Moody's office came into sharper focus, and so did Moody himself… he looked as white as Fudge, and both eyes were fixed unblinkingly upon Harry's face.
"Voldemort's back, Harry? You're sure He's back? How did He do it?"
"He took stuff from his father's grave, and from Wormtail, from me," said Harry. His head felt clearer; his scar wasn't hurting so badly; he could now see Moody's face distinctly, even though the office was dark. He could still hear screaming and shouting from the distant Quidditch pitch.
"What did the Dark Lord take from you?" said Moody.
Opening his mouth to answer, Harry groaned as another wave of dizziness struck him. He could feel his body keeling over as his vision swam, a pair of hands roughly grabbing his shoulders and shoving him back into the chair, shaking him slightly to help him clear his head.
"What did the Dark Lord take?" Moody hissed angrily, electric blue eye still locked onto Harry's. "What?" he yelled as he shook Harry again, causing his head to snap back with a loud crack.
"Blood!" Harry yelped out, trying to reach up to stop Moody before he hurt him even further, fingers curling around the scarred man's wrists to hold them still. "He took my blood," he gasped, twisting his arm so the Professor could see his bloodstained forearm and the torn sleeves.
Moody stared at Harry for a moment, before letting out a slow breath as he released Harry's shoulders. "And the Death Eaters?" he pressed softly, "They returned?"
Still trying to catch his breath, Harry could only nod, trying to fight off another wave of sickness that struck him.
"How did He treat them?" Moody whispered quietly, "Did He forgive them?"
Harry shrugged weakly, mumbling a faint "I guess," as he closed his eyes and briefly wished he was in the hospital wing. He was pretty sure that the acromantula poison was taking effect now that his pathetic excuse for a duel with Voldemort had only sped up its deadly purpose. "There's a Death Eater, at Hogwarts," he forced out, his vision going blurry again, "Put me, in the Tournament".
"I know," came Moody's simple response as he reached out to steady the swaying Harry.
Hand coming up, Harry grasped onto the man's wrist, wanting to feel his body heat compared to his own rapidly chilling body. Instead of warmth however, Harry felt a sharp stinging pain as something surged through his body- the door swung open with a flick of Moody's wand, the retired Auror edging towards the door suspiciously, only for an arm to appear in mid-air behind him. The Dark Mark gleamed in the light as a bolt of red magic flew from the tip of the arm's wand, striking Moody in the back and dropping him to the floor. An invisibility cloak was thrown to the side as a familiar brown-haired man rushed towards the fallen Moody, roughly tearing some hair out and shoving it into a flask on his hip. The man drank from it seconds later, his flesh bubbling and twisting until a clone of Moody was hobbling there, a blue eye and a leg less, but with a dark grin on his face instead - he flinched back from Moody with a coughing gasp, instinctively shoving the man away from him and knocking himself out of the chair to hit the cold floor.
Biting back a hiss of pain, Harry's hand snapped to his wand, which he aimed at Moody with a yelled "Expelliarmus!"
His red spell struck an invisible shield between the two of them as the polyjuiced Moody's wand flicked silently. "Stay away," Harry ordered, his head still swimming as he aimed his shaking wand towards the imposter, "Whoever you are, just stay away".
Not-Moody's head tilted to the side slightly as a calculating expression flashed across his twisted face. "Well, well well. How did you figure that out Potter?" he asked tauntingly, "Not even that muggle-loving fool, Dumbledore, figured out that I wasn't his old friend".
"Who are you?" Harry countered, not entirely sure what that thing was that had shown him the truth was. "And where's the real Professor Moody?"
"Don't worry about him," Not-Moody dismissed with a smirk, "Worry about me instead, and worry about the Dark Lord. Now tell me, did He forgive them? Did He forgive the traitors that turned on Him and walked free?"
Probably very stupidly, Harry just clenched his jaw shut, trying to think of a way out of this situation and to where someone like Dumbledore could help him. He couldn't take on a fully-trained wizard on his own; he was only fourteen after all. Voldemort had mopped the floor with him, and he'd only used three spells.
"ANSWER ME!" Not-Moody roared, making Harry flinch back before he could help himself, a flash of light from Not-Moody's wand tearing his own from his hand and throwing it across the room. "Answer me, now".
"He forgave them," a male voice said as Not-Moody was blasted off his feet, his wand clattering to the ground as he slammed into the wall, pinned there by the outstretched hand of the brown-haired man standing by the door. "Once he was sure that they were still truly loyal, he forgave them," the man continued as he stepped forward with a smirk. "You alright Harry?" he asked out of the blue, making Harry jump with the suddenness of it.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," Harry lied automatically, looking between Not-Moody, the brunette and where his wand was lying against Moody's trunk.
"No you're not," the brunette corrected instantly, "Are you alright?" he repeated patiently.
"I'm confused, and my head hurts," Harry admitted slowly when the brunette shot him an expectant look.
"Figures, your visions always hurt you for some reason, never found out why actually," the brunette murmured softly before shaking his head. "How rude of us Bartemius," he apologized to the polyjuiced Death Eater still pinned to the wall, "Here, let me help".
Before Harry's eyes, the man lowered his hand and snapped his fingers, a ball of crackling lightning appearing floating above his palm. Lashing out, the man hurled the ball at 'Bartemius', striking him in the chest before the Death Eater even hit the ground and tearing a scream from his mouth as lightning danced across his body before he fell limp.
"He's still alive," the man assured him as Harry stared in horror, "He'll need to be for when Fudge comes for him. I just knocked him out so we could talk".
"Who are you?" Harry blurted, torn between awe at the man's wandless magic and terrified of his power.
Familiar emerald green eyes locked onto Harry's own as the man's face twisted into an even more familiar smile. "I'm sure you'll figure it out Harry," the man said quietly before his smile vanished and was replaced by a determined look. "You can't tell anymore what happened tonight," he ordered briskly.
"What? I have to!" Harry argued, snapping out of his confusion and into anger instead, "They have to know he's back!"
The man raised his hand and Harry shut up instantly, leaning away as the hand was aimed his way. "You're right, they need to know he's back," the man confirmed, "But they don't need to know about the vision you just had," he explained calmly as he lowered his hand. "They don't need to know about the way you slipped your bonds tonight, how you rippled and were suddenly standing elsewhere," he pressed, "They can't know, they'll sentence you to the Dementor's kiss within seconds if they did. Do you understand me?"
"But I-"
"Do you understand me?" the man interrupted loudly, "Harry, I'm not joking. They'll kill you, you can't tell anyone".
"My friends," Harry began.
"Harry!" the man shouted, "You can't tell anyone!"
He stared at the man for a moment, catching sight of the fear in his eyes. Swallowing nervously, Harry just nodded silently. He hadn't been going to tell anyone anyway, he knew Ron would see it as just the Boy-Who-Lived being 'special', while Hermione would want to research it and tell the Professors about it.
"It wasn't accidental magic was it?" he whispered to the man, "I thought I'd just accidentally apparated away from the statue".
"It's not accidental magic," the man confirmed, "I'll explain everything to you when things calm down, I promise you I will".
"How can you promise me anything when you won't even tell me your name? How am I supposed to trust you?" Harry countered bravely, something telling him that the man would never hurt him.
Running his hands through his gravity-defiant hair, the man bit his lip in a familiar gesture. "Perry, call me Perry," he decided after a moment's pause.
"Well then, Perry, what's your real name?" Harry asked instantly.
'Perry' just blinked at him in shock before letting out a snort and grinning at him, shaking his head slightly. "Perry was the name of my best friend growing up," he admitted slowly, "I can't tell you my real name, I'll explain why later," he said quickly as Harry opened his mouth to argue, "I'll explain why, but I won't tell you what it is".
The sound of something exploding at the door made Harry flail and jump, scrambling away from Perry as the man calmly glanced at the door. Throwing himself across the floor, Harry grabbed his wand and sent a stunning spell in Perry's direction, watching as the man rippled out of the way of the spell that struck Not-Moody instead.
"I'll come see you when I get the chance," Perry promised, reappearing in front of the door as another explosion sounded, "Remember. Don't tell anyone, not even Hermione".
With a lazy wave of his hand over his shoulder at the door, Perry winked at him before rippling away again, leaving the door to shatter into thousands of pieces as Dumbledore burst into the room flanked by McGonagall and Snape.
Sighing as he looked around his bedroom, Harry resisted the urge to scream as he pushed away from the door and threw himself onto his bed.
He couldn't believe them! After everything he did for them, they were constantly turning on him with the slightest change in the wind. Why would he lie about Voldemort's return? What could he possibly have to gain from it?
Growling under his breath, Harry rolled onto his side to focus on Hedwig's closed cage, her perch sitting beside it. He needed to calm down, getting angry wouldn't help him at all. If anything, getting angry would only make things worse.
Raising his hand into the air, Harry thought briefly about Peter Pettigrew's betrayal, energy pulsing through his chest as electricity arced from the palm of his hand to form a ball of lightning. Sitting up and leaning against the wall, Harry gently gripped the lightning ball in his hands. It was just like the one the man, Perry, had conjured, only Harry's looked a little more wild and a little less controlled.
It was also explosive, as Harry had found out when trying to get rid of it the first time he'd made one. He'd accidentally thrown it at a mirror in his dormitory bathroom, and it'd shattered all of them as well. And then the second time he'd blown up the bathroom door. Thankfully mending charms had fixed all the damage, and no one had been in the dorm to bear witness, so Harry's secret had remained that for a while longer.
Not that even Harry knew what his secret was, Perry hadn't shown up yet. He'd promised to explain everything and then hadn't came back.
"Impressive".
Speak of the devil.
Moving quickly, Harry hurled the lightning ball at Perry, snatching up his wand from his bedside table and turning it on the bemused man who had merely caught the lightning ball.
"Not bad," Perry said slowly as he inspected the lightning ball before crushing it in his fist, "A little rough around the edges, but not bad".
Looking up and smiling at Harry, Perry raised his hand and gestured, Harry's wand vanishing in a ripple and appearing in the hand of the person Harry now thought to be even more annoying than Draco Malfoy. "You won't be needing this," Perry explained with a smirk as he pocketed Harry's wand, "But you will need to forgive me for taking so long to get back to you, the sisters had their identities stolen and I had to spend ages cleaning up after them. They're useless, I tell you," he said plainly as he pulled Harry's desk chair out and collapsed into it.
"Now, you had questions?" Perry asked innocently.
He had questions? He had questions? Of course he had bloody questions! Another ball of lightning crackling into appearance in the palm of his hand, Harry just glared at Perry angrily.
"Calm down, Harry," Perry ordered bluntly, "Energy balls are triggered through anger, you need to learn to control your anger before you can control your powers".
"And what powers are they, exactly?" Harry ground out, "Ever since Voldemort's return. I've been having these visions, I've been creating 'energy balls', and I've been randomly teleporting around Hogwarts! Add to that how it feels like I'm getting angry twice as easily, I think calming down is easier said than fucking done!" he shouted at the amused looking man.
"I said, calm down," Perry repeated soothingly, "I also said I'd explain everything remember? Now if you calm down, I can get started".
Wanting nothing more than to chuck the energy ball in his hand at Perry, Harry clenched his jaw and then his fist, feeling the energy from the energy ball trickling back into his body. "Then get started," he ordered coldly, slowly crossing his arms and fixing Perry with his strongest glare.
"I know you don't like round-about answers, Harry, so I'm just going to tell it to you straight," Perry began as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "And I need you to keep quiet and let me finish, because it's going to sound crazy. But it's absolutely true".
"I'm still waiting," Harry snapped angrily, making Perry sigh and shake his head.
"I'm from the future, the year 2024 to be precise. I've travelled back to stop the Ultimate Source of all Good Magic from turning Evil. These powers of yours are the only ones capable of fighting the aforementioned Source of All Evil, but because in the original timeline you told your friends and Headmaster about them you lost more than half of them and thus aren't able to beat the Source and overthrow his reign of terror," Perry explained all in a single breath.
Blinking slowly at the man, Harry could only ask "What?"
Rolling his eyes, Perry tried again. "I'm a time traveler sent back in time to stop the end of the world," he said bluntly, "You're the half-demon with the power to stop the end of the world from happening".
"Time traveler… half-demon… end of the world? So I'm guessing the insane asylum doesn't have anti-magic ward surrounding it?" Harry asked slowly.
Traveler
Right. So this story is just something that I apparently dreamed up since it was on my mind this morning. It's likely to be extremely messy, since I've taken all days to chuck bits and pieces down when the mood hit me.
Internet cookies to those who know who Perry really is...
I don't own Harry Potter or Charmed.
And now for the good news! Pandemonium is going to be updated within DAYS!
