INTRODUCTION
Welcome to The Sepulcher of Souls!
The Sepulcher of Souls came about after a reading of Prisoner of Azkaban and realizing that Hermione was very clear that terrible things happened to wizards that messed with Time. Yes, Harry and Hermione were messing with Time for a noble cause and to save an innocent man from a terrible fate...but, what if there was still a consequence to that? No good deed goes unpunished, as they say.
As it turned out, I found a very neat canon moment to diverge from - the end of Chapter 21: Hermione's Secret in Prisoner of Azkaban. From there, the plot of this story comes from currently reading Chamber of Secrets and finding a treasure trove of plot bunnies the more I read and think about the plot of Book 2.
I've tried my best to make this an original Time-Travel fic, if there is such a thing after almost twenty years of fanfiction, and we will all see if I'm successful with it, especially as I have a number of other fanon tropes I'm going to weave into the Time Travel plot.
The Sepulcher of Souls is already plotted out about twenty-five chapters, with a fair bit of it written, so updates will hopefully be frequent - and at some point, I'm going to catch up with myself and then, they'll slow.
All in all, I'm looking forward to writing my own attempt at Time Travel and seeing how correct I get it. Without further ado, here is the first chapter of The Sepulcher of Souls!
CHAPTER I: A Splinter in the Sky
June 1994
The Black Lake, Hogwarts Castle - Scotland
"Harry, look! Who's that? Someone is coming out of the castle!"
Harry stared hard at the brawny figure thundering down the castle steps. The wizard was thickset, moved like a coil of tension, and as he stepped down onto the dirt path that lead to the front gates of Hogwarts, something gleamed at his belt, an angry and forbidding flash of silver in the otherwise dark night.
Harry realized who he was.
"That's Macnair - the executioner!" A cold rush of dread flooded the pit of his stomach, as Harry guessed why he'd be headed towards the gates. "Oh, no. He must have been the one to go get the Dementor. This is it! They're about to have Black recieve the Dementor's Kiss - right now!"
Hermione paled, her dewy skin suddenly ashen in understanding.
Harry motioned for her to mount Buckbeak, noticing the tremble in her hands as she did so, settling herself upon the hippogriff's feathered body with no little amount of fear. His heart racing, fear flooding through him at the idea of not getting to Black on time, Harry swung himself up onto Buckbeak in front of Hermione - and urged Buckbeak upwards into the sky.
Black was innocent.
Black was innocent and had never betrayed his parents, but Pettigrew had instead - and, Black was about to pay for Pettigrew's betrayal, with his soul. Harry had known the truth for less than three hours, but it was enough for him.
Enough to eliminate the lies and half-truths that he'd been hearing about all year long, as Black had supposedly hunted him and set out to kill him. Enough for him to want to rescue Black and see him cleared of all wrongdoing, so that Black could be free - so that they could have a home together, as his parents had intended and wanted, if anything had happened to them.
Black was innocent and wanted to give him the home that James and Lily Potter wanted for Harry to have -
And, for that reason alone, Harry had to save him.
Black was the last link that he had to his past, the last connection he had to a life that he never knew about but had been longing for his entire life.
If he didn't save Black, there was no future for him, and with this desperate thought clawing at his own soul, Harry urged Buckbeak upwards until they reached Professor Flitwick's Office, in the West Tower. With a pull of the rope, Harry tried to steady himself as he reached out and rapped smartly on Professor Flitwick's window.
"Sirius! Sirius, we're here to save you!"
Sirius...Sirius, we're here to save you...
The words triggered a memory he hadn't been able to think of or feel for twelve torturous years, and Sirius gasped as his mind began to swim and blur. Twenty-odd years crossed and clouded in his mind as he remembered a warm summer night in 1976...a night when James and Remus had saved him, wild black hair and long toffee hair gleaming in the moonlight as they'd promised they were there to save him...
This wasn't James and Remus.
The black-haired Potter and his brown-haired friend were Harry and Hermia - Hermione? - and they were the ones here to save him.
Not from the prison that was Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, but the prison that had become Professor Flitwick's office, as awaited the Dementor's Kiss and the death of his self and soul.
Sirius shook his head, roughly, trying to clear his mind -
But when he looked up again, James and Remus were there - again.
James and Remus were hovering on a broomstick outside of his bedroom window...James was bravely trying to get the window to respond to his Black blood and open for him, while Remus waited second-seat on the broom, the lookout and the support...they'd gotten the owl that Sirius had sent, distressed and fearful because of his parents' threat to send him to Durmstrang...and they were here to save him, black hair and brown hair bobbing in the night, and free him from this confinement and the awful future that awaited him...
Soon, he would be safe and where he belonged, able to go back to Hogwarts -
Sirius shook his head, a low moan coming from him.
No, he was here at Hogwarts, already. Hogwarts wasn't where he belonged, because here at Hogwarts he was restrained with an Incarcerous Spell and awaiting the execution of his soul.
Sirius strained at the ropes as Harry and his brown-haired friend continued to float outside the window, both stealth and determination all in one.
Harry and Hermione were bobbing up and down in the warm night, on a hippogriff and not a broomstick - and, if Harry's hushed shout was any indication, he and his brown-haired friend were here to save him. Harry was trying to make the wards on the window give into his command to open, while Hermione sat second-saddle upon a wild and restless hippogriff, her dark eyes darting around nervously and anxiously. They knew that he was innocent and that Pettigrew - weak, pathetic, worthless Peter, who he wished he had killed - was the true betrayer of James and Lily Potter. They knew this and they were here to save him from his execution and free him from the awful fate that awaited him.
James and Remus...
Harry and Hermione...
...a black-haired Potter with the blood of the House of Black and his brown-haired friend of undesirable blood...untamed ink-and-midnight hair, wind-swept and impossibly long toffee-and-cinnamon hair both distinctive and clear in the light of a moon that shone too brightly and had been the start of their problems, a few short hours ago...
Sirius strained against the ropes that bound him.
James - no, Harry - threw himself against the window, earning a stern rebuke from Remus - no, Hermione - and an admonishment to be more careful. James had been able to get the window to open for him as the child of Dorea Black's womb, but Harry had not been able to get the wards to budge under the power of a son of the House of Black -
With a shared look, Harry - James? - and his brown-haired friend - Remus? - drew their wands, determinedly.
"Stand back, Mr. Black! I think I know what wards Professor Flitwick uses - we're going to have to - we're going to get the window open in just a minute!"
Sirius blinked at the young witch's voice, trembling with fear, but still so sure that she and Harry would be able to break through a High Charms Master's wards.
His doubt was instantly proven wrong.
In act of tandem magic that should have been impossible for their age and lack of blood relation, Harry and Hermione pointed their wands at the sealed window as one, and shattered it loose from its framing, the window frame itself still solidly intact. Glass and bronze and spell-residue exploded inwards into Flitwick's Office and although Sirius turned his face away, pieces of bronze and glass still nicked at his exposed arm, painfully.
"Oh, goodness - Mr. Black, we're so sorry - we didn't mean to - "
"Oh, no! He's tied up, Hermione. We have to get him lose - now!"
Sirius opened his mouth to warn Harry to not try anything that would hurt himself, but he was nowhere quick enough. Lithely, with a grace and agility that could only come from the natural gifts of a Seeker, Harry flung himself into the open air between where the hippogriff hovered and the window - and, was able to sling himself through it, with only a bump or two.
"Harry, you shouldn't be here - they'll be here any moment to give me the Kiss - you'll be in terrible trouble if you're caught here - "
Harry looked up from the ropes, defiantly. "You're my godfather - my dad's best friend! Of course I should be here, trying to save you. You don't deserve this!"
Time and space crossed and clouded again.
James had gotten the window open and was able to come through because he had been born from the womb of a daughter of the House of Black, he was a Black by blood and birth if not through love and acceptance. Number Twelve had recognized his blood as it would never recognize Remus's blood and James stood freely in his bedroom, staring at Sirius defiantly.
You're my best friend - my cousin! Of course I should be here, trying to save you. You don't deserve this!
Sirius had been overwhelmed as James pulled him into a rough, brief hug, trembling slightly as they began to quietly gather clothing and belongings that he couldn't bear to leave behind. Just as he was overwhelmed now, with the determination of this child of James to free him from his bindings. Sirius began to tremble again, as time and space crossed and blurred.
James had risked everything to save Sirius from what he knew was an unloving and harmful house, exactly as Harry was risking everything to save Sirius from what he knew was an unjust and undeserved execution.
James and Harry...Harry and James...James, his best friend and his cousin, the brother that Regulus would never be...Harry, his godson and his cousin, the son that he should be because James was no longer here...Harry and James...James and Harry...black-haired Potter and his brown-haired friend...James and Remus and and Harry and Hermione...Harry and Hermione and Remus and...
"...James, James, you've come to save me..."
Sirius came back to reality sharply as Harry gasped, his eyes wide and pained.
Emerald-and-clover green eyes. Greener than ripe apples, as glowing and verdant as the scales of a Welsh Green. Almond in shape with lashes rather long, a wealth of expression in their jade and leaf-like depths.
Lily had those eyes.
Lily had those eyes and with those same eyes, she had looked at him directly in the shadowy night of the birthing room - asking him quietly, while James snored with baby Harry on chest, to be her newborn babe's godfather. Lily had those eyes and with those eyes, she expressed that she didn't trust anyone but him - Sirius, the rogue Black - to care for and love and protect with his life their babe, the creation of herself and James, if the war took them and kept them from raising their own son.
Lily had those eyes that Harry had and it was her eyes that stared out of her son's face, her son's face with her fuller mouth and the same determined, courageous set of her strong chin.
Harry and his face and his eyes. Harry and his face and Lily's eyes.
James did not have this face, James did not have Lily's eyes. James had saved him once, but Harry was who was saving him now...
Harry was gentle, as he finally found the catch and undid the ropes. Magic might have bound the ropes in place and kept them there, but an Incarcerous Spell wasn't stronger than Harry's will, it seemed.
"Come on, we're going to go home now, Sirius - you're free."
Harry and James guided him towards the window, strong and sure hands clutching at his arm and letting him know that he was no longer alone. Harry and James helped him get a grip on the window seal, as his hippogriff and his broom waited, Remus and Hermione holding out a thin, sure hand to help him astride the broomstick and the hippogriff -
Hermione screamed.
Remus had not.
The door to Professor Flitwick's office opened leisurely as Harry and Hermione tried to pull him through the window and astride the hippogriff, where his bedroom door had not, as Remus had slung him securely onto the broom as James had followed, their mission completed.
Minister Fudge, Amelia Bones, a leonine Auror that was clearly the Captain of the Corps, and Albus Dumbledore stood frozen in shock as Sirius braced himself against the windowsill. They couldn't believe what they were witnessing, though Dumbledore's pleasant shock was certainly not for the same reasons as his Ministry colleagues.
Harry swore, pulling at him more desperately, as the hippogriff reared and Hermione shrieked in fear of falling off.
"SIRIUS, NOW!"
"BLACK, DON'T MOVE! STOP RIGHT THERE!"
All blurring and disintegration of the past and present crumbled under the sharp and bitter sting of survival.
The Ministry was right behind him.
The shock was wearing off and they were moving into action, swearing and racing across the expanse of Flitwick's office.
Freedom was in front of him, right out this window and onto the back of a hippogriff, steered by his godson and his godson's brown-haired friend -
He just had to take a leap and hope he landed where he was supposed to.
Over a decade in Azkaban had wittled him down to skin stretched over a skeleton. Where he was used to be broad and brawny, a fine example of a strapping and powerful pureblood Lord, Sirius was mildly shocked at how weightless he must truly be if Harry and Hermione were able to easily help him swing up onto the hippogriff behind Hermione.
The Auror Captain and Bones reached the narrow window.
Wands were being drawn, commands and orders were being shouted.
"Black! You'll be put to death for this! Stop right now!"
"Under orders of the Ministry for Magic, you are UNDER ARREST - STOP - "
Sirius wrapped his long, skeletal arms around both Hermione and Harry, as Harry swore again and urged Buckbeak to turn and go into flight. The hippogriff was clearly unused to having so many bodies astride him, for he was having trouble smoothly or swiftly moving away from the window.
The hippogriff couldn't turn fast enough, despite Harry's frantic urging.
A volley of spell-fire blew apart the ornate stone frame of the window, as the Auror Captain and Bones decided to cut their losses and get control of Black's second escape, as best they could. Sirius watched in horror as most of the spell-light was absorbed by the flying chunks of masonry - but, not all of it.
A cluster of spells was still headed towards them.
Gales of summer wind that were blowing the clouds around the moonlit night were making the course of the spells erratic, untrustworthy. Sirius hoped that they would fly harmlessly past himself and the children and the hippogriff - it didn't seem likely, however.
Either the children or the hippogriff would take the spell-fire meant for him and who knew what spells the Ministry would feel was appropriate for the only fugitive of Azkaban, who was fleeing from their custody for a second and impossible time. The children could be harmed or killed, their young bodies and growing magical cores not strong enough to survive getting slammed with the full force of Ministry official spells - or, the fall that would knock them out air, upon contact. The hippogriff, the beautiful and majestic beast that was trying its best to get its own freedom, as well - the hippogriff would be harmed and certainly put down, too.
He had to do something.
Neither Harry nor Hermione could be harmed or killed on his behalf, not when their young and pure hearts were only doing what any righteous and noble Gryffindor would do for an innocent or a loved one. The hippogriff wouldn't, either, not when it was so crucial to this risky escape, to start with.
Sirius dug his heels into Buckbeak's side, remembering the command from his childhood competitive riding days.
Sirius gave a rattling, wheezing shout of triumph as Buckbeak jerked to a complete halt as obediently as if he'd been trained by a world-class hippogriff master. Another brief groove closer to his hind legs had him arching downwards -
But, not as fast or as swiftly as Sirius hoped.
He had tried, but it was too late.
The cluster of menacing spell reached them, individual spells twisting nastily together to send a current of magic through them that felt as though they were being flayed alive - and, slammed into Hermione directly, an agonized screech coming from her as flames erupted on her chest, beneath her shirt.
A great, blindingly bright explosion of light and iridescent sand covered them in a thick, choking, cloying dust and all Sirius had time to do was ensure he was holding on to both his godson and his brown-haired friend, as something terrible yanked at everything in his torso and pulled.
Sirius was engulfed in a sudden darkness that rivaled the depth and the dark of his own name.
All he knew was the desperate, protective hold that his skeletal arms had around both Harry and Hermione hadn't broken, as miraculous and unlikely as it was. As they tumbled through the darkness and choked on too-thick dust, it was this embrace around the children that kept him centered and kept him from coming apart into dust, as they were pulled further and further into an impossibly narrow splinter of darkness...further and further...
His last thought was of the blackness of Potter hair and the brown hair of friendship and the embrace of family, as he wished with all his soul that the two children he held locked in his arms hadn't lost their own lives in their noble attempt at saving his life -
And his soul.
The Mayor's Manse - Hogsmeade Village, Scotland
A warm gale of summer wind swept through the garden, stirring the scents of roses and jasmine and honeysuckle, and causing a happy flickering of the candles upon the mourning altar.
The Matriarch Candle, deep and soothing blue, flickered the brightest.
Phineas Aurelius smiled, sadly. His iron-gray eyes were misty with the rare tears he allowed himself on this night, as he thought of the witch that the candle was lit in memoriam of: the unearthly beauty that had been his wife, Cindora Greengrass Black.
"I believe it is a lovely night, as well, beloved," Phineas Aurelius said, into the comfortable silence of the garden. "I would be asleep, but as usual, I am restless tonight. As I am every night, especially this night of the year..."
On either side of the blue candle, the Matriarch Candle, the purple and lavender candles flickered, almost as if to comfort but with an edge of rebuke. The purple candle was a rich and deep shade of the color, full of the vibrancy and wealth of spirit that Rigel himself had been overflowing with, as his heir - until the morning had come when his candle, the Heir Candle, had to be lit in remembrance of his departed life.
Phineas Aurelius nodded his head, sadly thoughtful as he stared deeply at the flickers of the purple candle and its partner, the pale lavender Heiress candle that was lit in memory of Rigel's fleeting bride, Philippa Clearwater Black.
If he still allowed himself such indulgences of grief, Phineas Aurelius would have said he could hear Rigel's voice on the wind: disapproving of his wallowing, as he would have been kind and understanding about it. Phineas Aurelius had long since moved past that stage of grief, where the mourning he'd had for his son was so strong, he'd mistake and half-plead for a shade of him in the wind or the echo of him as a ghost. He had not, however, moved past the part of grieving where he no longer wallowed - and, Phineas Aurelius didn't think he would, after thirty-five years.
Thirty five years since Rigel had been murdered, thirty-four years since Cindora had died of a broken heart, and thirty-three years since Phineas Aurelius had given up hope of finding Rigel's bride and the secret child she carried within her when she'd disappeared the same day Rigel was murdered.
Three and a half decades of mourning the swiftness in which his small, cherished family had been taken from him.
Three and a half decades of waking up to an empty manse and aching at the absence of his wife's laugh which had been like wind chimes or his son's fierce ambition and great love for his fellow man - and, even the gentle, refined touch of his Muggle-born daughter-in-law, who he'd only begun to mourn after it was clear she'd never return.
Three and a half decades of unyieldingly keeping and defending the appointment of Mayor of Hogsmeade, as to ensure that nothing as heinous as the murder of his son ever happened again, in the Wizarding-exclusive village of Hogsmeade.
For Phineas Aurelius Aurelius, thirty-five years had felt like thirty-five eternities and not for the first time, he achingly wondered when he would be able to go and join his wife and his son, beyond the Veil.
"I'll start my seventh term as Mayor tomorrow, as you all know," Phineas Aurelius said, staring at the mourning altar sadly, wishing he were talking to his wife and his son - and not their memorial candles. "I believe it will be my last and then, I'm going to look towards retiring."
Another gale of wind came through the garden, harder and a touch less warm than previously. All three candles flickered in agitation. Phineas Aurelius raised his brows at the candles, questioningly.
"Is this news that displeases?" asked Phineas Aurelius, knowing there would be no real answer. "I'm nearing middle age, of course, and after nearly forty years as Mayor, I am starting to be interested in what else there is outside of our village of Hogsmeade."
The truth of his own words were heavy in the quiet of the garden. As if making it clear what they thought of Phineas Aurelius retiring in another five years, the wind chimes began to ring rather sharply through the garden. The wind was picking up terribly, gale after gale sweeping through the garden, and Phineas Aurelius became uneasy as he looked up at the sky, noticing something strange indeed.
The sky above Hogsmeade, the very village that Phineas Aurelius had just confessed to his family's memorial candles he was looking to leave behind forever...
The sky was rippling and fracturing.
Phineas Aurelius came to his feet, his eyes wide in fear and confusion as he watched the summer sky become splintered with flickering white light. He'd never seen something like this before in all his seventy years of life and wildly, Phineas Aurelius looked around, as if pleading for someone else to assure he that he was seeing what he was seeing - but there was no one.
No one in his garden, but himself and the memorial candles that had been burning for over thirty years for his wife, his son, and his daughter-in-law.
A deep, pulsing sound like thunder rattled the very ground of Hogsmeade, as the splintering of white light illuminated brightly - and then, the sky itself cracked open, in an explosion of iridescent, dusky white and gold light.
"What in the name of creation...?"
Phineas Aurelius stood awestruck as a plume of dust and light fell from the sky, seeming to be both a meteorite and a comet, a dust-storm and an explosion, all at once. It would strike the pastures on the farthest edge of the village, where they were no villagers, it seemed. Confident that none of his constituents would be in danger for the immediate moment, Phineas Aurelius watched as the conflagration of dust and light continued to hurtle to Earth, steaks of fire and - feathers? snow? ice? - followed in its wake.
The plume of light and dust and fire landed with a rather solid impact on the far pasture of Hogsmeade, where the roads gave into the wild trails that led to the lochs and the mountains nearby. The ground quaked once, briefly, a strong but fleeting feeling that made Phineas Aurelius feel temporarily disoriented.
Uneasily, Phineas Aurelius waited, watching intently where the plume had crashed into the Earth.
The sky was as untouched and unbroken, once more, as if the great splintering of light and fire hadn't torn it open like fabric and brought down whatever had just crashed in the village pasture. There was no more wind, neither warm nor unusually cold, and the previous stillness of the drowsy, warm Scottish summer night was as it had been before this frightening and most unusual event.
When several minutes had passed and Phineas Aurelius was convinced nothing else would happen, he took one last look at the pasture and the crash site, before turning on his heel sharply and heading towards his Floo.
The awe of the moment had passed and any immediate danger didn't appear to be forthcoming, but that didn't mean that the unusual event he'd just witnessed was not of harm to himself or his villagers.
Despite what he'd confessed to the memorial candles of his wife and son, Phineas Aurelius knew well and good what there was outside of the insular, protected town of Hogsmeade Village. The Muggles were at war with one another, their battles with each other and their crude technology spreading throughout the entire globe, rather frighteningly. Grindelwald was taking advantage of the Muggle war, as he had in the previous global war decades earlier, and Wizarding Europe had fallen to him last year, after decades of siege and assault.
Wizarding Britain was an oasis of neutrality, refusing to get involved in the complicated politics of Wizarding Europe, only offering refuge to European wizarding folk who were looking to escape - but, that didn't mean it was to that way, forever.
Phineas Aurelius knelt down at his Floo, throwing a pinch of Floo powder in, anxiously. As expected, within two chimes, his Constable answered the hearth, and Phineas Aurelius looked at him, pointedly.
"Constable Spinnet, I just witnessed an explosion in the far pastures and I believe we may be under assault - possibly from Muggles, but very likely from an agent or operative of Gridelwald. I'm calling a Code Red, Alfred."
Alfred Spinnet blinked owlishly at Phineas Aurelius, his brown-skinned face stunned for only a second, before becoming grim.
"Well, Mayor, I'm not surprised. It is 1941...I don't suppose Wizarding Britain could hide from either the Muggles or from Gridelwald, forever."
[Author's Note: I know for a moment it looked like I was going to get off at the Marauders Era stop on the Time-Travel trope, but as I said - I've currently reading Chamber of Secrets and I realized why it was my favorite book of all. We are officially in the era of Tom Marvolo Riddle and his rise to becoming Lord Voldemort, which canon made clear happened while he was in Hogwarts, still.
1941 is right before Riddle's fourth-year at Hogwarts, while the end of Prisoner of Azkaban (June 1994) is also right before Harry and Hermione's fourth-year at Hogwarts. I couldn't pass up the opportunity when I realized that Riddle's fifth year is when the original Chamber of Secrets event happened and as of Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione would be Riddle's peers if they got pulled back in time at the end of their third year.
If someone had gotten to Riddle at that critical moment, would they have been able to prevent his rise? Or, is this simply Riddle's destiny, no matter what? Can knowledge of the future not only change the future, but create an entirely different world, instead? Let's find out!
Reviews are welcome, as well as theories and thoughts! Onwards to the next chapter!]