Disclaimer: Usually I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but I find myself not really interested in doing so this time as it is very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I am not making any money off of this story or any of the other stories I have written.
AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 52: Unraveling the Layers of Corruption
Harry stared at the rune carved bowl that was sitting in the middle of his desk, the thirty-four crystal vials filled with what looked like quicksilver lined up beside the bowl in neat rows, and the dozen or so empty vials shoved off to one side. Both the pensieve and the vials of memories were the former property of the last known Headmaster of Hogwarts; one Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. His mouth curled up in distaste the longer he stared as his stomach churned at the thought that he needed to view even one of the memories contained in those vials, let alone all of them.
"The sooner you start, the sooner this will be over and done with," Heero pointed out when Harry made no move to open the first vial (the lid marked with a number one) that had been labeled in loopy handwriting with the words: Bob Ogden – Gaunt Arrest; two hours.
"I know," Harry replied grimly as he reached out to pick up the numbered vial with a trembling hand and deftly uncorked it before pouring the memory out into the pensieve.
He then picked up a pen and notebook of bound parchment as Heero, Trowa, and Wufei all placed a hand on his shoulder; the three pilots determined to view the memories alongside Harry while Quatre and Duo kept watch over Harry's office to prevent anyone from tampering with the rest of the memories or with the pensieve while the other four were inside. Dorothy had wanted to be there too but Harry had asked her to watch after little James and then ordered both elves to keep an eye on his fiancée and his son to make certain that nothing and no one harmed them. Gathering his courage, Harry thrust his free hand into the pensieve and all four young men were sucked down into the first memory that Dumbledore's journal had indicated was important to bringing down one T.M. Riddle.
They were thrown back out of the pensieve an hour later (viewing memories through a pensieve always taking half the amount of time that the memory actually covered). Harry's brow was furrowed in confusion and contemplation as he dropped his notebook on the desk and absently returned the memory to the vial before setting it into the special case he'd created to hold those memories relating to Voldemort. He stood there staring at the notes he'd taken (which included two detailed ink drawings of a ring and a necklace that Wufei had drawn for him) before he placed the tip of his wand to his temple and drew forth a long strand of memory. Harry dropped the memory into the pensieve once he pulled it free from his head.
"What memory is that and why is it so important?" Duo asked curiously as he glanced between his fellow pilots (whom were all frowning or scowling) and Harry who was not quite scowling, not quite frowning, and still more than a little confused.
"It's my memory of what happened a few days ago when I freed Treize from Voldemort's possession. I want to take a closer look again at the locket – because according to the memory we just watched, it once belonged to the Slytherin family. Which begs one to question; how the hell did it end up in my godfather's house? Especially, when I know for certain that the Blacks are not descended from Slytherin according to the Black Family Tree that I salvaged from the Black Manor in London. I suppose they could have married into the Slytherin family but, again, according to the memory we just watched the Gaunts were the direct descendants of Slytherin and there are no Gaunts on the Black Family Tree. However, the Blacks were considered a dark family and all but a few of them were Slytherins; my godfather was the only Gryffindor in that family and he was disowned – his named burned from the tapestry along with several others."
"How do you know his name was burned off the tapestry?"
"Aside from the fact that there was a burn mark on the tapestry where his name should have been?" Harry dryly asked as he turned to stare at Duo in disbelief for the rather obtuse question; the long haired pilot ducking his head sheepishly as he tugged on his braid before shrugging. Harry snorted before explaining, "Sirius ranted in the journal he left me for five or six pages about the Blacks' history and listed out everyone who'd been burned off; including the fact that Dora Lupin formerly Nymphadora Tonks should have been on the tapestry but because her mother had been burned off, she was not listed. You three coming with me again or did you want to wait here?"
"Grab your notebook and let's go," Heero replied as he once more clamped his hand on Harry's shoulder.
After they watched that memory and confirmed that, yes, both lockets were one and the same (or at least looked exactly alike since there really was no proof that they were the same); they watched Harry's fight with the basilisk play out again as Harry wanted to see again the diary he'd stabbed. It was during the viewing of that memory that Harry connected Voldemort's birth name with two of the individuals from the Ogden memory; Marvolo Gaunt and Tom Riddle (senior) and by the time they exited the memory Harry was suspecting that Merope Gaunt was Voldemort's mother. That suspicion was confirmed when they viewed the memories from vials number two and three that were respectfully labeled as: Albus Dumbledore – Interview with Caractacus Burke; twenty minutes and Caractacus Burke – Locket Pawned; one hour. The last memory they viewed at that point was number four: Albus Dumbledore – First meeting with Tom; three hours.
"He was a right ornery little bastard, wasn't he?" Heero asked the moment they landed inside of the office once more after spending an hour and a half watching the memory of Dumbledore's first meeting with young Tom Riddle and the preceding meeting with the proprietress of the orphanage where Riddle had grown up.
"I never before believed that anyone could be born evil but that memory has me half convinced that it is possible," Harry deadpanned as he returned that memory to its vial and tucked it into the box with the other memories they had already viewed (including both of Harry's copied memories that he'd bottled and meticulously labeled). "I can't stomach another one right now. If the five of you want you can peruse my notes (which include the translations of the parseltongue we heard in the first memory) and add on anything you think I missed or that I might not have picked up on; feel free. I need some fresh air."
Harry spent the next hour up in the aerie with the two phoenixes, curled up on one of the stone ledges next to the waterfall while both birds sat on his lap. Their presence was a balm to his troubled soul and helped him sooth the internal conflict he'd been feeling since he stepped into that first memory – though truth be told he'd been feeling unsettled since he'd faced Voldemort's shade for the fourth time. He'd been plagued off and on since that day with nightmares; though, thankfully, none of those nightmares had been accompanied by his scar ripping open and bleeding as it had after that first one the evening after dealing with the shade.
The foul crude that had seeped from his scar and the remains of the locket had both been sealed away to be studied at a later time; after he'd learned what he could learn from Dumbledore's collection of memories (which he'd discovered included memories that the man had retrieved or stolen from other individuals) so he could have a better understanding of what exactly it was he was dealing with.
Once he felt his emotions were centered, Harry bid the phoenixes good day before he headed back down to his sitting room to find his brothers and Dorothy just sitting down to lunch. As he caught sight of Dorothy holding little James in her arms he felt his heart rise up in his throat and he stumbled to a stop so he could drink in the rather tender portrait she presented as she cuddled with his son. He swallowed tightly as he imagined once more what their unborn child would look like and his mind superimposed an image of the child in Dorothy's arms with a tiny blonde while a slightly older James sat on her lap.
Harry felt a brief flash of insecurity, wondering again what she could see in him and why she wasn't fleeing from him in terror, before he tamped it down and locked it away in the back of his mind as Quatre jerked his head about to glance up at him in concern. Shaking his head, Harry made his way down the short flight of stairs leading down from the first level into the former common room.
"Perfect timing, Taliesin, I was just about to track you down to tell you to come eat," Heero stated as he glanced up to see what had drawn Quatre's attention.
"What can I say, I'm just good like that," Harry quipped airily as he vaulted over the back of the couch and dropped down to sit between Duo and Trowa as he flashed a cheeky grin at Heero.
All five pilots snorted and rolled their eyes while Dorothy shook her head as she passed James over to Harry so that she could dish herself up a plate. The conversation over the course of the meal remained on the current state of affairs world wide, though the information they had gathered from the memories over the course of the morning wasn't far from the six young men's minds.
After he'd finished eating, Harry reluctantly passed James back to Dorothy as the five pilots got up and headed back to his office, Heero pausing in the doorway and arching an eyebrow at the wizard when he didn't immediately follow the others. It was with a heavy heart and a queasy stomach that Harry joined the others in his office; the young mage instinctively knowing that the memories would only grow darker.
"Shall we start with memory five or did ya wish ta discuss what we've learned so far?" Duo inquired as he settled down in Harry's chair and draped a leg over the arm of the chair.
"We might as well view all of the memories first since it would be pointless to speculate when we don't have all of the information we will need to form an accurate picture of exactly what it is we are dealing with here," Heero answered in Harry's stead.
"Joy," Harry muttered as he lifted up the vial labeled as Albus Dumbledore – Myrtle Henderson's Death; twenty minutes and poured it into the pensieve before collecting his notebook.
As the four teens viewed Dumbledore's memory of the day Myrtle Henderson was killed by the basilisk, Harry noted several discrepancies between what Dumbledore's memory contained and what he'd been shown by the diary in his second year. Those discrepancies prompted Harry to pull out his memory of Riddle's memory so that he could refresh his memory and allow his brothers to view the memory to see if they saw the same differences he'd picked up; they did.
They discussed the discrepancies for a few minutes before coming to the conclusion that one's emotions or personal beliefs possibly affected the way individuals saw the same memories. They also determined that the part where Riddle framed Hagrid for Myrtle's death actually took place at a later date since that part of the memory didn't even come up in Dumbledore's memory. Moving on, they next visited memory number six: Morfin Gaunt – First meeting with Tom; two hours.
They ended up viewing that memory three times in order to allow for Harry to completely transcribe the two hour long discussion that the young Voldemort held with his maternal uncle due to the two men holding the entire conversation in parseltongue. The next memory carried on in the same vein though it was decidedly shorter and ended quite abruptly as everything just went black in the memory. Harry viewed that one a second time as he tried to figure out why the memory cut off so abruptly but when he found no new clues simply made a note of the anomaly before he switched it out for the seventh memory.
The memory immediately following those two from Morfin was another from Bob Ogden (who they now knew was the Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department). In the memory, Ogden and Morfin were both considerably older than they had been in the first memory; indicating that there had been several years between the two. The confession that Morfin provided during that memory contradicted what they'd already learned in the earlier two memories; specifically memory number six where the young Voldemort had coerced and coaxed his broken and more than a little deranged uncle into letting him borrow his wand for the purpose of getting revenge upon the Riddle Family (specifically, Tom's muggle father and grandparents). After viewing the confession twice through, Harry came to the conclusion that Riddle tricked Morfin and set him up to take the fall much as Riddle had framed Hagrid for Myrtle's death.
Five more memories followed, with only four of them actually belonging to Dumbledore. There was a meeting between Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet regarding Tom Riddle's application for the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at the end of his seventh year. Then there was a memory that was apparently taken from a house elf named Hokey regarding a meeting between a witch named Hepzibah Smith and Tom Riddle where Slytherin's locket made yet another appearance alongside a cup that supposedly belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. Next were three interviews; one with Tom Riddle for the Defense position (after Dumbledore succeeded Dippet as Headmaster), one with Sybil Trelawney for the Divination position which included the woman giving a prophecy, and one with Quirenus Quirrell for the position of Muggle Studies Professor.
Harry then pulled out the memory he had of the second prophecy that Trelawney had given in his third year and the conversation he had with Dumbledore where he mentioned that it was Trelawney's second prediction. Those would be the last of the memories that the group watched that day as Harry packed away both the viewed and unviewed memories along with the pensieve. He then dropped into his chair and absently stared at the top of his desk, lost in thought; never noticing when his brothers left the room after it became obvious that he wasn't ready to discuss what they'd learned so far. Harry had no idea how long he'd been sitting alone in the dark (the wizard not bothering to light the magical torches in the room even after night had fallen) when Dorothy barged into his office and dragged him down to the kitchen for a late supper (the two elves keeping watch over James).
Later that night, after arranging for the two elves to watch over James through the night (a first), Harry spent hours making love to Dorothy; wanting and needing to prove to himself that she was real and not just a figment of his imagination after seeing both Dumbledore and Voldemort once again. In the afterglow of their desperate love making, Harry simply held Dorothy close to him as he watched her sleeping; unable and unwilling to sleep least she vanish the moment he closed his eyes. Shortly after dawn, Harry reluctantly untangled himself from Dorothy's arms so he could take a shower and get dressed as he had a ton of things to do. Just before exiting the room, he wrote out a short note for his fiancée to let her know where he would be and that he would be keeping James with him for the entire morning.
He ate a light breakfast before he headed to the Veterinary Clinic for his weekly inspection and an update on the various children that would be born over the next month. He then sorted through some of the paperwork he'd ignored the day before and interviewed another group of potential employees in the hopes of hiring three permanent librarians to help maintain his growing library. He also needed to hire several more scientists in order to allow the rebuilding of an entire ecosystem (which is what the magical world could be considered); four more geneticists, two herpetologists, three botanists, an agronomist, an agriculturist, an ecologist, a couple of geologists, a mycologist, at least two entomologists, an ichthyologist, an ornithologist, a marine biologist, a zoologist, several chemists (at least one specializing in each of the five different branches of chemistry), two paleontologists, an archaeologist, and an anthropologist.
There were a hundred and one other jobs he needed to fill as well but it was a slow process due to how careful he was being in screening potential employees. It would have been an even more daunting process without the help of his brothers.
After spending three hours interviewing twelve prospective employees via video conference, Harry shut down the computer he'd been using to conduct the interviews and headed back up to his tower for lunch and to check on the other three children in his care. He was not surprised when he found Dorothy, Quatre, and Heero waiting on him but the added presence of Cathy, Relena, Hilde, Iria, Zechs, Brian, Haddock, and Takoda were a bit of a shock. Harry passed James to Quatre (so his son could spend time bonding with his godfather) before heading up to check on the children.
When he returned twenty minutes later, he took the empty seat beside Dorothy. Dobby delivered their meal just a few minutes later as Trowa, Wufei, and Duo slipped into the room. As they ate, they discussed the various on-going projects around the reserve, the current state of affairs world-wide, and their individual schedules for the next two weeks. Once the meal was over, everyone split up to return to their various jobs with Harry's five brothers following him back into his office where they would be picking up where they'd left off the day before with Dumbledore's collection of memories; Iria taking baby James so that she could give him a check up alongside the other three magical babies.
With great reluctance, Harry brought back out the memories and the pensieve and emptied the vial labeled as Albus Dumbledore – First Meeting with Potters (Re: Prophecy); four hours into the rune covered bowl. Five minutes later, Harry was standing in the middle of the living room of his parent's home alongside Heero, Wufei, and Trowa as they listened to Dumbledore convince the Potters that the prophecy he'd overheard pertained to their son. The next memory would be very similar, only it was a meeting between Dumbledore and the Longbottoms; the bearded manipulator doing his best to convince the couple that it was their son Neville that was the child named within the prophecy.
The memories of those two meetings were very informative since both times, Dumbledore spoke of his interpretation of the prophecy in far more detail than expected, though he pointedly left out the full wording of the prophecy.
The memory that followed those two was another meeting between the Potters and Dumbledore that had taken place late in October of nineteen-eighty-one and Harry nearly lost control of his magic when the end of that memory showed Dumbledore casting the Fidelius Charm and making Peter the Secret Keeper; the manipulative bastard had known that Sirius was innocent and had him locked away anyway. The fact that the same scene practically played out with the Longbottoms, only this time with Bartemius Crouch Junior playing the part of the Secret Keeper, was just as disturbing as Harry recalled his brief meeting with Crouch Jr. at the end of his fourth year.
If that wasn't bad enough, the very next memory they viewed was Dumbledore's memory of the night Voldemort attacked the Potters and it played out the entire sequence of events from the moment Voldemort arrived to kill the Potters until Hagrid left on Sirius's motorbike with infant Harry; meaning that Dumbledore had been there that night and had simply watched Voldemort murder Harry's parents.
If Harry hadn't believed his godfather about Dumbledore being evil, then that memory alone would have opened his eyes. As it was, that memory made Harry wish that Dumbledore was still alive; if only so Harry could kill him in the slowest, most painful way possible. Harry couldn't bring himself to watch another memory after seeing that memory (though he'd originally planned to); instead he packed everything up and left is office before he said or did something he'd regret.
It would be almost two full weeks before Harry could bring himself to view another memory after that; the pain of knowing that he had grown up without his parents or his godfather, simply because Dumbledore had chosen not to lift a finger to help them, preventing him from putting aside the anger he felt with the man that he'd once trusted. During that time, Harry interviewed another thirty individuals, hired seventeen prospective employees, gutted the ruined Hufflepuff Common Room and Dorms (which Cathy talked Harry into turning into a large daycare center), witnessed the births of another two magical children, warded over twenty-five thousand dollars worth of computer equipment, and organized the first of many exploratory trips down into the Black Lake in search of living creatures and beings or recoverable remains from which various creatures and beings could be cloned.
Treize finally woke up towards the end of that period of time and as predicted, he had no memory of anything that had happened after coming across the locket (which had somehow been dropped out of the box it had been packed in when those boxes were moved between storage rooms when the first floor had been gutted for remodeling and repairs). A brief interrogation under the influence of Veritaserum confirmed that he had no memories of that time and that he'd had no intentions of actually harming his cousin or her baby; though he wasn't exactly pleased to learn that Dorothy was engaged to Harry and was pregnant with his child.
Arrangements were still made for Treize and Une to be sent home (after they both willingly signed a new contract) but Kratz Shelby surprisingly asked to be allowed to stay. A short session with Veritaserum proved the man wasn't planning to spy on Harry or the Wizarding Nation; turns out the man felt he owed Harry far more than he owed Treize and wished to repay the debt he owed Harry for saving his life and to atone for the part he'd played in holding Harry captive.
On the day he returned to viewing the memories that had been left behind, Harry approached them with far more trepidation than he had previously as he knew they were going to reveal more unpleasantness. Thankfully, there were only sixteen memories left and of those sixteen, four had been taken from Harry, ten were Dumbledore's memories, and the last two belonged to a man named Horace Slughorn. They started off with one of Dumbledore's memories; this one containing his interview with Quirrell for the Defense position the summer before Harry's tenth birthday.
That memory revealed that Dumbledore had used a compulsion charm and skillful manipulation to get Quirrell to take a year off to visit the forest in Albania where Voldemort was rumored to be hiding; ostensibly to get a little hands-on experience though Harry knew that Quirrell would be swayed to Voldemort's cause during that trip. The next four memories had all been taken without Harry's knowledge while he'd been unconscious and included his confrontation with Quirrell and Voldemort at the end of his first year, his confrontation with Riddle and the Basilisk at the end of his second year, the memory of hearing Trelawney giving the prophecy at the end of his third year, and Voldemort's rebirth at the end of his fourth year.
Harry pulled copies of the confrontations with Voldemort at the end of his first and fourth years in order to see if what he remembered matched the memories that Dumbledore had pulled from him (the other two having been recently viewed during the first two viewings of Dumbledore's memory collection). They didn't find any discrepancies and so concluded that Dumbledore had simply copied the memories for his records or because he later blocked those memories. In some ways, it was a relief to know that the man hadn't messed with Harry's mind even more than he'd already known he had.
After dealing with those memories, the next two memories both had been Dumbledore's memories from Harry's fourth year and involved the bearded wizard having a discussion with the real Alastor Moody just before the former auror had been kidnapped and another with Crouch Jr. just prior to the third and final task; proof positive that Dumbledore had known that Crouch was impersonating Moody all year long and that he had allowed it.
That hurt… almost more than Dumbledore standing by and watching his parents being slaughtered or learning he'd known Sirius had been innocent all along. Knowing that Dumbledore had sanctioned Crouch Jr.'s meddling in the Tournament, knowing that Dumbledore had encouraged that meddling, and knowing that Cedric had been murdered because Dumbledore allowed Crouch to carry out the task he'd been given by Voldemort (and apparently endorsed by Dumbledore) made Harry's soul wail in anguish over the injustices he and the other champions had faced that terrible year.
It was the two memories from one Horace Slughorn that would break Harry though; specifically the unaltered second memory that Dumbledore had stolen from the Potions Master when the first memory collected proved to have been modified by the owner of said memory. The altered memory had, in a round about way, confirmed Harry's hypothesis that young Tom Riddle murdered his father and grandparents and then framed his Uncle Morfin for the murders as he was seen wearing the Gaunt family ring that had last been seen in Morfin's possession in the earlier memories they'd viewed; or at least lent credence to the supposition.
Harry didn't pay too much attention to the ring though as his mind focused entirely on the confusion he felt over what was to him a meaningless word; horcrux. The confusion Harry had felt after watching the previous memory turned to horror as they viewed the stolen memory though as the man in the memory with Riddle (whom Harry assumed was this Slughorn person that the memory had been taken from) explained what a horcrux was and the general method one would use to create one (without providing incantations or specifics). The moment he pulled out of that memory, Harry dropped to his knees and vomited on the floor as the mere concept of intentionally ripping and tearing one's soul apart through violence and murder in order to preserve one's own life sickened him to the core.
His vision darkened as his memory pulled forth specific memories from his numerous encounters with Voldemort through his years at Hogwarts; his encounter with a Voldemort possessed Quirrell at the end of his first year when the dark lord spoke of being ripped from his body but still alive, his encounter with the young Tim Riddle as the shade spoke of himself as being a memory preserved in a diary as he faced him in the Chamber of Secrets, and that night in the graveyard when Voldemort made several allusions to the steps he'd taken to ensure his immortality and how he'd experimented with different methods. Suddenly, Harry knew, without a doubt, that Voldemort had succeeded in creating his horcruxes as he recalled the foul ink and blood spewing out of diary, the thing from locket that had attacked him, and the foul sludge that had seeped from his scar.
Harry went into shock as his brain ground to an abrupt halt at that point as every single time his scar pained him flashed before his eyes; the headaches he had had around the possessed Quirrell, the barely noticeable ache he'd felt while in the Chamber (though he'd dismissed it as unimportant at the time because there'd been more important things to worry about – like the basilisk trying to kill him), how it would ache when he dreamt of Voldemort, the fact that he dreamt of Voldemort's activities, the searing pain he'd felt from the scar during the entire time he was in the graveyard, how his scar had reacted to the presence of the possessed Treize, and how his scar had split open when the locket had tried to posses him.
Memories can't possess people; memories are just inert impressions of things someone has seen and therefore contains no sense of self because it is just a fleeting moment in time. A shard torn from someone's soul on the other hand… a fraction of magic and life that had been ripped from the whole… that could possess a person. An iron band wrapped around Harry's chest and he let out a soft keening wail as a conversation he had with Dumbledore back in his second year (right after he'd slain the basilisk, destroyed the diary soul fragment, and returned to the castle proper with Ginny, Ron, and Lockhart) rose to the forefront of his mind.
A conversation where Dumbledore told him that he could speak parseltongue because Voldemort could speak parseltongue and how he'd suspected that Riddle had transferred some of his powers to Harry the night Riddle had first tried to kill him when he was a baby. The manipulative old man had known… there was no way he couldn't have known… if he hadn't known, then he never would have spoken of Voldemort having transferred a portion of his powers to Harry. Only it wasn't just his powers he'd given Harry; he'd placed a sliver of his soul inside of Harry's scar. And Dumbledore had known.
The sharp sting of a hand lightly (but sharply) slapping him in the face forcefully pulled him back to the present and he found himself face to face with a concerned and determined Trowa with the rest of his brothers hovering nervously in the background. Harry blinked as he tried to focus on his self made family only for the painful band around his chest to tighten and his vision to darken once more. Two more quick slaps followed in rapid succession and the world sharpened around him once more as the light stinging of the slaps cut through the fog that had been filling his mind.
"Breathe damn it, Taliesin, breathe!" Trowa ordered tightly as he pulled Harry forward and slapped him on the back.
And Harry did… a single rasping breath that made the pain in his chest explode outwards as he choked on the air his lungs so desperately needed. Trowa patted him several times on the back with just enough force to help jar his lungs into working properly until his coughing fit subsided. The green-eyed pilot then pushed Harry back so that he was once more draped across his knees and gently massaged Harry's chest as he worriedly studied Harry's face. Harry in the mean time felt the pain in his chest burn and throb in turns as he finally managed to pull several ragged breaths of air into his tortured lungs. Numbness settled over Harry a few minutes later as his breathing finally became more natural and he let his eyes slide closed as his head dropped backwards to rest on the floor as his body went limp.
"Taliesin, I need you to stay awake," Trowa ordered as he gently slapped Harry's face a couple more times.
"Not sleeping," Harry whispered in a hollow voice devoid of all emotion.
"Can you sit up and keep your eyes open for me, Taliesin? I need to make certain that you don't go to sleep right now; no matter how tired you might be feeling," Trowa instructed as he tried to lift Harry back up into a sitting position; a task made more difficult due to the boneless way Harry lay sprawled across his lap. "Or if you can't do that then please talk to us and tell us what happened… what exactly was it from that last memory that had you panicking?"
"Not that memory… my memories," Harry rasped in that same dead voice. "He made them. I've killed two and there are at least three, maybe four, more out there somewhere biding their time, waiting to strike out to seize control of the first person they come into contact with." Harry opened his eyes at this point and turned his head just enough so he could meet Heero's worried gaze. "You should have shot me the day I pulled you from the ocean; it would have spared the world an eternity of pain because as long as I live, he will have an anchor tethering him to the mortal plane."
"Don't make me make you swear another oath," Heero growled furiously as he crossed his arms and scowled down at Harry.
"He made me one of his horcruxes. So long as I draw breath he will live as well."
"You don't know that," Wufei countered logically.
"I do. Dumbledore knew it as well," Harry stated as he closed his eyes once more to hide the angry and frustrated tears pooling in them. "He pretty much told me so himself at the end of my second year after I'd faced the basilisk; even if he never brought up the word horcrux."
"How do ya know he didn't lie ta ya?" Duo demanded crossly as he pulled on his braid.
"He had no reason to lie to me at that point because I was his tool… his weapon. Besides, the tainted shard of Riddle's soul inside of me resonated with pain each time I came into contact with another piece of Voldemort's mutilated soul. You heard what Tom said just before I destroyed the locket; I provided him with the perfect replacement host. At the time, I thought he'd been referring to mine and Dorothy's child but he only said that to make me angry; he was actually referring to the fact that I was already carrying around a piece of him inside of me. He knew what I was because he could sense the part of him that is inside of me."
"So you're just going to give up?" Quatre asked in a low voice that was cold, hard, and sharp. "Walk away from all of the promises that you've made? Give up on everything you'd been working towards for the past year? Leave all of the children to flounder alone because you tucked your tail between your legs and ran? Abandon your fiancée and your unborn child all because of the words of a dead man that wanted you dead so that he could steal your wealth?"
The other four pilots gaped at the normally mild mannered Winner heir with no small amount of shock as they'd never before heard him speak to anyone in that tone of voice before. Harry reacted to both the tone and the accusations but not in any way that any of the expected as he slowly opened his eyes to reveal that they were glowing red and gold, though there was absolutely no rage present in them. A single tear broke free and slid down the side of Harry's face to disappear into his hair and when he spoke, his voice sounded broken instead of empty.
"Better to die and be thought a coward than to live and become the monster that haunts my dreams."
Harry then slowly twisted away from his brothers and curled up in on himself as his magic wrapped itself around him. In that moment his body began unexpectedly shrinking; the clothes he was wearing turning black with russet undertones as they slowly morphed from fabric to fur that spread over his entire body minus his wings that were also shrinking and turning from dark green to a red so dark it almost looked black. As he slipped from Trowa's lap the green-eyed teen gasped and quickly gathered the now furry body that was continuing to shrink until it was about the size of a four month old Labrador puppy. Five minutes later, when the transformation was over and Harry's body stopped changing, Trowa was holding a young winged wolf cub with one amber eye and one red eye.
"What the hell just happened?" Heero asked in the stunned silence that had fallen over the room the moment Harry had spoken. "I thought Taliesin said he wasn't going to learn how to change into an animal because it was far too dangerous since there isn't anyone here that could set him to rights if he messed up."
The answer came from an unexpected source as the outer door to the office, the one leading out into the corridor outside the office, broke under the weight of Wolfstar. All five pilots immediately stiffened and the hairs on the back of their neck stood up as the suit let out a feral growl as its glowing amber eyes zeroed in on the cub Trowa was clutching. Harry the cub whined pathetically from Trowa's hands and began struggling in the pilot's arms which drew a second, angry growl from the suit.
"Oh fuck," Duo breathed as he glanced between the now feral suit and the struggling wolf cub in Trowa's arms. "Trowa, let Taliesin go right now or we're all as good as dead."
"Are you nuts?" Heero hissed as he whipped around to glare at the long haired pilot.
"That's not Taliesin that Trowa is holdin'," Duo stated slowly as Wolfstar growled for a third time and crouched down low in preparation of attacking. "Or rather that's not Taliesin in Taliesin's body; he's all Zero."
The other four pilots turned to stare down at the cub in Trowa's arms in dawning horror before they glanced back up at Wolfstar. Swallowing thickly, Trowa slowly set the cub down on the stone floor and released him as soon as the cub's four paws were steady on the floor. The moment his hands let go, the small winged cub drunkenly scampered across the space separating him from Wolfstar before he dropped down to his belly, tucked his tail between his legs, and folded his ears back. Wolfstar growled one last time, not at the cub subjugating itself at his feet but at the five pilots before it dropped its head and nuzzled the young wolf cub much as a mother wolf would nuzzle her pups.
"Do you think that was what his panic attack was all about? His mind fighting against Zero and losing?" Wufei inquired softly as all five pilots hardly dared breathe least they provoke the sentient suit into attacking.
"No… he didn't fight Zero for control," Quatre whispered, his voice hitching. "He willingly gave the system control because I cut him deeply when I verbally attacked him. I drove him away."
"No, his fear and his panic drove him away," Trowa interjected as he slowly rose to his feet and took a single step towards the lupine pair; eliciting a soft whimper from the cub that had once been Harry and a warning growl from Wolfstar. Wolfstar then stood up and grabbed the cup by the scruff of the neck before backing out of the room and in a desperate bid to not completely lose their little brother, Trowa ordered, "Wolfstar stay!"
The suit paused automatically (long used to taking orders from the five pilots) and cocked his head sideways, looking half curious and half leery. Trowa sighed softly and walked forward so that he was several feet away from the other pilots but not close enough to provoke Wolfstar into fleeing. He then crouched down so as not to appear quite so intimidating and held his hand out to the suit much as one would hold their hand out to a dog they wanted to make friends with as he tried to ignore how foolish he felt treating the mechanical construct as a flesh and blood creature that could understand him.
"Easy boy, we're not going to hurt you or the cub. We're just worried about him and we don't want him to get hurt or pull a stupid Heero stunt."
"What the hell are you dragging me into this for!?" Heero hissed as he immediately recognized the turn of phrase Harry always used when someone was going to do something suicidal.
"Shush," Wufei ordered softly as he grabbed the back of his shirt to prevent Heero from doing anything that might spook the wolves. "Trowa knows what he's doing and out of all five of us he's the best one to reason with the wolf-like mentality of both Wolfstar and Zero; especially when they have both obviously embraced the wild instincts of the animals they so closely resemble."
"…he's very important to us," Trowa finished a heartbeat later, the rest of his words having been drowned out by the short exchange between Heero and Wufei.
To the relief of all five pilots, Wolfstar moved fully into the room once more and sat down on his haunches before setting the cub on the ground. The young wolf immediately turned his back on the pilots and dove between Wolfstar's legs, pressed himself up against Wolfstar's belly, and whined nervously. Before the pilots could say or do anything to coax the cub out and sooth his fears, Obduro wearily trotted up behind the wolves.
"The stars never lie," Obduro sadly rumbled as the cub peeked out from beneath Wolfstar to peer up at the newly arrived centaur. "The guardian has been caged, the wolf is being stalked by the past, and the Last Mage is lost in a nightmare. I had hoped he would not be forced to walk down this path but the Fates were not to be denied and prophecy will not be silenced forever. Do you know what drove him out of his mind?"
"We were studying the memories that were left behind by the man named Dumbledore that, according to the man's journals, were supposed to hold some important information on the dark wizard Voldemort. This was the third day we've spent viewing memories with Taliesin and we had just gotten to the last few memories," Wufei answered slowly as the centaur reached down and snagged the cub by the scruff of his neck so he could inspect the rather small bundle of fur. "The memory we just finished viewing indicated that Voldemort had potentially created something called a horcrux…"
Wufei cut off abruptly as Obduro reared back in fear and disgust before he dropped down and pranced back and forth in agitation much like a spooked horse. In his arms, the wolf cub let out a startled yelp as the centaur accidentally wrenched one of his scale-feathered wings when he pressed the cub into his torso as if to protect it from an invisible foe.
"Misbegotten evil… corruption most foul… the Wizard's Bane," Obduro spat as he pawed at the floor with his hooves and drew sparks from the stones, "the tainted tricks of the damned made flesh."
"You know what they are," Heero stated in a flat voice. "The memory spoke of ripping the soul…"
"It is magic most foul… to harm that which belongs to the heavens," Obduro stated as shivered and stamped his left fore hoof hard enough to chip and crack the stone beneath his feet. "It goes against the very nature of magic and those who shred their soul are tainted beyond redemption and damned to the depths of hell for all eternity for desecrating that which was pure."
"Taliesin believes he destroyed two of them… one before he was thrown through time and one just a few weeks ago," Trowa offered as he slowly rose to his feet. "He was also quite certain that he knew where a third one was and it was that knowledge that drove him to do whatever it was he did to end up as the pup you are holding in your hands."
"That was the day the mage's ire had been provoked," Obduro mused as he calmed down a touch and turned his attention to the winged wolf cradled in his arms. "Why would he flee another if he knows how to banish that which should not exist?"
"He thought he had been given proof that Voldemort made him into a horcrux when he was just a baby," Quatre whispered hoarsely. "He believes that the only way to destroy it is for him to die least it turn him into a monster."
Obduro actually jumped as he jerked his head back and automatically cradled the wolf in his arms protectively as he landed splay legged on the floor once more, his eyes wide and panicked. The cub let out a soft anguished whine before it let out a grief filled howl that sent shivers dancing down the pilots' spines and set the centaur to dancing nervously. After a moment, Obduro stilled once more as he lifted the pup higher so that he could meet the little one's eyes as he grabbed the muzzle in one hand. Little red wings fluttered and flapped as the cub let out a whining growl that was half frightened and half pained.
"Foolish child, your death would set the tainted one free and allow him to steal your magic," Obduro chastised gently as he let go of the cub's muzzle and cradled the tiny wolf in his arms like a new born babe. "There is no darkness in your heart; the unicorns would have felt the taint if the damned one had claimed you as his and taken control of your soul."
"Does that mean he isn't a horcrux?" Duo inquired hopefully.
"I do not know… all I know is that my memories tell me that a living soul container must knowingly sacrifice itself in order to pave the way for the sliver of the damned to break the chains that would have bound it the moment it was placed inside of a living being."
"Wait a minute… you're saying that if he is one of those… things… if he had been turned into a horcrux and he dies now that he knows or allows himself to be killed because he knows what he is, that it will allow the soul fragment inside of him to take over?" Heero demanded.
"Yes."
"How does that work?" Wufei questioned as his brow wrinkled in confusion. "Wouldn't it be more likely that the fragment could take over if he didn't know it was there?"
"The foul splinter of the damned soul is a parasite, leeching power and life from its host from the moment it comes into contact with the untainted soul. If the host soul dies ignorant of the leech, then the leech dies with it because they are bound together and without the host the leech cannot survive. Once the host is aware of the leech's presence, however, the host unconsciously severs the link and wraps it in a cage of pure magic to lock it away and when the host dies, the cage of magic unravels and leaves the leech free to take possession of the dying fragments of magic and make them its own to give it new life."
Two paws reached up and planted themselves on Obduro's chest as the pup in his arm stands up as if trying to stare him in the eye once more. Red wings stretched outwards before flapping in an effort to fly but like when Harry was first learning to use his newly grown wings he was less than successful and he ended up smashing his face into the centaur's chest. The small wolf then sat back on its haunches and lets out a string of complaints that actually made the five teens in the room snicker weakly. The cub then sneezed so hard that he nearly tumbled from Obduro's hands and his sharp little puppy teeth latched onto the leather strap that held Obduro's satchel onto his back with a furious growl as the fear of falling prompted him to act instinctively.
"How do we get Taliesin to understand that?" Quatre asked softly; pain still lacing his tone. "Or rather, how do we get Zero to convey that to Taliesin? For that matter, how do we get our brother back? I hadn't meant to chase him away but to hear him talking about death the way he had been… after everything else we've been through together… it hurt and I thought to snap him out of it by snapping at him; only it didn't work."
"I have no answer and the stars indicate that the path he will walk will be far from easy or pleasant. There is hope for the future though as Mars will fade into the night and Jupiter will grow brighter alongside Venus and the Moon now that he has chosen."
"Chosen what?" Heero asked, his brow furrowed as he watched the wolf cub that had once been his adopted brother worrying at the leather strap of Obduro's satchel with his teeth; behaving much like any normal puppy.
"Tell me; do you know the difference between dogs and wolves?" Obduro questioned as he walked further into the room; carefully stepping around Wolfstar who was still seated on the floor just in front of the door (the sentient suit intently keeping an eye on the small pup cradled in the centaur's arms.
"On the surface there is far more that they have in common than there are differences between the two, though I am going to go out a on a limb and assume that you are not referring to physical differences but rather behavioral differences in the two species," Wufei answered in a measured tone as he considered the question carefully. "They are fairly closely related with the most obvious difference being that dogs are domesticated and wolves are creatures of the wild."
"Wolves are also far more territorial, far more aggressive, and very distrustful of outsiders and while some breeds of dogs will exhibit similar traits (depending on what they were bred for and how they were trained) they don't usually take it to the extremes that a wolf will. A lot of people will say that both wolves and dogs are very loyal animals but in the case of the wolf that only applies so long as there are no perceived weaknesses as a wolf will turn on the alpha the moment it senses that weakness (be it old age, an injury, or an illness); most dogs on the other hand are almost loyal to a fault. Both tend to have a pack mentality with wolves being far more family oriented but you do occasionally find loners in both species."
"Very astute, child of man," Obduro stated as he freed the strap of his rucksack free of the wolf's teeth and began scratching him behind the ears; turning the cub into a pile of mush that moaned reflexively. "The last mage chose the path of the secretive wolf who is known for his aggressive protectiveness of all that he 'owns' and like the creature he greatly resembles he will be hunted and reviled for what he is by those who do not understand him."
"From what little I have learned of him, that is the way he has always lived his life though and therefore it was the easier choice; the concept of being loyal and trusting or being seen as man's best friend far too difficult for him to embrace. His choice was no doubt influenced by the memories you have been viewing in addition to the bonds he has made with those he has claimed as his family. It is also highly probable that his choice was made in the moment he first claimed the five of you as his family and swore to protect you or that Fate had merely been pushing him in this direction from the moment he was born."
"That still doesn't help us get our Taliesin back," Duo petulantly muttered as he grabbed hold of his braid once more and gave it another few sharp tugs. "He's a cute little furbag, I'll give him that, but I'm far more partial ta his witty sarcasm than I am ta his sharp teeth. Although… maybe we could give him his wand ta chew on…"
"Don't be dense, Duo," Heero dryly ordered as he slapped the other pilot upside the head. "With your luck the moment his teeth bit down on the wand, you'd end up permanently bald with a beard down to your feet that grew back overnight each time you trimmed it."
Duo paled just at the mere thought of forever being bald and pulled on his braid just to assure himself that his hair was still firmly where it was supposed to be and not sprouting from his chin unexpectedly. Wufei and Heero snickered over his reaction while Quatre only sighed and slipped up beside Trowa in an effort to get closer to their 'little' brother in the hopes that he could apologize.
"His emotions are… so primitive in that form," Quatre whispered as he stared at the now sleeping pup that was cradled in Obduro's arms. "In a way they are pure; he is angry, scared, happy, tired, or curious… and that is all he is until something draws his attention elsewhere. Before, as a human, his emotions were constantly all over the place and all mixed up together, though whenever he felt one or two emotions strongly the rest of them would be drowned out."
"I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to transform into an animal when I'm pretty certain he was not studying that branch of magic," Heero mused as he crossed his arms and glared at the floor. "The one thing Taliesin was never careless with was what magic he studied and practiced and he never attempted to cast any spell on himself that had the potential to leave him injured, vulnerable, or unable to reverse the effects."
"The animagus transformation is merely a physical extension of a mage's inner nature and the change is either a gradual state achieved through training or…" Obduro recited by rote before he trailed off and jumped slightly as if he'd startled himself; his eyes automatically darting down to stare at the wolf sleeping in his arms. When he looked back up his face was lined with sorrow as he softly added, "Or forced in an instant due to great emotional or physical trauma. There were old legends and rumors from the days of Myrddin Emrys when the stars spoke of wars like rivers; ever flowing and unending. A time when untrained or partially trained mages would be forced to protect themselves by turning their minds over to their inner beast. Those legends are the seeds that saw the rise of magical creatures as many of those so forced into their alternate forms lacked the ability or desire to reclaim their human selves."
"Are you telling us there's a chance he might never… that we might never… that he could be stuck…?" Trowa asked in shock as he reached out to grab hold of Quatre who'd let out a pained whine over that revelation.
"I do not know when history became legend before it became myth," Obduro murmured in a soft rumble as he pawed the ground nervously before he walked forward so he could slip the now sleeping wolf cub into Trowa's arms. "The stars still speak of a golden age yet to come; so have faith in the young mage and he will find his way home when it is time for him to return to us."
Notes:
For those of you who aren't familiar with all of the different types of scientists I listed, here is a rough explanation of what each type studies which should help you better understand why I'm having Harry hire them since their fields of study could each be useful to one or more aspects of the magical world.
Agriculturist – one who studies the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for use as food, fuel, etc… (agriculture is also sometimes referred to as farming or animal husbandry)
Agronomist – one who studies the science and technology of producing and using plants (for food, fuel, etc…)
Anthropologist – one who studies humanity (physiology, evolutionary origins, social and cultural organization of human societies and other similar fields)
Archaeologist – one who studies ancient human activity through the recovery and analysis of ancient artifacts
Botanist – one who studies plants or plant biology
Chemist – one who studies the composition of matter and chemical reactions (the five types are; analytical chemistry, biochemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry)
Ecologist – one who studies the relationship between organisms and the environment
Entomologist – one who studies insects
Geneticist – one who studies genealogy or genetics
Geologist – one who studies the earth (basically rocks and dirt) and the formation of the earth (the shaping of the landmasses)
Herpetologist – one who studies amphibians and reptiles
Marine biologist – one who studies marine life or the life found in brackish water (such as the water found in a loch or an estuary; basically any body of water that has salinity greater than that of fresh water)
Mycologist – one who studies fungi (mushrooms, spores, etc…)
Ichthyologist – one who studies fish
Ornithologist – one who studies birds
Paleontologist – one who studies prehistoric life
Zoologist – one who studies the branch of science that relates to the animal kingdom
AN: There are three things I want to address before I toast my frozen feet with the heated reviews (and flames) I know I'm going to get.
First; Harry's regression… yes, he'd regressed; he's learned a bunch of stuff that had shaken him up on top of Voldemort making an unexpected reappearance when he was so sure that his past was well and truly buried in the past. He's horrified and furious over the things he's learned from Dumbledore's memories; things he never learned sooner because he never dug at those wounds and never really did more than skim through Dumbledore's journals. He will get over it.
Next up; Harry's change – this, like his and Dorothy's bond, has been planned from the beginning and I've actually been foreshadowing this moment throughout the story each time I referenced Harry's behavior being wolf-like. Even his imagery of Wolfstar's personality as being similar to that of Remus's split personality was a hint. Explanations as to what exactly happened to Harry when he transformed will be forthcoming in the next couple of chapters.
The last thing I want to comment on is horcruxes. I stuck mostly to canon on the way the horcruxes influence people but the bit about the horcrux taking over the soul if the host dies knowing the horcrux is there is, I think, an original idea that I came up with – at least I don't recall ever reading something like that before and I've read tons of FanFictions. I wanted the horcrux in Harry to be far more insidious than JKR made it out to be and for there to be severe consequences for attempting suicide or planned execution (by veil, friendly fire, or goblin) for removing said horcrux (like most FanFictions do to rid him of the horcrux).
Now, I can hear people raging; but you killed off the horcrux in the first chapter! I know that. You know that. But just because you and I are aware of that, doesn't mean that Harry is aware of that. After all, he didn't even know that horcruxes existed back when he was thrown through time and there was no one there to explain anything to him. So, of course he's going to assume that it is still there in his panic. So please don't tell me I'm contradicting myself. I know exactly where this particular plot/subplot is going.
I think that covers the biggest issues people might have with this chapter.
On the things of interest side, Quatre finally had a 'Zero' moment – something that hadn't happened before since there'd never been a reason for him to whip out that side of his personality. There's also the fact that he didn't spend anywhere near as much time piloting Zero as the other Gundam Pilots did and therefore that part of him had not been pulled up to the surface. It showed here because Harry wounded him (figuratively speaking) and that angered him. Zero'd Quatre won't make too many appearances but he will show up once in a while. I think. Maybe.
Oh, and before I forget; based upon the poll I had up, Stubborn Shadow (an HP x Naruto Crossover) will be the next story I post once I've finished this one. And this story will officially be complete by the end of the year (only two chapters remain to be written and that includes the epilogue). A total of 45 people out of 100 peeps voted for SS (that includes those who PM'd me their votes).
And, if anyone's wondering, the reason I didn't have this up earlier was because I had to catch and put down a rather large and persistent plot bunny that has been taunting me all month. You see, I just finished writing over 70,000 words for a new HP x Sherlock crossover and I've only about 30,000 words to go until it's finished. Not bad for just two weeks' worth of work and that isn't counting what I wrote for this story and for my other WIP's during that time.
Anywho, I think that covers everything now… so I'll catch you next chapter (which should be up in a couple of days as it's already prepped and ready to go). ~ Jenn
