Thanks for the reviews, last time I forgot to answer one of the questions: will there be any other "grey wizards" like Harry?

The answer is no, Harry is grey not only because of surviving the Killing curse but also because of one of his powers, his main power at that -–can anyone imagine what that power could be?

Back to the future: part eleven

It was already December when finally someone stopped Harry and asked him why he had become so withdrawn around Halloween. He had just looked at Charles and had answered him again that he had just more work than he had believed he would have and that everything else was alright. Every other professor who had heard them had smiled and promised him again that he would get used to it; only his two best friends and the headmaster knew that not the workload was responsible for his changed behaviour. Though further questions had been prevented as a scarlet phoenix materialised before the headmaster.

"Horus, what a surprise, do you have a message for me or..."

A knock on the door stopped his question, Harry who had been the one who sat closest to the door of the staff-room door stood up to open it. Suppressing the urge to great the man that stood before him as he was used to do Harry leaned forward in a small bow and greeted the older man formally:

"Master Flamel!"

Only the headmaster and the man he had addressed this way had noticed Harrys slight hesitation and the smile that lit up his eyes. Nodding to the young man before him he entered the staff room:

"Good afternoon, young man!"

turning to Albus Dumbledore he continued:

"Hello, Albus! It has been to long since I visited this old halls and you. Can you spare a little bit of your time for an old friend like myself?"

It cost Harry all his control to not show his agitation at this request of the old man: it could be no coincidence that Nicholas Flamel was visiting Hogwarts for the first time in years just as he had arrived here - and nearly two months after he had altered the headmasters memory.

Absentmindedly Harry had drawn his wand and was twirling it between his fingers. He did not notice what all of his colleagues saw: streams of light were flowing out of the tip of his wand circling in an ever faster growing motion around him till he was nearly completely hidden by it. Suddenly the light exploded soundlessly, blinding everyone for a few moments. As the black spots had cleared from their view they saw that Harry had noticed nothing of the spectacle he had caused and was still twirling his wand between his fingers.

Horus who had still been sitting on the headmasters shoulder flew over to Harry who immediately started to pat the phoenix' head; after a while Harry noticed the silence around him and looked up, putting his wand away. Questioning Harry looked at his colleagues and friends till Charles had pity with him and answered his unasked question:

"You have to show me that firework sometime, Harry! Did you use a spell or did you just channel your magic through your wand?"

Thankfully Harry smiled at his friend and shrugged his shoulders:

"Neither - that is not exactly the second: I still have bursts of accidental magic when I am nervous - last time that happened I was holding my wand and changed the colour of a few things around me, one was the hair of my best friend, he didn't speak to me for weeks..."

A smile flickered over Harrys face at the memory: it had been during the holidays before their seventh year when he had read an article in the Daily Prophet that had made him angry, angry enough to loose control over his magic. Most things that had been with him in the room, a room he had just been dusting together with Ron, had changed to white - Rons hair and cloths included. Surprisingly he himself as well as Rons skin had stayed as they were. For three weeks Ron had been forced to go to St. Mungos as no-one including the headmaster and Nickolas Flamel, who had joined them the summer before, had been able to reverse Harrys magical outburst. Only when his hair had regained its original bright orange-red colour did Ron speak to him again. Even Professor Snape had refrained from then on to anger Harry to badly. A hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present.

"Young man, I would like to speak with you for a few moments if that is possible."

Still caught up in his own time Harry didn't hesitate to follow his mentor and grandfatherly friend to his mentors office. As soon as they had sat down around the tea table that stood in a corner of the headmasters office Fawkes and Horus who had followed them flew over to Harry and landed both on his lap, a behaviour that was wordlessly observed by the owners of the avians.

"Tell me of your accidental magic, it is unusual that it still happens at your age, how old are you, twenty, twenty-five? Normally it stops when a child starts schooling..."

Nickolas Flamel opened the conversation,

"What kind of accidental magic do you remember doing?"

"Only the usual, apparating to safety, changing the colour of the hair of a teacher I didn't like, making glass vanish..."

Harry trailed of at seeing the disbelieving faces of the two other men and wondered what he had done wrong no

w.

"You apparated accidentally without splinching yourself?"

Albus Dumbledore asked, sure he had misheard what his young professor had said. Seeing the other nod he looked expectantly at his own mentor and friend who had a contemplating look on his face.

"How old were you when you did all this?"

Nicholas Flamel asked Harry, watching closely the young mans reaction.

"When I apparated I was eight and my teachers hair-colour I changed sometime before that... I vanished the glass shortly before my eleventh birthday...

Is that unusual? You are both looking at me as if I had done something impossible!"

For a long time neither of the men answered him till Albus stood up and opened a drawer from his desk and withdrew a thick scroll.

"This is a list of the accidental magic our students have performed in the last two hundred years before they were old enough to come to Hogwarts.

The most impressive burst of magic was that a seven year old doused a fire that was closing him and his cat in. Nothing on this list comes even close to what you have done, nothing!"

Not even trying to hide his shock at this revelation Harry asked feebly if he was maybe a descendant of that boy and had inherited his strong connection to magic from him.

"That is impossible, I don't have any children - and neither does my brother Aberforth!"

At this answer Harry paled even more and seemingly lost himself once again in his thoughts. But what looked to the other two as if he were thinking was in reality a different kind of conversation he was holding with the two avians who were still sitting on his lap.

"Fawkes, why did you never tell me about all this?"

Harry asked his old feathery friend in his mind through the link that had been created between every phoenix and himself when he had been made a phoenix-child and became a Shadow phoenix.

"Because you were not ready to hear it, fletchling. When should I have told you? When we first met in your second year or down in the Chamber? Even if I had tried to tell you you would not have understood me."

As soon as Fawkes had fallen silent Horus spoke up:

"You came the first time to the past to learn everything you could not learn in your own time, to meet your family and to rest far away from everything that plagued you in the future - but you changed many things, some things for the better but also some things for the worse. You came back the second time to change what you had worsened, you even reached your goal - but one thing you forgot, your own happiness. Only when you have found for yourself what you were send here to find, the circle will end and you, your past self will not be send back to this time. Fawkes and myself are the only ones who have been present every time you have been send back. We are your guardians till you have no need for us anymore: we can help you find your way but nothing more."

The two old wizards had watched in fascination as Harrys face changed from slight anger to relieve before he directed his thoughts once again to the two other humans in the room. As he tried to excuse himself the headmaster set out to stop him but was hindered by his old mentor who spoke once Harry had left the room:

"You have nothing to fear from him Albus. Even though he tried to obliviate you you said yourself that his spell lacked the necessary intention and therefor failed. I believe to know what he is - but do not ask me to disclose this information to you before I deem the time right.

Now tell me everything about this young man you know."

Perplexed and slightly angry with his mentor and old friend for not telling him what he believed to know about Henry Andrews Albus Dumbledore let some time pass before he answered.

"His application arrived in the Middle of July, the most promising application I had received so far. The day he should come for his personal application he arrived hours before our meeting should take place. When he finally came to my office he was escorted by Charles Mortimer - and hadn't it been for Charles talent I wouldn't have given him the job even though his knowledge is more than impressive: he knows more about the dark-creatures and some old spells than anyone besides you that I have met.

While he had no problem to tell me that he is the son of Reginald Andrews he declared that he would never become or join a Dark Lord - yet he has lied about many things since he arrived. In his application he wrote that he was twenty five and home-schooled, he told Charles that most of his Defence-teachers had been frauds and that he mostly thought himself in that subject. Then, weeks later he openly confesses to me that he is only eighteen and that he took an ageing potion so that I would not reject his application because of his age."

Hearing Nicholas chuckle Albus raised his eyebrow at his old friend.

"Continue, Albus - I will try to contain my mirth but you have to agree that the young man is clever!"

Scowling Albus continued, yes, he had to agree with his friend but still he did not like it to be played this way!

"The day he tried to obliviate me he agreed that he was not the son of Reginald Andrews, that Reginald didn't even have a son but two daughters - and yet he claims to be directly related to him! How did he gain so much knowledge of Andrews who has managed to hide all these years from everyone?

You saw what kind of magic he was doing in the staff room, that is not the first time I have seen his magic leaking out, he told me that his mentor believes that he is a Sorcerer or even a Mage, there have been no Mages since the Founders - so where does this boy come from, why did he suddenly appear out of nowhere? What are his intentions?

Seemingly without intention he was wearing in the first week the Andrews robes-of-declaration, the silver robes! He claimed that he had overslept and grabbed the first robes that fell into his hands, at that time I believed him but now I am no longer sure!

He told me that he had fallen in love with a girl he could not - or rather should not love: Bellatrix Black, the second daughter of Lysander and Calpurnia Black. I have investigated his relationship to all of his students and have found out some very interesting facts: for one is he transporting letters between Bellatrix Black and her disowned older sister Andromeda who married a muggle and then does he have become a close friend of Henry Potter - the father of Sirius Blacks, the Black heir and Bellatrix cousin, best friend James. So while he claims that he does not want to force her into a marriage he is weaving a web around her that will ensure him if not her love than at least her gratitude and friendship. In that contence he also mentioned that he knew what would become of her, what she would do - but when I asked him if he were a seer he denied it. Even though he was drunk he then remembered a connection he has with someone dangerous, someone who presents a great danger for everyone but whom Harry is sure would kill him immediately if he knew of that connection."

Nicholas had stayed silent while he listened to the headmaster of Hogwarts and even now, as the other man paused to fill his cup and take a sip did he continue his silence.

"When he came to me that evening he was completely drunk, so drunk that I feared that he would kneel over any moment - but when he finally did fall asleep he revealed to me that he is an unregistered animagus: he is a silver winged jaguar. Nickolas, there are only six known members of that species! Worse yet, when I asked him the next morning if he was registered and when he had become an animagus he told me that he had become one when he was not even sixteen - and he knew of my form and that I was also unregistered!

His familiar is a Shadow phoenix and you have seen how taken Fawkes and Horus are with him, every time he enters my office Fawkes flies over to him to be patted, never before has he done that.

When he came for his application, he was not carrying a wand with him and when I asked him the morning after he had been drunk why he was using his wand so scarcely he told me that it was so powerful that he feared it, his wand is Mithril melted first in Dragon-fire and than burned with a phoenix - to top that it has also a dual core of the first tears of a Daylight-vampire and the powdered horn of a unicorn. He told me that Gawain, whom he calls by his first name, has made that wand especially for him.

Surely you have noticed the silver glove he wears on his right hand? He claims that his first wand exploded together with its brother-wand and that his hand was nearly completely burned in the explosion and was healed by a phoenix, leaving only a few scars. A phoenix, he did NOT say his phoenix!, scars he says that identify him. He does not want to have an other scar he is judged and identified by - yet I have seen no other scar on him, no scar that would allow me to judge him.

When I asked him if he would take off his glove for me a tear slit down his cheek and he sounded completely sober when he answered me that he would only take of the glove when I trusted, he would trust me with his life and the life of everyone he cared for but not with his scars...

That evening he spoke not the first time of an "Uncle Nicki" and called me uncle Albus. You have noticed how he hesitated before he greeted you, how he acted as if he had known us for years... when he was drunk he opened up and smiled when I addressed him with "My child".

Young Mister Potter made in their first Defence lesson a joke about Harrys favourite sweets: Blood-Drops and Mint-Leaves, and he told him and the whole class of all the wizards and witches favourites; he knew what sweets you prefer and what the founders liked. He even shares your theory that no-one who is still able to enjoy sweets can be a Dark Lord.

In his very first lesson he asked the fifth years what made Dark Lords Dark Lords in comparison to their followers and when no one was answering he offered them that maybe because they were the first in their generation who found others who were stupid enough to follow them!"

A loud laugh interrupted Albus at this point and he also allowed himself to smile. He could see what his friend found so humorous but he also saw what dangerous games his young professor was playing now that a new Dark Lord was rising.

"You know what he is risking with such opinions yet he does not listen to anyone who asks him for more caution. Every lesson he gives has at least one jibe against Dark Lords, if not on their magical ability than on something else like their stile. If he continues this way there will be nothing that can ensure his safety if this Lord Voldemort ever manages to come into power.

What also puzzles me is that he seems to know so much about this Lord Voldemort and yet tells nothing of him... if it weren't for Charles, Fawkes and Nyx, Harrys phoenix, and now also Horus I would fear that he himself is this Lord Voldemort.

Also when I tried Occlumency on him I encountered a shield like nothing I have ever seen before: at the same time it was blindingly light and all enclosing dark yet so hot that it nearly burned me. When I asked Harry for an explanation he told me that he was thought Occlumency but that he guessed that he was a natural Occlumence. You know that after Merlin the last natural Occlumence was Salazar Slytherin. The only picture of Slytherin in this castle shows him as a young man, a man with long black hair and blue-green eyes. Could Harry be Slytherins descendent or even heir?..."

Before Albus could continue Nickolas interrupted him, a smile on his lips while his brow was furrowed.

"Albus, you are so caught up in your theories about this young man that you forget all reason: He is not Slytherins heir, we both know who Slytherins heir is, luckily his line is not as hidden as Gryffindors.

I know that you want to hear explanations and that you asked me here for aid and guidance - but I can give you none of that. All I can give you is an insurance that Henry Andrews presents no danger to you or the school. Trust the phoenixi, they are willing to be in his presence, more yet, they seek his company and give their tears to heal him.

You say that he is weaving a web around Bellatrix Black? Could it not be that he is just aiding her in keeping contact to her older sister, something that might be otherwise impossible for her to do as Andromeda was disowned? Could it not also be possible that there are other reasons for his friendship with Henry Potter? Did you not tell me years ago of your suspicion that Henry aided Reginald in leaving the wizarding world? When Harry really is related to Reginald Andrews that could be a reason for his friendship with Henry Potter. Have you not noticed that both are named Henry? Henry Potter might even be the godfather of Henry Andrews. Even if your young Professor is trying to lead Miss Black into his arms it would be better for her than to be forced to marry either one of the Lestrange brothers or Lucius Malfoy, the three candidates her parents would prefer.

While I agree with you that the combination of his wand is unusual we both know that Mithril, even more so when it has burned with a phoenix can not be touched by a dark wizard and that the same goes for the first tears of a Daylight Vampire and any form of Unicorn horns.

You say that his hand was burned in the explosion of his wand and its brother wand? If he survived such an explosion he is marked for the rest of his life, whatever the core of those wands was, has either joined his soul or rejected him and you will do good to leave that part of his past alone as I am sure that it was not an event he longs to remember.

And what does it matter that he knows who is addicted to which sweets, neither of us have ever tried to hide the fact that we love a certain candy - so what is the trouble in him telling the students what you or I prefer? While I don't understand how he can eat those disgusting Blood-Drops it does not tell you anything about his character only of his macabre taste.

Be happy that you have found such a competent teacher, dark days will come in the immediate future and the children will need a well founded knowledge of Defence Against the Dark Arts. Don't chase him away with your suspicions, if you don't trust me, trust your heart - it will tell you that you have nothing to fear from him for yourself or your school and that you can trust him with the side of the light itself!"

Both friends sat for a long time in silence after Nickolas had ended. Both were lost in their thoughts and watching absentmindedly their familiars when Albus remembered something Harry had said to him on the morning he had tried to obliviate him, unconsciously he spoke the sentence loud:

"Magic knows no boundaries apart from those we believe in..."

With a speed that belied his age Nicholas head snapped around to his friend:

"What did you just say?"

Only now, that he heard the panic in his friends voice did Albus realise what the sentence Harry had used so offhandedly really meant, not only for Harry or himself or Nicholas but for their whole world.

"Harry said that to me when I asked him about his wand: Magic knows no boundaries apart from those we believe in."