find her normally vapid eyes flashing dangerously at him in an anger all her own.
"It was your mother's," she sneered and clenched her fingers into fists in front of her. "For a little while, anyway."
Harry shot her an incredulous look at the mention of his mother and tensed for the verbal abuse that he knew always followed the subject of his parents and their "unnaturalness". Harry faltered when Petunia Dursley glared at him with a rage usually only seen in her husbands eyes. "What-" he choked out, and tried to start again. "What do you mean?"
She primly folded her hands in front of her and refused to meet his eyes. She finally let go of the sour pinched pucker that graced her thin lips as she thought back on something that Harry couldn't comprehend. "That was our grandmother's," she said waved a hand at the box. "And her mother's before that."
"An heirloom?" Harry blinked in confusion and tightened his hold on the piece of wood. Just the knowledge that this thing had rested in his mothers hands was enough to make it dear to him. He had some things from his father; the invisibility cloak, the marauders map...even a surviving marauder. But of his mother, he had nothing. Until now...He certainly didn't count the Dursley's.
Petunia merely scowled and nodded. "For your kind," she hissed and shivered. "I tried to burn it, chop it up," she confessed with growing anger. "It kept showing back up as if nothing had happened to it..."
Harry examined the block of wood more carefully and wished for better light than the weak glow trickling in from Petunia's heavy curtains. He went over his aunt's words in his head and suddenly realized what she had said. "You mean there were other witches in Mum's family!"
Petunia cringed and glared at her nephew with utter loathing. "What? Did you think that Lily was special? Ha!" she spat out. "She was just another freak. An abomination to us normal people. There was something wrong in the Blood. Grandpere was right about that, anyway."
Harry bit his tongue to quell the angry retort that was begging to slip past his lips. If he gave into it, he knew that he would blow any chance he had at getting any additional information from his aunt. Instead he managed to school his features into a disbelieving look that just begged her to tell him differently.
"Oh, they knew well enough what was coming when Perfect Lily was born," Petunia spat out the name. "You have those same eyes," she continued in a hiss. "Those same unnatural eyes. Grandpere couldn't stand it. Told Mum and Dad to get rid of the brat when she was first born. They wouldn't hear of it of course."
Harry watched in shock as his aunt nodded her head in agreement with her long dead grandfather. That the hatred he had grown up to detest in his last remaining family was as strong in his mothers time as it was in his made his head spin. His mother must have faced that same horrid prejudice as the Dursley's now showed. And as detestable as that sounded, Harry couldn't help but feel as if that made him so much closer to his mother than he had been before.
He bit his tongue to quell the angry retort that was begging to slip past his lips. If he gave into it he knew that he would blow any chance of hearing more about this side of his family.
Petunia pinched her lips back together furiously and seemed to be fighting her own urge to spit out at him. She seemed to lose herself in another memory, distasteful by her expression though it was hard to tell. "You should have seen her," she frowned, "Coming back from school with all of those things in her trunk...Grandmere was so proud."
Harry briefly thought that he saw a flash of pain cross his aunts features but dismissed it when the look vanished as quickly as it had appeared. When his aunt paused for a long moment, Harry prodded her, "My Great Grandmother was a witch?"
Petunia hissed between her teeth and glared at her nephew. "No!" she denied vehemently. "Grandmere didn't have your filthy disease like her mother did, but she followed with tradition, and passed that...that thing to Lily. If you could have seen," Petunia continued. "When Lily turned sixteen, Grandmere handed her that box, and things were never that same. She did something to them."
Harry didn't have a clue what she was talking about but watched as his aunt fell silent, obviously remembering what was for her a terrible time. The lost look and hatred in her eyes was like watching a twisted madness bloom out into full insanity. He was appalled that his family history had been kept from him for so long, and at the same time, he found himself absolutely fascinated with the characters his aunt was making such brief reference to. He knew that Lily and Petunia's parents had been killed before he was ever born and had never heard any mention of any other member of his family. It was entirely possible that he had other great aunts or uncles, cousins even, out there still, from the Evans family. He only knew of his Aunt Marge and she was actually Vernon's sister and as such was only an aunt by marriage, not blood.
Harry tried to take all of this information in and found himself slightly off balance and forced to sit down in the same chair abandoned by his uncle. "But that means that there is old wizarding blood in both sides of my family," he spoke out loud. "I wonder what line Mum comes from..."
"As to that, your mother," Petunia sneered as if her own relationship with Lily did not exist, "researched the tainted blood on our family." She paused long enough to shudder again. "Laughed like a loon when she got it all figured out, she did. Claimed no one would believe her if she told them..."
"Told them what?" Harry asked. He was entranced by now and would have given anything for his aunt to finish her thought.
Petunia waved her bony hands dismissively. "Something about magical creatures and all that," she sneered. "Claimed we weren't even fully human! Can you believe that! Me! Not Human?"
Harry could feel a welling of excitement rushing through his veins. His mother wasn't as muggleborn as everyone had thought. There was another type of magic in his history. Magic that his mother had figured out...
Harry immediately was reminded of the prophecy and wondered if this could be the source of the power that was supposedly hidden from Voldemort. If so... "Did she ever say what kind of magical, uh, creature?" he asked hopefully.
Petunia returned to glaring at her nephew. "I wouldn't know," she sniffed.
"Oh," he replied and bit his lip.
"Well," she drew herself up and squared her boney shoulders. With a fluttering gesture at the box gripped in his hands she said, "Now you have it and I don't have to look at the bloody thing anymore."
Harry stared at his irate aunt for one more long moment and realized that he wouldn't be getting any more information from her this day, possibly ever. In a slight daze, he wandered away from the horse faced woman and wandered off to his room to examine his new puzzle.
As he climbed the narrow set of stares, Harry found himself staring at and lightly caressing the worn wood of the box. He could feel the slight ridges and cracks in the surface under the sensitized pads of his fingertips. If the dips and bumps were not so random, he would have sworn that it felt like there was writing on the surface of the block. The light in the hall was even dimmer than that of the kitchen and he resigned himself to waiting those last few steps to his small room to flip on the ceiling light and throw open the curtains to allow the day light to enter in.
Though he was in rather good shape, Harry found himself huffing slightly as if out of breath as he quickened his pace down the hall. He wondered why he had butterflies in his stomach, and why he felt so nervous over such a small object. As he pushed the door open with one hand, the other clutching his gift tightly to his chest, Harry could only conclude that it was just the shock of so many secrets being thrown at him in such a short time. All the questions now rushing through his head and the wealth of emotions that battered at the walls around his heart left him stunned and confused.
He stepped into his room and immediately slammed the door shut behind him. This, he decided, was private. It was a connection to his mother...and no one was going to intrude on it now.
Part Two: Secret Pain
Harry tossed and turned until he found himself in a tight stranglehold and an impromptu wrestling match with his own sheets. Once he had managed to defeat the bedding with a stunningly flexible maneuver, he found himself blinking at the flashing numbers on his perfectly normal muggle alarm clock. Wrinkling his nose at the early hour, Harry found himself contemplating making another attempt at sleeping. But with one short look at the heap of blanket twisted about on the floor, he reconsidered that idea and decided that he was not quite up to a rematch yet.
He stretched his arms wide above his head and yawned until he felt the familiar feel of his jaw popping. He managed to shrug into one of Dudley's old cast offs before fishing around on the night stand for his glasses. Nimble fingers found the slightly battered frames and smoothly transferred them to his face without jabbing himself in the eye as he was known on occasion to do after such a rough night. Another yawn pulled his lips into a large O as the events of yesterday filtered through the unfocused haze of his thoughts.
All traces of sleep vanished the moment that Harry recalled the mysterious wooden box presented to him just the morning before. He had spent the rest of the yesterday morning and a great deal of the afternoon prodding and poking at the bland looking object with no results at all. It had remained nothing but a worn block of wood no matter how minutely that he had tried to examine it. He had even worked up the courage to shake it...hard, and the faint rattling inside was both encouraging and slightly worrisome. It meant that it DID open and that there was something inside, but also that it was entirely possible that whatever it was, was well and truly broken.
It had become increasingly obvious that the item would only be opened by magic. Magic that he was under an age restriction to keep him from accessing it, magic that would obviously take more than an "alohamora" and would probably need some extensive research, neither of which limitation he was in any position to conquer at the moment. No, there was still four more weeks of summer break to muddle through before Harry would find himself in the one place that had ever felt like home. Hogwarts would always be the place that Harry called home. It was the one place that sparked more good memories, though those were becoming scarce as well, than any other location. So with a Snape worthy scowl, Harry forced himself to burry his gift in the recesses of his school trunk to await his opportunity to unlock its secrets.
Harry carefully folded his newest treasure in the cloth of his invisibility cloak and with great reluctance, shut the lid on the trunk with a hesitant snap. He stood slowly from where he had been kneeling on the floor and pursed his lips in annoyance. It felt...wrong...to shut it away like that, giving him a great sense of loss. But with such limited options, what else could he do but wait?
With narrowed eyes and his resolve firm, Harry reminded himself that there was another matter to look into when he set foot in the castle again. His family history was well and clearly outlined on his father's side, but just as Harry had little to remind himself of his mother, he had little information of the origins of the Evans family. And aunt Petunia wasn't talking. It was obvious by her tight lipped avoidance that his mother's family had its own secrets. There was more to his mothers blood than anyone knew. Except that Lily had obviously told her sister at some point.
Not human...that could be just about anything. As far as Harry could tell, there was a great number of magical creatures with the ability and the inclination to take human witches and wizards as mates. This list as to what creatures had been breed into the lines of the magical populous was long and intricate. He was well acquainted with the half giant, Hagrid, and two half Veela, the Delecrois sisters from the Triwizard tournament, so he knew first hand that the mixing of races was normal for the wizarding world. There was even rumors of the presence of both Veela and Draconian blood in the prestigious pureblood lines of the Malfoy family. Snape himself was rumored to have the taint of the vampire in his blood. Harry previously had easily shrugged these rumors aside as unimportant and never gave a thought to the mingling of non human blood in the older families. It had never really concerned him.
But now, now he had no more than that singular clue to his own heritage. It was odd how he had spent the majority of his youth with the Dursley's, relatives of his mother, and yet he was better acquainted with his fathers side of the family. Harry was used to begging information about his father from those who knew him, but never was Lily Evans Potter mentioned except in a passing way that did little but emphasize her relationship with James Potter. Oh, he knew she was smart, opinionated, loving, and such from those stories, but there was nothing of the Lily Evans that existed before she became the future Mrs James Potter.
Now Harry was curious. And it was the deep burning sort of curiosity that meant that he needed to discover what secrets were being held by the family he never knew. And Petunia had said that Lily had figured it out. During her sixth year at Hogwarts, Lily Evans had managed to trace her supposedly Muggle family lines into those of a magical nature. If he could just follow those same steps that she had, Harry knew that he could, with help, find what his mother had been so delighted to share with Petunia. The information was there, obviously, Harry just had to find it.
And he had a feeling that the box was just the tip of the iceberg. It was odd that a whole line of magical heritage had simply been forgotten. For it to remain untraced was not a usual occurrence in the magical world. There were so few left of the pureblood or old blood lines that they would not have willingly allowed any branch to simply fade from existence. There was no way the ministry or the more intelligent of the old lines would have allowed the magical blood of his mothers family to fade into obscurity, unless there were reasons, a need, a purpose for it to be secreted away. After all, even long lines of Squibs were carefully monitored in case a birth in the family resurrected the magic hiding inside them. What could the Evans' be hiding? What secret could have been so big, so important? And just what type of magic really did run through his veins?
Harry found himself staring down at his trunk again, though he could no longer see the block of battered wood. It seemed that it held no purpose but to take up space and to frustrate its current owner. It did nothing but taunt him for his inability to open it. It was intriguing and infuriating.
Harry briefly considered asking Remus or Dumbledor about the gift. If anyone had known about Lily and her possessions, it would have been them. Perhaps even Sirius had known about her heritage.
Harry blinked in surprise and realized that was the first time that he had been able to think about Sirius Black without the pain of loss striking at his heart. This mystery was proving to be a much welcome distraction from the death of his Godfather. Oh, Harry knew that he would never forget him. But it was nice to be able to think about him at all without it hurting so badly. He managed to smile fondly at a happy memory of Snuffles and gingerly sat at the rickety chair in his room. The snapped off leg in the front was reinforced by a stack of old children's books that Dudley had never touched. For the first time in months, Harry felt good enough to write to his friends.
Up to this point, he had managed to pen short and abrupt responses to Hermione and Ron but that was all. His sour behavior had obviously put them off writing to him as neither had sent him a letter for several weeks now. Nor had he gotten any sort of greetings in response to his birthday. Harry shrugged, he couldn't really blame them. He was able to readily admit that he had been beyond nasty to them this past summer.
Harry turned to his desk and shifted the piles of parchment around until he found Hermione's last letter crumpled at the bottom of a stack of old envelopes. He smoothed out the crinkles with his knuckles and pressed that page flat so he could re-read the message that was now over two weeks old.
Harry,
The shortness of the greeting was a testament to Hermione's gradual loss of patience with him over the summer and Harry cringed mentally at the thought of his responses over break. Another easily spotted difference between her usual letters and this, was the short length of the actual message.
We know that you have been grieving, and we sympathize, we really do, We loved Sirius too. But you have to understand that it wasn't your fault. You can't just blame yourself. I know that you need some time so we'll give you as long as you need. When you are ready to talk, if you want to, we will be right here waiting for you, always. We love you, Harry. Remember that, and come back to us.
She's right you know, mate. We will always be here for you.
Ron's short but equally supportive announcement brought a smile to his lips and Harry felt the empty hole consuming his heart shrink a bit.
Your best friends,
Hermione
and Ron
Harry traced the names scrawled at the bottom of the page with the blunt tip of his finger nail and pulled a piece of blank parchment over to him. There were several things he had to say, not the least of which was an apology.
After several long and unproductive minutes, Harry growled at himself and clenched the quill in his fist until the hollow snap reminded him that there was absolutely nothing yet written on the page. He was furious with his inability to put how he felt into words. He had never been as eloquent as Hermione, but he liked to think that he had a good handle on his own language when it did come time to communicate. He really didn't think that they would understand or appreciate the litany of "I'm sorry's" that continuously ran through his head. "Sorry I was selfish. Sorry I was insensitive. Sorry I had to drag you down with me. Sorry for putting you in danger year after year. Sorry I wasn't a better friend. Sorry sorry sorry..."
Harry sighed. Just because he was sorry, and he was, didn't mean that he wasn't still angry. Shoulders slumping, Harry faced the fact that he was still as confused about how he felt as when he started this whole mess. He felt like a walking contradiction. He was simultaneously happy and sad, regretful and satisfied, broken and resolved. In the end, Harry had to push the blank face of the page away from him and rest his head on the desk top. Apparently it wasn't as easy as it seemed to face the knot of emotions tangled in his mind.
He sat tall once more and decided something was better than nothing. And apparently there was only one thing that he was entirely certain about.
Grabbing the parchment once more, Harry used the broken quill to scratch out his reply and signed his name with a messy flourish. Hedwig bounced on her perch with barely concealed excitement at finally having the opportunity to go out. She stared at the simple parchment with her big unblinking eyes and bobbed her head happily. Harry quickly rushed the note over to the snowy owl and attached it to her outstretched claw before he could change his mind and sent her off.
As he leaned out the window, his eyes were drawn to the distance when a mournful howling of some stray echoed through the identical streets of Surrey. The lonely sound caused Harry to wrap his arms defensively around his chest to ward off the chill that it caused him, even in the warmth of the latest summer heat wave. He hastily averted his gaze, shrugged off the feeling and turned back to the sky.
Harry scratched his head and watched as Hedwig became no more than a speck in the distance. "I can't believe that I just did that," he muttered and tossed the half of a quill he was still holding on the desk top. In a fit of nerves, he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and contemplated what to do next. He looked about him carefully and found nothing to catch his attention at all. He flopped back down onto the blanketless old bed in the center of the room and frowned at the ceiling.
The endless expanse of white surely did nothing to relieve his boredom but it was better that staring at Dudley's old junk. For a few moments, Harry was tempted to drag the wooden box back out of his trunk but instantly scowled at the idea. Nothing in the last half hour could have possibly changed it and he had no desire to frustrate himself to the point of madness for the second night in a row. No, that would have to wait till Hogwarts.
Harry stacked his hands behind his head with a sigh and mentally went over his homework assignments and was slightly disappointed to realize that they were all done. He hadn't had much to do this summer after all...
He could always practice Occulmency. Harry shuddered but didn't let the idea slip away like he usually did. All summer he had been plagued with bouts of "what if" and each had led to nothing but an increase in heartache. What if he had been better prepared?...what if he had continued his sessions with Snape?...what if he had done more?...worked harder?...listened better?
Harry snarled at himself and clutched his hands into fists under his head. Regretfully he couldn't change the past, but perhaps he still had time to fortify himself for the future. It wasn't like there was anything else to do. After all, even a little bit of progress, was progress...
Part Three: Shrouded Secrets
A long low howl pierced the empty night and caused any that heard it to shiver and the hair on their arms to stand at attention. A pale ghostly form drifted lightly over the pavement and stopped at attention when it saw a body of a large snowy owl wing its way north from the upstairs window of one of the identical houses. A dog like grin of accomplishment flitted across a white muzzle. Twin pricked ears stood tall above the pointed face and eyes the color of red wine watched that window with particular interest.
Oh, yes, the mistress would indeed by pleased. Of all the hunts, she had been on, this one was definitely the most rewarding, though she wouldn't have the pleasure of consuming this particular prey. Not that she wanted to eat the two legged creature, anyway. They tasted awful, if she remembered correctly. With a good natured whine, she trotted closer to the object of her attentions and wagged her long fluffy tail like a flag of truce. Her white fur seemed to glow in the weak light of the moon, but she was careful to remain hidden from unwanted attention. The humans were not really a problem as they saw only what they wanted to see anyway. To most, she was as invisible as Death himself.
Pacing around the perimeter of the small building, she traced every scent that had been there since the last rain and committed each to memory. It would not do to have her charge disappear when she had only just found him after all. And from what her mistress had said, the boy was indeed in danger of sudden disappearances. A surprising scent of wolf, male, unmated, hung about the edges of the property and she was pleased a the prospect of some company. By the heavy musk, she could tell that he was a magical beast, much like herself, and undoubtedly better company that the wild variety of canine that ran about.
Careful exploration led her to the wards of wizarding magic where the disruption in the flow of the natural forces tickled her nose. She sneered in disgust at the mangled knot of magic and fluffed the fur on the ruff of her neck out and wondered at the absurdity of such a tangle. Really, what were they thinking, twisting things up like that when it is so much easier to layer the spells by working with the natural flow of things rather than against it...
Shaking herself back to her task, she went about layering her own spells in the fabric of reality and set about her newest mission. The protection of Harry James Potter, until her mistress was certain that he was ready for the truth. If the stories of his life to this point held any measure of truth, they might be in for a long wait indeed. The boy had no reason to trust them, and it wasn't as if they could approach him on their own. No, they were forced to wait in the shadows until he called their names. Only then would he be prepared to meet what was left of his family.
She folded her legs under her and made herself comfortable in the arms of her true mother and sighed in satisfaction. The energy of the Earth rose around her and embraced her furred form in warmth and acceptance. So far, things were going well. They had set out to find the boy as soon as he had reached his majority, (in their eyes at least) and his magic had collided with the that of their people, meaning that at least one of their heirlooms had survived this long in this realm. The faint throb of power in her chest led her here, to this unobtrusive little human home and as she grew closer, the pulse grew stronger and the first tentative bond between them was forged.
Harry Potter was powerful, there was no question about that. No, what she had to consider was that repressing this side of his magic for so long may had rendered it out of reach. In which case, no matter how hard he called to them, it would never be enough to break the barrier between their world and his and let them through. If that happened then the separation between the family would be permanent, and the flow of magic in this world would fade into nothingness...
please review! Constructive criticism is welcome, but I ask that you do not send nasty flames just for the sake of being mean. If you don't like it, don't read it. It is that simple! Anywho, let me know what you think.
hide-N-seeker