I decided, to keep with krtshadow's universe, that the idea of the haltia should be used as well in my story. Instead of Harry being alone while Voldemort was calling it, however, he has Remus and Sirius with him. I know I've skipped a few years here, but this will not be a long fic. The purpose of it is to keep up with my writing while I'm experiencing the block I am experiencing in terms of my other stories, and to encourage people to read "Redemption" by krtshadow, of course.
Oh, and for the purpose of my story, Remus had done extra research in the recent years of them running from Voldemort, since he is not working for the Order and has extra time, and is thus aware of what a "haltia" is.
Disclaimer- I don't own Harry, Sirius, or Remus. That's all JK's. I don't even really own the idea for this fanfiction. That's all krtshadow's. I just own a large, ugly green suitcase that I'm currently attempting to pack for Europe, a beat-up red VW Beetle, and a large closet of clothes people got me for Christmas that I don't really want to wear. Why do I feel like I got the raw end of the deal? =p
"A what?" Sirius asked, fully aware from the look on both his godson and remaining best friend's face that whatever it was very likely meant bad news.
"A haltia. A presence from another universe," Remus answered quickly, his eyes still widened in horror. Harry's eyes, meanwhile, had already glazed over, wide and large and especially green in his pale white face.
Sirius didn't really understand how this was cause for panic. "Okay, so it's another being from some other place. Why's it so important that he's kept low for the past two years to bring it here?" Sirius asked, confused.
Remus truly felt too horrified to deal with Sirius' stupidity at that moment. Both of the remaining Marauders had been training with Harry for years, ending up for the moment in the tiny house that Sirius had inherited from his parents after his mother's death. They had been preparing in the hopes that Harry could be ready when the time came to step up and deal with the prophecy. While they had been aware that Voldemort must have been up to something serious to merit silence for such a long period of time, they were for the most part kept out of Voldemort's doings because they were no longer connected to the Order.
While Remus was no longer a fan of Dumbledore's, he had to hope that the older wizard was aware of what the newest dark lord was up to, and would intervene in time to stop it.
From the look on Harry's face, though, that wasn't happening.
Still, Sirius was staring at him expectantly, making him feel uncomfortable, and Remus felt obligated to answer. Through his horror, he organized all that he knew about haltia in his head, and came to the inescapable conclusion that if all he thought he knew about haltia were true, the light side of the war may have to give up. "The haltia won't want to be here- it'll immediately start looking for a way out, from the moment it's brought here. They've been known to destroy entire cities in their need to escape."
"But… but Voldemort wouldn't risk himself to rid the world of muggles," Sirius said. "It would defeat the whole purpose of trying to live for forever, which is pretty much all he's been trying to do for…" Sirius tried to remember exactly what year Voldemort had gotten started and then decided dates didn't really matter. "For as long as he's been going. Why would he risk himself now?"
"He wouldn't be risking himself if his first wish was protection," Remus answered, remembering the case in which one wizard had attempted to bring a haltia to their realm. The wizard hadn't been powerful enough to merit three answers, and the explosion had been put down to some kind of accident during some sort of ritual, because no one could prove that the wizard had been attempting to summon a haltia.
"You get three wishes, Sirius, before the haltia can go back," Remus explained, pausing to cast a cooling charm on Harry's scar, hoping to help with the irritated redness of the skin surrounding it. "If he spent his first wish on eternal life, he could wish for whatever he wanted for the second two."
"And all he has to do is call this thing to get the three wishes?" Sirius asked, clenching his teeth together. It seemed awfully unfair that they could lose everything based off of one ritual.
"Well, no, there's a whole blood ritual thing, and a lot of spells involved, but he's had two years to prepare for it," Remus replied, frowning as Harry's eyes widened even more. "Harry, can you hear me? It's going to be okay. We're going to figure something out, all right?"
Harry's eyes just grew wider. Remus grew increasingly concerned, as did Sirius. "Harry?" Sirius called, his worry increasing even more. "It's going to be fine. We're going to work this all out no problem. It's just a little setback."
Remus shot Sirius a look, aware that this was a lot more than one little setback, but unwilling to risk upsetting Harry further. He'd explain the seriousness of the situation to his friend later. "Harry, we need to know what's happening," He said, feeling guilty for even asking that of he boy laying on the floor. He didn't want to upset Harry further, but Harry's visions were the only connection to Voldemort that the three had. While they had been attempting to help Harry block the visions, and had been recently having a great deal of success, any information was important.
"He's decided to go through with calling the… the…"
"Haltia," Remus prompted, knowing that Harry was currently too out of it to really focus on the word itself, or to fully understand it's meaning.
"Yes, that. He knows I'm still out there, but he thinks he can eliminate me through that. He's also hoping to use it to gain Hogwarts, though how, I don't know," Harry continued, gasping for breath. "He wanted to wait longer, but we haven't done anything other than avoid his Death Eaters for the past three years, so he doesn't think it's as much of a risk. He's doing some kind of chanting now…" Harry's green eyes appeared even more anguished, flashing with sadness before they closed.
"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, gripping his godson's hand. Harry, while technically an adult, had grown incredibly close to the last friends of his fathers since they had broken him out of Azkaban three years prior, and was no longer afraid to express pain or any other emotion in front of them. This time, he expressed extreme sadness and fear.
"It doesn't want to be here," Harry informed them, his voice cracking slightly.
"The haltia?" Remus asked, looking for confirmation. Harry wheezed for more breath and then nodded slightly, swallowing.
"I don't blame it," Sirius said lightly, hoping to maybe lift his godson's hopes a little. "I wouldn't like being dragged to some other world to take care of it's problems very much myself."
Suddenly Harry tensed, his body strung with tension. "NO!" He screamed, his eyes nearly falling out of his head. Both men around him jumped about a foot back, surprised by the sudden, energetic outburst. "No, I didn't bring you here! I wouldn't do that! I couldn't do that—see, I'm not even technically there myself!" Harry explained, his voice still horrified.
Remus' mouth dropped open in shock. "It saw him first," He murmured, torn between panic that something could happen to Harry and hope that maybe this event could be a blessing in an extremely good disguise.
"So?" Sirius asked, watching as his godson appeared to become slightly more calm on the floor. "What does that matter? Harry's not even really there, so it can't do anything to him, can it?" Suddenly, he feared that Harry's increasing calm was not a good sign, as he had taken it to be, but a bad sign of things to come.
"It—the haltia—it must not realize that he's not really there," Remus muttered, watching Harry's face for any sign of change. "It latches onto the first person it sees to grant the three wishes to, and the first person it saw must have been him, or it wouldn't have accused him of bringing it here."
To Sirius, this was a massive jump in logic, but he supposed that Remus had been doing enough research, in the last several years of attempting to find ways to keep Harry alive through the war, that Remus would be aware of things he was not. Sirius tried to piece all that he had heard together to understand it. "So this could be a good thing?" He asked, hardly daring to hope.
Harry blinked rapidly, his expression calming even further. "Yes, Sirius, it could be a great thing," Harry stated, his voice becoming even again. "But it needs the wishes now, so it can go back home. What should we ask for?"
Remus' eyes widened, suddenly seeing where this could easily head, and not liking it one bit. When Harry felt hurried, he often acted just as he had that day they had broken him out of Azkaban, and thought on his feet. While that had worked out marvelously well for Harry that one night years before, it might not work out so well this time, especially because Harry was playing with an incredibly dangerous and powerful being that was likely very angry at being dragging into their world. Remus tried to keep his voice calm, hoping to appeal to Harry's more logical side. "Harry, maybe we should talk this over a little bit. You know, to really figure out what would be best to ask for and to plan on how to use the gifts to end the war."
Harry blinked. "Remus, it wants to go home now, and I can't, in good faith, make it wait for us to form a huge plan and make a million decisions," Harry argued, his voice becoming more firm as he continued. "I want protection for everyone who deserves it, against the man who brought you here." Harry said, and Remus covered his eyes as he realized that Harry was no longer speaking to them, but was instead addressing the haltia. "And by those who deserve it, I mean those who would harm only out of necessity, and not out of desire," Harry continued, licking his dry lips before he continued.
Remus and Sirius just watched the Boy-Who-Lived negotiate with the being from the other world, unable to do much else. "I want the power and knowledge necessary to defeat the one who brought you here, to remove him from this and every world, so he can't hurt another person again," Harry continued, his voice even.
Well, that was fairly simple, as far as wishes went, Sirius thought. There was one wish left, Sirius knew, and for a moment, he fantasized about all the incredible things his godson could wish for; freedom, or eternal life, or the dead to be made living. The silence in the room thickened, until finally Sirius asked, "Harry? What about wish number three?"
Harry swallowed, and remembered the anger, the absolute fury, that the haltia had demonstrated upon being brought to their realm. Then, he vaguely remembered Remus' story about entire cities being leveled by the very kind of being he was conversing with. Protection against Voldemort would hardly do anyone any good if the haltia decided to destroy them all. "I want you to go back to your world without causing any damage or harm to anyone in my world. I know you are angry, but trust me to take care of destroying the man who brought you here, so that no one else gets hurt in the process of you destroying him," Harry said, hoping against hope that he'd worded his request correctly, in a way that wouldn't offend the haltia.
Remus and Sirius both watched as Harry's the red irritation surrounding Harry's scar began to recede, and the glassy-eyed expression that Harry always got on his face when zoning in to Voldemort's doings disappeared.
"Are… are you okay, Harry?" Sirius asked when his godson said nothing for several moments.
"I'll be alright," Harry assured him, rubbing his scar with a bemused expression. "It's strange, I know Voldemort's furious—I could see that in the background, the entire time I was speaking with the haltia. But I still can't feel a thing in my scar."
"It must have deemed you worthy of protection from Voldemort as well, Harry," Remus said softly, helping young man to sit up. "That was awfully dangerous, you know," Remus informed him, hoping to keep from scolding too much after the awful experience the Boy-Who-Lived had just been through, but unable to let the event go without saying something.
"Not really," Harry assured him, stretching now that he was in a sitting position. Remus couldn't help but argue the moment the words left Harry's lips.
"Yes, really. If you'd said merely one word wrong you could have been destroyed, along with the rest of Europe, and depending on the power of that haltia, perhaps even a large portion of the world." Sirius merely rolled his eyes at what he considered to be Remus's theatrics while Harry smirked.
"Nah, it wouldn't have tried to hurt me. It actually had the nerve to feel bad for me," He stated, voice slightly incredulous. "It saw my history somehow, I think. Anyways, it knew I was speaking the truth about not bringing it here, after I said it, and somehow it realized that I was dragged into the war and visions and all without really having a choice. It compared my being forced into the visions and war with it's being forced into this world against it's will, and actually empathized with me."
"Well, you've managed once again, through sheer luck, to mess with Voldemort's plans Harry. Well done," Sirius stated, slapping his godson lightly on the back. "Do you want to rest a bit before we continue training?" He asked, clearly concerned about Harry's health, in spite of the fact that the young man looked fairly well considering his experience.
"I don't think I need any more training, or practicing, guys," Harry told them, his eyes still focused somewhere slightly far away. "I think that haltia took my requests to the extreme. Besides, it's not enough anymore to just mess with each of Voldemort's plans and then give him time to come up with new ones. It's time to take him out for good."
"What!" Remus hissed, horrified. His reaction was covered by Sirius.
"When?" Sirius asked, eyes gleaming in anticipation of seeing what would happen.
"Tonight," Harry answered, his voice firmly decided. "He's at his weakest right now, even after that ritual didn't go his way, from bringing the haltia into the world. Also, he's aware that his plans messing up had something to do with me. He'll be coming after us worse than ever. We've got to move now."
Remus was afraid he'd say that. Well, there went all the careful planning and training of the last several years. They'd have to throw some sort of shoddy plan together tonight.