Waves Crashing Against the Shore

by cloneserpents

Standard Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all characters are property of J K Rowling, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury Books, Arthur A. Levine Books, Raincoast Books, Scholastic publishing (et al.) and are used without permission. This work was written purely for noncommercial entertainment; no money is being made

WARNING!

This is a dark horror fan-fiction containing graphic violence, gore and major character deaths.

Prologue

In Ottery St. Catchpole in the parlor of the Lovegood home Ron sat impatiently on a wobbly three-legged stool. That morning he awoke to find the Lovegood family owl pecking at his window. The message it carried from his strange neighbor, Luna, demanded he come to her house immediately for it was a matter of life and death. He had every intention of ignoring the note. Luna was an odd bird and her idea of a life and death situation usually pertained to non‑existent creatures Luna insisted were real. After reading the first part of the post (which he did strictly to stop the owl from hooting insistently), Ron very nearly crumpled up the parchment and went back to bed. Before he could follow through, his eyes caught the postscript under Luna's signature. There, written in loopy joined letters, was the phrase, "It deals with the journey you, Harry and Hermione are about to take."

Ron rapidly dressed and rushed over the hill to Luna's house. When she answered the door she seemed surprised to see him—then again, with her protuberant eyes, she always seemed surprised.

"Hello, Ronald," she chirped. "How are you this lovely morning?"

She ushered him in and told him she would be right with him: she had to finish proofreading her father's article on a conspiracy within the Ministry to lace the water supply with some chemical called floor-ride.

"But you said it was important," he pressed. "You said it was a matter of life and death."

He had not told a soul about the journey he, Hermione and Harry were about to take to find You-Know-Who's horcruxes. He didn't know how Luna learned of it and it worried him that others might know as well.

"It is very important, Ronald. But so is this," she pointed her quill at the parchment before her. "My father's publication has a standard to live up to. His readers would become quite cross if there were too many errors. It'll just take a moment, then we can talk about your journey."

So, he sat on the uneven stool, watching as Luna scratched out one line or another and scribbled down corrections in the margin for five minutes. Once she set her quill down, Ron leapt up and asked, "What do you know about this, ah, this journey?"

"Very little." She blinked slowly. "I had a dream last night."

"A dream?" He let out a huff that was half-way between a scoff and a sigh.

"Yes, a dream. Before she died, my mother told me my dreams were very important and I should always listen to them. And since my mother was in this particular dream, I paid extra attention.

"My mother came to me and told me three of my friends were about to undertake a dangerous journey. She told me something terrible might happen to them. Some of them, she told me, might even die."

Fidgeting nervously, Ron asked, "What makes you think this dream was about Harry, Hermione and me?"

"I only have five friends, Ronald, and three of them are always getting in some perilous adventure or another. It wasn't really hard to deduce to whom my mother warned me about."

"Okay, thanks. We'll be careful." He scratched the back of his head. He was relieved Luna didn't know anything that could possibly get her or anyone else in trouble. But it bothered him that he rushed out of his comfortable bed and ran over to Luna's for nothing: he knew the thing he and his best friends were about to do was dangerous.

"She also told me how I could help." Luna's hand floated up and pointed to a rickety old bookcase stuffed with books of every shape and color and in various stages of decay. "There was a book, a very old book, hidden behind Ridgemount Fairweather's Field Guide to Wondrous Plants and How to Weave them into Practical Clothing. My mother told me she put it there before she died because she knew I would need it one day. There is a spell in the book that could help the three of you."

"Really," Ron craned his neck as if he was trying to see the hidden book, "what does it do?"

"It replaces a person's memories and experiences with those of their future selves."

"Really?" he repeated. "How far into the future?"

"About three or four years."

"Hmm," he muttered. There was a benefit to the spell—if he, Hermione and Harry had their future memories, they would already know where You-Know-Who hid all of his horcruxes and any traps that waited for them. The only downside that he saw was he and his friends would essentially skip over the next three or four years. It wasn't that much, he thought, only a handful of years. Besides, with their future memories, they could find all the horcruxes in no time.

"I've already performed the spell," she informed him.

His eyes bulged. "You did what?"

"It was rather difficult, but I felt a surge of magic flow through me so I know it worked." Luna cocked her head and looked at Ron with her silvery grey eyes. "Or did it?"

Ron frowned. "I don't feel any different."

"You don't have any memories about the future?"

"No, just my regular memories."

"I suppose the spell was too difficult for me after all." She shrugged her slim shoulders. "Oh, well."

"Maybe I can get Hermione to help you."

"That's a wonderful suggestion, Ronald. Unfortunately, the spell required that I burn the book. It was a symbolic exchange of information, destroying the book to gain new knowledge, as you know."

He sighed. "Let me guess, that was a one of a kind book, right?"

She nodded her head sadly.

"Well, thanks for trying, Luna."

The blonde stood on her toes and placed a kiss on his cheek. "Do be careful, Ronald. The dream gave me a dreadful feeling about what you three are about to do."

He smiled at her. "Don't worry. We'll be careful. Besides, Harry's got a knack for getting us out of trouble."

-00-

Nearly at that precise moment in Little Whinging, Harry Potter stared at the small mirror hanging on the door of his wardrobe. His brow knitted in an angry scowl and his lips pressed in a frown. A fire burned in his eyes as he examined his own features. Reaching up, he ran his fingers over his smooth cheeks and his grimace deepened.

-00-

Meanwhile at her parents' house just outside of London, Hermione Granger was sobbing. Blinking away her tears, she looked down at her trembling hands as if they belonged to someone else. Her pet, Crookshanks, huddled in the far corner, hissed at her with his fur standing on end. She brought her knees up to her chest and began rocking back and forth. Jabbing her fingers into her kinky hair, she whimpered, "Where's Harry? Where's my Smiling Man?"

TO BE CONTINUED