A/N: This chapter hasn't been checked for errors/grammatical mistakes so I apologize if you encounter them…
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"I think she's holding up great," Susan said looking at Astoria at the Ravenclaw table. It seemed she'd already made some new friends in her year. "I'm glad the hat didn't sort her in Slytherin. I can't get the feeling that there are still some students there who will take the opportunity to revenge Voldemort's death."
"You're not wrong," Neville said as he took a bite of his toast. "Good or evil, nothing vanishes entirely. If it does than it'll cause imbalance and that is even worse."
"When did you get so philosophical?" Hermione asked when her eyes fell towards the great hall's entrance as she saw Harry walk in. "Oh, here he comes," she said as Susan and Neville looked up at him.
Harry came and sat in the empty seat beside Hermione before starting to fill his plate. "So, how did it go last night?" he looked up at Susan who was looking all interested in what Harry had to say. He sighed when he saw the same curiousness in Hermione, too.
"She won't talk to me," Harry said. "I tried apologizing to her last night and even today…many times but she won't talk to me. She acts like I don't even exist!"
"You did abandon yourself for over three months so it's not like she would hug you the moment you and she met," Susan said as Harry glared at her. "So, is Astoria you guys' mediator?"
Harry sighed as he looked behind him towards the Ravenclaw table where Astoria was enjoying her first breakfast at Hogwarts. He smiled seeing her so happy…and in a safer house compared to Slytherin. "At least she got to have a safe enough house," he said.
"You weren't the only one worried about that," Hermione said before she saw Daphne walk into the great hall and nudged Harry. He looked towards her as she went straight towards the Ravenclaw table to sit with her sister. She nodded towards Hermione, Susan and Neville but ignored Harry.
"Doesn't look so good to me," Susan said. "If you guys get divorced please let me be there as a witness although I won't be able to decide on whose side I will be taking."
"Susan," Hermione said her name, warning her that she was taking this too far.
"Sorry," Susan said sounding as if her fun time had been ruined.
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The classes began and everything went about normal. Despite being the headmistress of Hogwarts McGonagall still taught her subject of transfiguration to all the years and surprisingly Snape was probably the best person to have ever been given the course of DADA as he went into deep discussions and theories about the spells one could use when in a desperate situation. It made the students wonder why hadn't Snape taught DADA before but they weren't going to get an answer from their defense faculty.
The classes ended for the day as Astoria joined Harry and the rest for a late lunch. Surprisingly Daphne joined them as well. She still ignored Harry but talked normally with others when someone came and sat beside her taking her and everyone else by surprise.
"Tracey?" Daphne said surprised to see her best friend sitting beside her. "What are you doing here? What if someone sees you?"
"Slytherin's been very quiet since the death of Voldemort and only a handful of the students who still have connections with their death eater parents are afraid," she said before she looked at Harry. "You guys really did a number on my house's students by bringing down Voldemort."
"It was all Draco," Harry said.
"Yeah, which is even more surprising!" said Tracey. "Anyways, I heard you two are fighting."
"We're not…fighting," Harry said sounding flabbergasted as Susan chuckled while Hermione smiled. Harry side-glared them with the corner of his eyes.
Tracey smiled before she began talking with Daphne as others also went on with their lunch and conversations. "Let's take a walk around the lake today evening," suggested Hermione. "All of us. It should be fun."
"Sounds good to me," Susan said before leaning towards Daphne to ask her if she and Tracey would like to join them. She looked at Harry for a second before nodding her head an so it was decided that they would al meet by the lake in a few hours.
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Harry headed towards the head office sine he'd received summon from McGonagall. He wondered what she wanted to talk to him about as the gargoyle stopped and he stepped off of its platform and headed for the office's doors. He knocked once as the doors opened. He peeked inside when he heard McGonagall's words telling him to enter.
He walked in wondering where she was when he noticed a small tower of parchments and files on her table and her pointy hat placed on the side. He then saw her stood up and appear from behind those files and papers as she came to the front.
"You wanted to see me, headmistress?" Harry said.
"Please, Harry, 'professor' would do," McGonagall said with a smile. "I'm still not used to others calling me headmistress."
"Looks like you've been busy with your new responsibilities," Harry said looking at the stacks of files on her table.
"You can say that," she said. "The education board has taken a little bit of control as well. They thought leaving the entire school in one person's hand was too much power especially considering how old Hogwarts is and how important it is as a historic monument for Magical Britain. Anyways, I called you here because I wanted to talk to you about Albus."
"He came, didn't he?" Harry asked.
McGonagall nodded. "Four days after Mr Longbottom and Ms Lovegood took Fawks with them," she said. "I didn't know that Hogwarts was home to these…"
"Divine beasts," Harry said. McGonagall nodded. "Previously there were three living here within the vicinity of the castle and its wards. Fawks was one of them as you've been told but there were two more, one of which is still here." McGonagall's eyes widened at that. "His name is Agairus and he's the giant squid of the Black Lake."
"That squid is also a divine beast?" asked McGonagall.
Harry nodded. "Although it's not his true form from what Luna has told me but he's been living in that lake since the very beginning…ever since they came to this realm."
"Realm?" McGonagall asked.
"There's a lot about them that's not important to know," Harry said, clearly saying that he didn't want to discuss about the divine beasts any more. "So, is there anything else you wanted to ask me?"
"Like I said, it's about Albus," she said again. "I still cannot comprehend that he would do such a thing. I just wanted to know that the ministry will catch him quick."
"We are looking for him everywhere," Harry said. "We have set up a special team to conduct international investigations in case he's left the country which seems to have happened because we've looked everywhere for him within the boundaries. Why do you ask, though?"
"He contacted me again."
Harry's head snapped up towards her as his expressions changed. "When?" he asked.
"Last night," she said. "He sent his patronus with a message."
"What did it say?" Harry asked when suddenly he noticed a typical haziness appear in McGonagall's eyes before narrowly dodging the spell aimed at him from under the table. putting his legs against the table he pushed hard, sliding his chair away from the table as he flipped backwards, grabbing the chair with one hand as it took shot after shot from McGonagall. Splinters flew everywhere as with each spell the chair acting as Harry's shield broke off and blew apart.
Once he'd gained a little balance he quickly cast a wandless shield, enveloping his entire body with a bubble shaped shimmering shield which dissipated each of McGonagall's spells as they hit it. He couldn't help himself audibly thanking Snape and Draco for training him as without it he was sure to have caught in the first sneak attack from McGonagall.
He looked at her as he realized she wasn't using any of the unforgivables which meant that whoever was actually behind this wanted him either unconscious or incapacitated. He knew dueling-wise he couldn't compete with someone like McGonagall so he took in a deep breath before sighing. "Let's see how my training worked out," he said to himself as a dark grey aura surrounded his right hand in the shape of what seemed to be a claw. He raised his hand and made a pushing motion with it, targeted towards McGonagall who felt the impact as her entire body was thrown off towards the very back of the office where she hit her back and slumped on the floor.
She didn't lose consciousness nor had any injuries as Harry made sure not to hit her with anything powerful as his bubble shield dissipated. He snapped his fingers as his wand slipped from his holster into his hand as he walked carefully towards her.
He heard her groan as he approached her and noticed the hazy glint in her eyes was gone. He waved his wand in a peculiar motion, its tip glowing warm white as McGonagall's eyes opened wide with her gasping loudly as she looked around in surprise and confusion.
Harry was quickly by her side making sure she was alright and that she didn't panic. She looked at him before looking at the condition of the office when she realized what she'd done as her eyes filled with tears. "Harry…I…I'm sorry!" she said.
"It wasn't you fault, professor," Harry said supporting her so that she could sit properly. Once she was he looked at her making sure she was alright before walking over to the fireplace. He threw a pinch of floo powder and called for Pomfrey to come as quickly as she could to the head office which the medi-witch did instantly as she gasped looking at the condition of the head office before her eyes fell on McGonagall.
"What happened?" she asked as she ran over to the old witch with her wand already scanning her for any injuries and other things.
"Someone used the imperius curse on her," Harry said causing the medi-witch to stop and look towards him in utter shock before she began scanning McGonagall a little differently and gasped at the results of her scans. Harry was right. Someone indeed had used imperius curse on her but who?
"Who could do this?" asked Pomfrey.
"I don't know but she suddenly began to attack me out of the blue," Harry said. "Luckily none of us got hurt. Can you find out who cast it on her?" Harry asked although he knew it was Dumbledore.
"I can't say for sure as unforgivables are untraceable," Pomfrey said. "Help me take her to the infirmary, Mr Potter."
Harry nodded before floating McGonagall off of the floor. She'd lost consciousness by then so it was a lot easier as he and Pomfrey took her towards the infirmary. They couldn't use the floo with her in that condition so they had to walk through the castle's corridors. Luckily no student or faculty member saw them.
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"And she can't remember it?" asked Hermione. She, Harry, Susan, Daphne, Tracey, Luna and Neville were taking a stroll by the banks of the black lake. Daphne, Tracey and Susan were having a conversation of their own as did Luna and Neville while Harry walked with Hermione, telling her about what had happened today with McGonagall.
"No victim of the imperius curse can remember who cast it on them," he said, "but I know it was Dumbledore as she told me that he'd contacted her again last night."
"You said she received a patronus message from him," Hermione said. "You can't cast a spell through a patronus. He probably must've casted it on her on the day he came to collect Fawks and his personal belongings. Imperius curses have the ability to lay dormant for months and are like hypnotism. They can be activated by feeding information into the victim's head when to act out. Dumbledore must've imperiused her to attack you whenever you and her were alone and perhaps that patronus message was to tell her to call you today to meet her. But I still can't figure out why he would come after you like that."
"I can think of a few reasons" Harry said. "I thought about it and it finally makes sense. Dumbledore made plans for me after Voldemort killed my parents all those years ago because he thought I was the child of the prophecy. When I arrived at Hogwarts I didn't turn out to be the way he wanted me to be because of how the book had already prepared me to be aware of him. That was the first break in his plans followed by many like when I foiled Molly's plans for Ginny to seduce me using ammortentia. Add to that Draco being the real child of prophecy and defeating Voldemort completely ruined Dumbledore's well laid – out plans. If something like that happened to anyone else they would also retaliate."
"And the book didn't warn you about it?" Hermione asked.
"I haven't received any instructions or messages from it in quite a while now," Harry said. "I think these things were supposed to happen according to the book's magic which is why it hasn't given me any instructions as of yet."
"It still worries me that something like that can predict so much and so accurately," Hermione said, referring to the book. "Haven't you tried to figure out how it works?"
"I'm worried that if I do then the book will stop giving me instructions entirely," he said.
"And what if it is making you go towards a bigger trap, one which is far more dangerous than Dumbledore and Grindelwald?" Hermione asked.
Harry didn't reply to that. He, too, had thought about it as it did make sense why a mysterious book would want nothing but a strong and independent life for him. He'd wanted to know the real truth behind that book…who'd sent it to him and why. If there was one thing he understood it was that no one did something good for others for free, especially if the others are strangers. Or maybe this stranger wasn't a stranger after all. Harry didn't know who was looking out for him by sending him that book but he really wanted to know him/her and why they were doing this for him. Was it a help, an action for owing them a favor or as Hermione said, a trap, Harry didn't know.
"I can't see him," Neville said looking for the giant squid. It was getting darker as the sun was setting on the horizon and the lake's water wasn't exactly clear. There was a reason why it was called the Black Lake.
"He's sleeping," Luna said.
"Celia can talk to him?" Neville asked.
"No, but she can sense him as can Griffin," Luna said. "You two should talk more to each other. He lives inside you after all." Neville didn't reply to that. "I wonder how Fawks is doing,"
"He never said anything about where he was going, did he?" Neville asked.
"No," Luna said. "Celia tells me that she sensed a feeling of revenge inside him against Dumbledore. We're both worried that he might do something he could regret."
"Fawks is a divine beast," Neville said. "If he wants he can easily defeat Dumbledore."
"You are forgetting that Dumbledore managed to catch and restrain him using his magic," Luna said. "When I used Celia's magic to bring down the wards Dumbledore had set inside his office to prevent Fawks from escaping she felt the power behind those wards. Dumbledore is not someone we can take casually. Fawks is more powerful than Celia and he's a par with Griffin and a few other divine beasts. If Dumbledore could manage to capture and restrain him who knows what else he might be capable of."
"If Fawks is serious about getting revenge on Dumbledore then he should be looking for him," Neville said. "Our divine beasts can sense where the others are if they want to, can't they?"
"Are you suggesting we go after him?" Luna asked.
"Why shouldn't we?" Neville said. He saw Luna didn't reply to his question but kept looking at him. "What?" he asked.
"Griffin hasn't told you about it yet, has he?" she said.
"Told me about what?" Neville asked.
"You two should talk more often to each other," Luna said before stopping and turning to look towards Harry. "Celia told me about this last month during our summer holidays. Do you know who Ask is?"
Neville's eyes widened when he heard that name as he, too, looked towards Harry wondering why Luna was looking at him, too. "Why are you looking at Harry when mentioning that name?" he asked.
"Because Harry's connected to him," she said.
It felt as if the ground had vanished from beneath his feet as Neville's mouth hanged open in shock. "You…You mean like a descendant?" he asked.
Luna shook her head. "No," she said. "Why don't you go ahead and ask Griffin how they both are related?"
Neville looked at Luna before unwillingly asked Griffin about it and as things go revealed to him his level of surprise grew even more until he was told everything about it. "Does…Does Harry knows about it?" he asked.
Luna shook her head. "He saw it that day but he seemed to have forgotten about it," she said. "Perhaps we should go tell him about it, make him remember."
"How can you be so sure that he saw it?" Neville asked.
Luna looked at him and smiled before walking towards Harry.
Harry, who was in deep conversation with Hermione saw Luna coming towards them and stopped. He didn't stop because he saw Luna and Neville heading towards him. He stopped because he hard Celia's voice inside his head.
"Harry?" Hermione asked wondering why he'd abruptly stopped talking and walking at the same time when she, too, saw Luna and Neville approaching them.
"Did you tell him everything?" Luna said as she came an stood in front of Harry.
"Tell you what?" Hermione asked looking at Harry whose expressions said as if he'd heard some unanticipated news.
"I…I totally forgot about it," Harry said before looking at Luna. "How did you come to know about it? I never told anyone about what I saw that day in the department of mysteries."
"I asked her the same question," Neville said.
"Your training," Luna said having all of their attention, "with Draco and Snape…you really did manage to grasp some of the Yayu's powers didn't you?" Both Neville and Hermione looked at him with shocked eyes. "You didn't want to tell any of us about it because you were worried that our divine beasts wouldn't like it…that they wouldn't like it that we have someone in our midst who can manifest a tiny portion of the Yayu's powers – the same beast who almost defeated them and caused them all to stuck here in our world."
Harry looked down towards the ground before looking at Luna once again. "That still doesn't explain how you came to know about it," he asked.
"It's simple, really," she said. "With you now being able to manifest some of the Yayu's powers all the divine beasts feel a faint connection to your psych plane. They can do so because as you know the Yayu was made from every divine beast's essence and so…" she turned towards Neville, "you can feel it, too. If you try," she said looking at Neville.
"Is that how you got to know about it?" Harry asked. "Isn't that breaching of privacy?"
"It is but when everyone's fate depends on it than it is needed to be known by everyone, especially those t whom it will affect directly," Luna said.
"What…are you talking about?" Harry asked.
"The sparkling thing you saw in the hall of prophecies that day when you dropped your blood at its entrance's cauldron is actually a prophecy made for you," Luna said. "You know how the divine beasts were the ones who created life on this world?" Harry nodded. "Well, they couldn't do so all at once. They did so little by little…with time. They did the same when creating us…the people…humans. And the first human that they created was a muggle man who went by the name of Ask. He was also known as the first mortal who ever lived."
"And what does he have to do with all of this?" Harry asked.
"Ask wasn't a normal human," Luna said. "Despite being a muggle he did have the power to foretell the future…but only in desperate situations. When Merlin first attacked the divine beasts for their powers Ask had already foreseen the threat coming but he didn't know what to do so he never told the divine beasts or anyone about it. He kept it to himself, thinking that it was just a coincidence, a dream that has coincidently become reality but when he foresaw the outcome of the war that would follow he realized he could actually see the future. So he went ahead and told the divine beasts about it. Knowing their creation and the close bond they all shared with Ask they knew he wouldn't lie to them but the future had been set.
"There's one thing that people don't actually realize and/or know about time," Luna continued. "It's that it doesn't matter whether you've seen the future. You cannot change it. You cannot do so because it's already been decided…it's already been set. Knowing about the future and trying to prevent it from happening only strengthens the definite probability of it happening even more. And that is what happened. Ask saw the narrow victory of the divine beasts but at great costs." She looked at Neville who had a solemn look on his face as Harry realized she meant the death of Gak, the divine beast hellhound and a close friend of Griffin who was killed by the Yayu.
"Despite knowing what Merlin had planned for the war the divine beasts could do nothing. They had all the information…all the knowledge of how things would end up happening and they still couldn't stop it from happening." She then stopped and looked at Harry in his eyes. "Ask had also seen his own fate that would befall upon him in that war," she said, "and when it did…in his final moments he foresaw another future. He died seconds after seeing that future so no one could know what he saw.
"When Celia felt the slight connection with your psych plane when you returned after three months at the start of this year's term the first thing she saw was your memory of looking at that globe at the very end in the hall of prophecies. Can you take a guess now?"
"You think that…that ask made a prophecy about…about me?" Harry asked.
"We don't think, Harry," Neville said. "We know."
"There was a familiar aura around that prophecy globe which you saw that Celia felt through your memories," Luna said. "The aura had the same feeling as the life force of Ask. We don't know how his prophecy ended up in the department of mysteries but it is there and it is meant for you because when you dropped your blood in that cauldron only that globe of prophecy glowed. You saw it, our divine beasts felt it and we know who foresaw it. You were also thinking about it for a few days after your and Sirius' incident at the department of mysteries but then you forgot about it. You know what to do now, don't you?"
Harry stood there processing everything that he'd just been told. It was too much information but he knew he couldn't escape from it and now that he remembered about the prophecy once more he himself wanted to know what was in it but the fact that it was about him didn't give him the confidence to go and see it. "I honestly don't know if I want to know about it," he said.
"We understand," Luna said. "But it is important that you do. If it was told by Ask then it carries the information about what is probably going to happen and I am afraid it has got to do with the divine beasts."
"But you only said that it doesn't matter whether or not we know what the future holds for it cannot be changed," Harry said.
"Wouldn't hurt though, if we try," Neville said. Harry looked at him. He smiled. "The divine beasts realized this halfway through their fight against Merlin. They knew that complete victory against him was not an option but they still fought. I understand that it might seem futile trying to change what's coming when we all know that that's impossible but at least we can try and delay it. And who knows, the prophecy could even end up being good."
"I need some time to think about it," Harry said.
"We understand," Luna said.
Harry nodded before he turned towards the castle and began heading that way. He'd had enough walk for today.
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Thanks for reading…
