Harry Potter and the Golden Sovereign
As told to Ian Postre
Disclaimer: This story is fanfiction. No financial benefit will be gained from the sharing or reproduction of this story. All characters and worlds described are the property of J.K Rowling. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author.
The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter 21
It was nearly time for bed as the Gryffindors relaxed by the fire in the common room. Harry and Ron were immersed in a particularly violent game of Wizard Chess which Harry was losing. His pawns lay all over the board, dramatically clutching sword wounds and other horrific injuries and making over-dramatic farewell speeches in tiny, whiny voices, when Colin Creevey jumped through the entrance hatch which had just been opened by a yawning Fat Lady. Colin was proudly clutching a small slip of paper which he presented to Harry. "Hi Harry" said Colin. I was just passing Professor Dumbledore's office when he gave me this message for you." Colin continued to stand there staring, pleased as punch, at Harry, as if he was waiting for a medal or a pat on the head. Harry didn't have a medal, and patting Colin on the head felt too much like patting Fang. So he reached forward, took the message and patted Colin once on the forearm.
"Thanks, Colin", seemed to be enough to send Colin up to his dormitory with a whoop of delight and satisfaction. His looked at the departing boy and thought of Archie.
Ron looked at Harry and shrugged: Some kids are easily pleased."
Harry watched, bemused, as Colin leapt the stairs, two at a time, all the while chatting to himself that he wished he'd captured the whole thing on camera.
Hermione, who was reading from A Literary History of Giant Poetry: From Mumbles to Syllables, looked up from her book and asked: "Well, aren't you going to read it?"
Harry glanced at the message and read the short sentence written on it, signed in the unmistakable flourish of Albus Dumbledore's signature.
He looked up at an expectant Ron and Hermione.
"Well?" inquired Ron.
"Unless you'd rather no say," Hermione added quickly.
"It doesn't say much. 'Tuesday evening, at 7 in my study, if convenient." Harry replied.
"If convenient?" blurted Ron. "Like Yeah, sorry Professor D, I'd love to chat to the world's greatest Wizard but I've got other plans!" Ron winked knowingly at Hermione.
Harry grinned and tucked the message into his pocket where, for a moment, he thought he felt the golden sovereign again, resting there as it had done throughout his adventure in Victorian London. Of course, it wasn't there. It was in the Box of Time, now back at Samuel Tockley's. Tockley would have retrieved it from the box and stowed it away somewhere very safe. But the sudden memory gave Harry the thought, he wasn't sure why, that it was about the golden Sovereign that Dumbledore wanted to speak to him.
As he made his way up to bed, Harry realised, he was quite looking forward to his chat with Dumbledore on Tuesday night. What did Dumbledore know?
The day and time arrived. Harry was settled opposite Dumbledore in his study.
He had related the whole story, which had taken nearly an hour and Dumbledore had listened patiently to every word, occasionally asking a question. And now it was Harry who was asking questions, hoping the headmaster would help him make sense of the whole affair.
"Professor? The place where my parents were." began Harry, "Was it real? It felt completely real while I was there. Was it a parallel universe? My cousin Dudley used to talk about those. He used to watch films about space and time travel and play computer games. He said one of them was based on a real idea that there are millions of parallel universes, each one just a bit different from the last one."
Professor Dumbledore looked hard at Harry for a moment and his eyes seemed to smile, as if he were enjoying a little joke. "Parallel universes. Perhaps Harry. Alternative realities – alternaties I have heard them called. I've even heard of our universe called the Multiverse which would seem to lend the notion some possibility."
Harry continued to look at Dumbledore, hoping for afuller answer than that.
Seeing this, Dumbledore continued. "In truth, Harry, I do not believe so. In all of my years on this particular version of our world, I've never had any tangible evidence that there are an infinity of Dumbledores or Professor Snapes in our reality. But, what indeed, is reality? That's not a question for this evening I suspect."
Harry still wanted a clearer answer. "But, Professor, my parents were real. That world was a real as this one. I believed all of it... until the end. Until I saw myself in the mirror. Professor?" Harry waited for Dumbledore to reply.
"Illusion, Harry. I suspect it was an illusion, not an alternative world. As you will have well learned, I hope, from your encounter with the Mirror of Erised, what we desire in the deepest region of our heart, is often the thing that can be most used to send us into illusion. You, I fear, Harry, would have fallen into an illusion that would have, indeed, seemed as real to you as this world. And that illusion could have lasted a lifetime. You remember the Tunnel of Time? And you may have heard an old man whisper a warning?" Dumbledore winked at Harry. The tunnel of time is most perilous because it is a place where everything we can imagine is shown to us, and we can easily be drawn in, pulled into madness. I shall be having words with my dear old friend, Samuel Tockley. Excited as he still is by Time and all its mysteries, he should never have allowed a young boy into that box. You showed remarkable self-control, Harry. Then again, I see now, that your trip through the dangers of time was, in one sense, inevitable. Simon Potter, as I am sure he told you, called you because he foresaw doing it."
"Yes," said Harry. still not making much sense of what he was hearing. "Simon said he was simply acting on his own prophecy."
"Indeed. And all of that led to you being offered an illusion that could have distracted you and taken you from our history permanently."
"Permanently"? exclaimed Harry, a feeling of shock rising in him.
"Permanently. If you had succumbed to an illusion that spoke to your deepest wishes, you would have allowed Voldermort to achieve his goal of, how shall we say, taking you out of the equation. Fortunately," Dumbledore continued, "even illusions can have flaws and you were able to finally shatter that particular one. Your mother's love for you in this world, at this time, was utterly real to you, and you managed to use that love to penetrate the illusion that Voldermort had tried to spin around you. You saw a different, older, possible you, who was happy with his family. And yet, in that moment, you also remembered yourself in the here and now, and the Harry Potter in the here and now is the Harry Potter that your mother gave her life to save.
"Voldermort, though not in body, was able to project a large part of his soul back into time. There is some connection between you I believe he used to follow you to that exact time and place. But he had to use people there to do his bidding; he wasn't strong enough to manifest physically except as a kind of shade, a ghost if you like. So he made contact with Order of the Eagle, an order I am glad to say no longer exists in our time. Actually it was ended in 1917 in a terrible battle in France. Though it found a newer and more devastating home in Germany in 1933. There the idea of "pure blood" found a more ready audience. But no more of that I think."
Dumbledore reached into a drawer in his desk and took out a sealed letter. The crimson wax seal was still in tact and Harry saw his name embossed in the wax.
Dumbledore offered the letter to Harry. "This, Harry is for you. It was apported from 1868 from your great, great uncle Simon. Read it at your leisure."
Harry took the letter, broke the seal and unfolded the cream, vellum paper. "I'll read it aloud if that it alright, Sir." said Harry.
Dumbledore smiled. "As you wish Harry."
Harry read the letter in a quiet but steady voice.
"Dear Harry. I trust you are safely home. I thank you for effecting my rescue. I am writing this letter, enjoying a Ruby Lou special, on the barge from Enrico Rose. He sends his warm wishes. The Ministry has closed down the Order of the Eagle and thoroughly searched their premises in London. Two of the Order you met are now awaiting trial but the woman managed to flee and has gone into hiding. The goblin also vanished. I would apologise for calling you to my time for what may have seemed to you to be a dangerous and ultimately purposeless journey. Not so, Harry. I have since discovered the task that you did accomplish that may well have safeguarded the future for you, your friends, perhaps the entire wizarding and even Muggle world.
"It seems Harry that you were needed for a very specific task. Sometimes it is the smallest act that can cause the greatest benefit or calamity. It seems that, when you stepped out of my door, just before you left this Time, you prevented a theft. A certain Michael Potter, a detective working both at the Ministry of Magic and in the Muggle police, who happens to be my second brother, was on his way to visit me when you stumbled into a theft and he was able to step in and give help to a certain Joella Clayfold. They were married within the year. They gave birth to a son, Charlus. Charlus married Dorea and they had a son, James, your father. James and Lily, of course, gave birth to you. Without your seemingly insignificant intervention Harry, you would not have been born in order to enact it! Such is the nature of time and the web of consequences it weaves through the years, back and forth, to and fro. So, thank you for coming, Harry. And thank you for achieving your task. I wish you a happy future. I sense much adventure lies ahead for you. You ancestor and friend, Simon Potter. P.S. I bumped into a small friend of yours called Archie. He says, say wotcha to Harry Potter."
Dumbledore was listening intently as Harry looked at him.
"Well done, Harry." said Dumbledore. "Though time travel is extremely illegal, I think, on this occasion, we shall overlook the crime. But one thing I must ask you is to forget. You will have to forget all of this - for the time being. This is a story better left untold until you are, perhaps older. Playing with Time is a very dangerous business and your connection to Voldermort is what enabled him to trace you in the Past. I would rather be cautious and not give him possible access to what has happened here. I hope you will agree. But I will not insist. A small spell will wipe this adventure from your mind until you are older. I propose that memory of it will begin to appear, as part of all of your memories, in the year, 2014. Then you will be old enough and more than ready to share it if you wish, or to add it to the many memories of adventure I am sure you will collect in the intervening years. Do you agree, Harry? I have also asked your friends Ron and Hermione and both agreed as well. Each of them will be up to see me this evening.
Harry trusted Dumbledore. "Yes, Professor, whatever you think is best."
"Good" said Dumbledore. "And thank you. It is a simple matter. He took out his wand and pointed it at Harry's forehead. "Oblivate Specificio!"
"There" said Dumbledore. "Now you may go back to your common room."