Chapter 1 - Transcendence

When Harry woke up, he was not in his bed.

He stood up, but there was nothing to stand on. "Am I dreaming?" he thought out loud.

The voices that answered him were not as surprising as they should be. "You are not, young one."

Strangely enough he did not feel panicked, standing there in nothingness, listening to voices belonging to no one he could see. Perhaps it was because he did not really care anymore? He mused to himself. 'Or perhaps I have seen too many strange things in the wizarding world to be truly surprised by anything anymore.' After spending his first few weeks at Hogwarts in a constant state of awe at just about anything; from talking portraits, to ghosts, to moving staircases, unicorns and dragons, he had just stopped looking at the world with his mouth hanging open and decided to take things as they were. A few incidents had still rattled him, like when he thought he had been hearing murderous voices (but it turned out to be the basilisk from the chamber of secrets) or when he first met Fawkes on his burning day, but other than these exceptions he had turned mostly unflappable due to the constant occurrences of strange and unbelievable things in the wizarding world.

There was a long moment of silence.

"Then where am I?" he asked, when the voices didn't say or do (who knows, maybe a voice could do something) anything else.

"You are with us, little one." they answered as one. "it is not truly a place except that we are here. As are you."

'Well, that wasn't really an answer.' Harry thought to himself, but then what answer was he expecting. They were certainly right in that this was not truly a place, there was really nothing there. Merely… nothingness…

"Why am I here?" He asked then, thinking that that was really a far better question to ask.

The voices smiled at him, though how he knew that was beyond him, "There lies a promise in you, child. One that we would have fulfilled." was their answer, and for the first time since he got here Harry felt apprehensive. "A promise?" He forced out through he suddenly dry throat. "I don't recall making anyone a promise like... that." Like what, exactly, he wasn't sure but he felt sure enough that he didn't make any promises that would somehow include ending up in this not-place. Besides, his apprehension made denial seem like a very good option. Whatever it was he certainly wanted no part in it.

"It was not such a promise" they replied, ignoring or oblivious to his misgivings about this whole… thing. "It is not a promise that was created by speaking, only by being."

"So…" Harry replied slowly, with a feeling of dread. "It is a promise made not by me, but by who I am?" His dread quickly turned to anger before dying in a painfully empty haze of exhausted resignation. "Didn't I already do my part?" he asked softly, wishing nothing more than to be finally free of the burden that was placed upon him by being who he was. The dratted 'boy-who-lived'.

The voices were comforting, almost loving when they replied this time, and he could almost feel them envelop him. "Oh, little one, you have indeed fulfilled your promise in your world. You have done the duty thrust upon you, and done it well. But there is more than one promise carried by your soul. One of them was forced on to you when you were but a babe..."

Here Harry unconsciously touched his characteristic scar. A scar that, like all scars, was now but a memento of a painful past.

The voices watched his thoughts stray to the consequences of that scar, and while the boy-turned-almost-man relived the loss of his parents, the loss of the sense of home and of belonging, of his innocence and childhood, they wrapped around him in warmth and comfort. The closest thing to an embrace that they could achieve.

"The promise tied up in that scar is fulfilled, little one. You have done well. Better than anyone could have hoped for." They continued, soothingly.

"But there lies a promise with you that had been there even longer. One that had been with you from your birth."

Without explanation the sense of dread returned vengefully, it overcame him then, so overwhelming in its intensity that it surprised even himself. He wanted no more promises or duties, he was done. He did his part and he was done.

"…no…" he said weakly, unable to muster up the strength to protest more vehemently.

'No!' he screamed in his mind

'No more, not again.' his very soul pleaded.

"Oh, child…" said the voices as they wrapped their concern for him around him in an even tighter protective hug. "No like duty lies before you, young one." they assured him, "Worry not. Your Fate is now of your own making."

"What?" He croaked. "What do you want from me, then?"

They did not release him from their insubstantial arms. "Do not see this as a duty, child. Do not let your heart be so troubled by its previous burdens." they tried to convince him "This is not a duty thrust upon you, nor a wound inflicted upon you, leaving a scar. There is a promise that lies in your bloodline, child." They waited a moment in silence, but whether it was for him to protest or agree he didn't know. He stayed silent, doing neither of those things and they shortly continued in their explanation.

"Long ago some of our children came to your world. They were lost to us, there. Beyond our reach. As were their children and their children's children." The voices sounded mournful and for the first time since Voldemort's defeat Harry felt his heart stir again with the concern for others, a sense that used to come to him as easy as breathing. As a remnant of his own painful, unloved childhood, his heart had always reached out to those souls who called to him with the feelings of loss, helplessness or fear that echoed inside of him from his own past. He thought that he had become immune to such feelings of compassion with the numbness that came over him after Voldemort's death. He was actually relieved now, when he found out that this was not the case. 'One thing that I did not lose along the way.'

The voices continued then in a more uplifting tone as if to dispel their own sadness; "But all was not lost. Though many centuries passed we remained watchful of our children. Their blood thinned as they mingled with mortals and eventually some of these lines died out until but two remained."

"Despite the centuries that passed, the blood of the Eldar is strong, and when the descendants of the two lines met in love we felt a joy like no other come over us. Birth is rare amongst our Firstborn children and although that dimmed while the bloodline diluted there was still a large chance no child would come from this union. And yet, this love seemed so predestined that for the first time in centuries we felt hope for our lost children. With the union of these lines the blood again grew strong. With our lost ones united in such a way we knew we would, in the end, be able to bring the last of their descendants home. A promise was come with your birth, and it would have been fulfilled with your death."

"My death?" Harry yelped, no longer capable of listening in silence and trying to wrestle free from the airy hold of the voices. "But… but I'm not dead!"

"No…" the voices soothed, letting the panicked boy take his distance. "You are not, little one." They sighed in unison, a sad, evanescent sound. "Something interfered with this plan. The dark wizard, the prophecy, your mother's defence..."

"My mother… my mother saved me."

"Yes." They agreed. "Her love for you was strong. But she could not save you completely. You had a brush with death that day. We might have tried to regain you then but the cost to your world would have been considerable. And we did not want your mother's sacrifice to be in vain."

"So we waited until that promise, that prophecy, was fulfilled." The words 'either way' echoed in silence between Harry and the voices.

"We would have waited then, even longer…" they continued after a moments pause, replacing the unspoken words that hung between them with audible ones. "…for your mortal life to come to its end. But, with the role you had taken upon yourself with the defeat of your enemy and all that it entailed, it became clear to us that this was no longer to be. "

"And after centuries of watching and waiting we had waited long enough."

The young wizard blinked. 'The voices had become impatient?' he thought in bafflement at such an unexpected admission from ancient (they did watch his world for centuries), powerful (or so he assumed from their ability to take him here, wherever here was), insubstantial beings.

"You too, seemed to have waited long enough." They continued swiftly, and Harry got the impression that they were actually embarrassed by their own impatience. "You seemed to us adrift in that world without truly belonging. So we believed it time." They finished.

Both Harry and the voices remained silent then. The wizard thinking about all he had been told and the voices waiting serenely for him to speak.

Harry did not understand all that he had heard, he felt similarly overwhelmed as after his introduction to the wizarding world. Perhaps even more so. Although the shock was less than it had been then, due to his experiences in life (he had been shocked too often to be easily caught of guard), the information overload was more. He felt as if he had been told about his mother's protective magic, the wards around Privet Drive that were powered by that protective love and the prophecy on his first day in the wizarding world. And while not being kept in the dark was a refreshing experience, it was also a slight strain on his brain.

Despite all the information he felt that he also lacked the background information to make the pieces fit. He did not truly understand everything and did not even know where to start with his questions, nor even which questions to ask. Except for one.

"Time for what?"

"For you, the only remaining descendant of our lost children, to be returned to where you truly belong." The voices wrapped around him once more and he felt their hopeful, loving goodbye. It was a foreign, strange sensation that left him slightly panicked and slightly reassured.

'Belong?' was the last, questioning thought in his head before he felt the intangible beings' airy arms drag him into something that was neither dark nor light. He felt his body tingle with warmth and his eyes fluttered closed.