Heyyyyyyy! Look at me, publishing two days in a row, yay!
So, I got a bunch of questions from one lovely person. A lot of them I will be ansewred in this chapter (I hope).
Do we know the conductor?: Not explicitly, no; no one from Harry Potter's years at Hogwarts. It may be a character that was mentioned once or twice tho (no promises).
Are you going to have a Lavender Brown or a Colin Crevy?: No, I explained why in the chapter (even though I didn't tell mention them specifically). As much as I might like to, if I had everyone in that I thought died an unjust death, we'd just have way to many characters. Maybe once I'm done with this, I could do a sequel with other people...?
When they are traping Romulus' dad one of the boys, it think it was Jack, used accio, which is a fourth year spell that took Harry a few weeks to learn, so how would a second year know it?: Well, I don't remember if it was specifically a fourth year spell or not, but I do remember that Hermione taught it to Harry in their 4th year for the Triwizard Tournament. This indicates she knew it ahead of time, so it was probably something readily available for them to learn. It's also a very valuable spell, so it would make sense that the Charms teacher who replaced Flitwick teach it sooner. If not, one of the third year boys could have known it and taught it to Jack, or Lucy/Rom could have known it.
Now, I'm sure you might be wondering: was the threat of Tavish remembering really so imminent, or was McGonagall overreacting? After all, I'm sure you've never heard of anyone remembering. Harry Potter didn't remember any past lives, you don't even know if he's had any; same with Hermione, Ron, George, Percy, Molly Weasley, Neville, Dumbledore, McGonagall, anyone – no one you've heard of. So, if no one had done it before, why was there such great concern with Tavish?
Well, just because you haven't heard of anyone remembering doesn't mean no one did. Surely you remember McGonagall mentioning me – saying she thought I was a myth. Saying she hadn't thought the Train Conductor was real until she met Tavish and the others. Well, that means someone had remembered before; someone relayed the message.
Harry Potter remembered dying and going to the train station, but he never boarded a train and as such, he didn't know about me. Even so, experiences like that were not uncommon in the wizarding world. Every now and then, through a series of events or extreme stress, someone might remember. Enough people remembered for almost every wizard to have heard about me, even if they didn't believe it.
Now you might be wondering: why do only some people remember? Well, simply put, most people hadn't lived a previous life. On the platform of the Ending, people are given a choice: they can board my train and live again, or they can take the train that comes after me. The train that comes after me is black, and it will take them to the land of the dead, where they can be happy with their loved ones, away from the burdens of life.
So, why would some people choose to come back rather than going to be happy with their loved ones? Perhaps they were not satisfied with the life they lived. For those few souls who felt like they could live another life, a better life, before they were happy, they would go around again. This is why Remus, James, Fred, Sirius, and Lily chose to go again; their lives were cut short, and filled with an excess of pain. They never got to have a true family and so they wanted to try again. Severus chose to go again because he had never happy in his life, and wanted a chance to learn what happiness was.
This is why some people are not reincarnated. Dumbledore, for example, was happy with his past life; he had loves, and losses, and happiness and sadness. He was content that he had truly lived in his 115 years, and besides; all of his loved ones were dead. Others might not have lived so long, but they could easily have decided they were happy.
"Okay, but what about those who do come back? Why do only some of them remember?" you might be asking. Well, the answer is simple; they aren't supposed to remember. A second life is meant to be a second chance with a clean slate. The burdens of their past life would eliminate that hope. So, the only way they would remember is with extreme interference. In a very stressful, life-damaging situation they might remember, or in an extraordinarily deep moment of self reflection, or if someone tries to force them to remember are all examples of circumstances.
Unfortunately for the wizarding world, Tavish was certainly under those circumstances. Voldemort had, like most wizards, heard of me before. And on the off chance that reincarnation was an option, Voldemort wanted to secure his memories. "Stress" and "live-damaging situation" could certainly be used to describe Voldemort, after all, and if any of it got to Tavish, Tavish might start remembering.
Would Tavish suddenly turn into Voldemort if he remembered? No, not necessarily. His past life would not over-ride his current one, but rather the two would combine. Both sets of memories would stay inside his head, and the personalities would battle; whichever person was stronger would win. Tavish was a strong, courageous boy, but he had nothing on the sheer power and force of Voldemort's personality. There was a chance, perhaps a very small one, that Voldemort would not return, but Tavish would never be the same.
McGonagall wanted to do everything in her power to prevent Tavish from remembering, but even she recognized the possibility that she could fail. If she did fail, she needed a back up; she was going to make Tavish into the strongest, most experience-hardened man he could become. If Voldemort's memories came crashing through, she was going to make sure Tavish stood a fighting chance. He would have to learn the darkest parts of Voldemort, so he has one thought: I don't want to be Voldemort. That might not be enough, but it was the best they could do.
As an absolute last resort, she hoped James – or rather, Jack – would be as strong as Harry had been, and that Voldemort would be defeated once more.
And I hoped she was right.
All of these fears and concerns were far from Tavish and the others though; they had no idea what could happen with a single accident. They were only children, after all. When Tavish got back to the library, the others were waiting eagerly to see what he had to say.
"Well? What happened?" Lucy said, sitting forward in her seat.
"I was offered an apprenticeship," Tavish said, still stunned. "McGonagall is going to teach me more about magic."
"Really?" Severin asked, a smile breaking out on his face, "That's great, Tavish!"
"Yeah, you can use it to learn more about Animagi," Jack agreed, giving his friend an impressed look.
"True," Rom said, giving Jack a slight frown, "or he could just enjoy a great opportunity without exploiting every aspect of it."
"Well, I'm glad we weren't caught," Teddy said, smiling with relief. "Anyway, Tavish, we didn't do anything without you. Should we start figuring out what we're going to do?"
"Yeah," Rom agreed, flipping open his notebook, "As near I can tell, there are three main phases. The first phase is a quest for identity, where you figure out who you are on a deeper level. You have to do a lot of stuff, like happy memories and stuff – similar to a patronus – and then meditative things to figure out who you are."
"Ew, why?" Flynn asked, crinkling his nose.
"Because that's how you figure out what animal you are," Rom explained, "You can't do anything until you know what you are, and by extension, your animal. Most people would be the same animal as their patronus, so we can either try to cast a full body patronus, or we can do identity, or both. It's unimaginably hard for someone to cast a patronus though, so I doubt we'd be able to do that too soon. My parents took about six months to figure out what they had to do and find their animals, they had just figured it out before summer started."
"Really? What animals are they?" Teddy asked, sitting forward curiously.
"Mum's a fox," Rom said, "Dad's a lynx."
"Cool," Teddy said, a grin spreading across his face. "I wonder what I'm going to be."
"Yeah," Flynn said, "I hope I'm not something lame, like a rat." The others laughed and agreed, each wondering what animal they might have waiting inside them.
"Anyway. Step two is the process of becoming physically able to change," Rom said. "This is the more complicated part, with spells, incantations, potions, holding a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month, and stuff like that. Then, the third phase is actually shape shifting. It's supposed to take a long time to figure out how to shift properly, and even longer to do it at will whenever you want."
"So… How long exactly do you think this is going to take?" Jack asked, biting his lip.
"Well… Phase one should take six months, but the later two could easily take a year each," Rom sighed. "It would take less if we actually knew what we were doing, but it's not like we can just ask McGonagall: Hey! Care to give us step by step instructions in becoming animagi?"
"True," Teddy said, drumming his fingers on the table.
"Ugh!" Flynn sighed and draped himself across his chair dramatically. "We'll be practically ancient before we can change forms! Teenagers! Our lives will be over!"
"Excuse you, I'm a teenager," Severin said, arching an eyebrow. "And you will be too, soon enough."
"Never," Flynn declared, his dramatic flare coming out as he threw himself across Serafin, putting his arm in the air and resting the back of his hand on his forehead. "I'd soon be dead."
"… Anyway," Rom said, scowling at Flynn, "We are going to have to figure out what animal we are first. So, the best way to do that is to start thinking on your best memories. Happy memories, strong memories, ones you'll always keep. You also need to look at your core identity, and figure out who you are deep down. Those characteristics make up your animal. I think that honestly, even though it's a fifth year spell, we might be best off learning how to cast a patronus. It would make our job that much easier."
"Are patronuses always the same form as your animagus?" Jack asked, tilting his head to the side.
"No, not always, but most of the time," Rom said. "In our research we found a few counter examples; like, Andros the Invincible had a giant for his patronus, but you can't have a human-like form for your animagus, so his animagus would've been something else."
"Oh, okay. But learning the patronus would give us a really good indication," Jack said, and Rom nodded.
"It's not even that bad of a spell," Teddy said with a snort, waving his hand dismissively, "Harry learned how to do it in his third year, and so can we. It took him a little bit of time to practice, but it wasn't that bad, and we're all working together. I mean..." Teddy paused, and his facial expression changed to something tense and a little sad, "We won't have an amazing teacher working with us like Harry did, but we can help each other."
Rom reached under the table and grabbed Teddy's hand without anyone noticing and squeezed it reassuringly before dropping it.
"Okay," Teddy said, taking a deep breath. "So, read up on how to cast a patronus. Maybe… Hey, Tavish, I have an idea using your new thing!"
"What?" Tavish asked, glancing up from his open book.
"Your apprenticeship with McGonagall," Teddy said, "We can use that as an excuse and say it inspired all of us to want to learn more, particularly in Defense Against the Dark Arts. We can use that to convince Professor Macmillan to teach us how to make a Patronus. Then… Well, then we can move on from there, but that'll get us started."
"Yeah," Tavish agreed, brightening up. "You guys can want to do it, too, so then I'm not doing it by myself. And that might make it go faster..."
"Great idea, Teddy," Serafin said, thumping Teddy on the back. "Alright, let's do this. Tomorrow, right after class."