Magic Knows No Boundaries But Those We Believe In
By NonsensicalRants
Chapter 21:
Rank Speculation
Madame Meirna, mother to Ragnok and the most highly decorated goblinesse in all of the British aisles, was known to be a rather stern and humorless woman. That came with the territory of having a doctorate in Mathematics and being a tiger mom to the most successful goblin of his generation. And yet there she lay, on the ground of the booth overlooking the room of tranquility, howling with laughter.
She wasn't the only one. Schmicklehook the eldest and Griphook senior were tasked with overseeing the meeting as well, and both were as out of it as she was.
"Time traveling son... from the FUTURE!" Schmicklehook managed to get out between the tears.
Griphook managed to crawl over to the command comm where he could speak into the receivers each guard in the room below them had in an ear. With a deep breath and several coughs he composed himself before pressing the record button.
"If any of you so much as crack a SMIRK you will have your pay docked for the next YEAR!" He snarled with every bit of seriousness and venom he was known for, before breaking back down into laughter as soon as he released the button.
Meirna and Schmicklehood joined him at the tinted and soundproof window to continue watching the bizarre conversation below.
"I think young Silverspoon is turning red." Griphook senior commented.
Indeed, the crescent-moon-spear-wielding boy was at the end near Albus and his face was scrunched up so tight in his effort to not laugh that he looked nearly as aged as them. Meirna took over the comm device.
"Mister Silverspoon, do you find something humorous about the phrase... identical shaft of wood to mine own, if slightly more beaten?" She asked, repeating the unfortunate phrase Dumbledore had used to describe the time anomaly of Harry's duplicate wand.
She had to give it to him, the boy did not break. None of them did.
"You know, the fact that they've kept it together for this long is rather impressive." Meirna said offhandedly. "If anything, they deserve a raise."
"And a raise they shall have." Schmicklehood answered, withdrawing his scheduler from the end table nearest his chair and jotting down to have a meeting with internal accounting. "By the way have you ever seen Mont..."
"Of course I've seen Monty Python's Life of Brian!" Meirna answered pre-emptively.
Oh, curse these secrecy oaths. The look on Harry's face if she could tell him about this meeting... But perhaps she should schedule another lunch with the young lad all the same? She never got the change to try and feed him some of her sourcrout sourdough cake. She'd need to get some good vodka to go with it though.
Here they sat, his most trustworthy and decorated generals. Ironic that they were also his most competent teachers. Save for one.
Severus Snape, Minerva McGonnagal, Filius Flitwick, Pomona Sprout, Alastor Moody, and Rebecca Pomfrey. All deep in thought. All disturbed by the pensieve memory he had just shared with them. A secondhand memory, a memory of a memory, his recollection of his time in Alastors pensieve. It was sufficient.
"Do we know what happened after the second memory cut off?" Pamona asked.
Indeed, the memory Hadrian submitted under questioning had not been intact. High emotions and trauma can damage memories, permanently, and professor Morrigan's cut off around the time his fifth tooth got knocked out and they had been unable to see anything past that. The sole surviving assassin's memory cut off around the time he got scorched by the explosion. Although impressively enough, he had clung onto consciousness, fading in and out, all through the rest of the fight and both memories showed Morrigan's impressive use of parselmagic.
"Yes. He seems to have blacked out, but he killed the remaining two assailants with brute force and desperate uncontrolled magic." Moody explained. "He was barely alive after the fact, and deeply regretted having to kill them."
They returned to their own thoughts. A dangerous place to dwell, Albus knew from experience
"I would like to hear your theories." He goaded them. "Mine are a bit outlandish and I'm hoping you might have some that are more down to earth."
Interestingly enough, Pamona took the lead.
"The last known wizad ofthe Morrigan line was Hephaestus back in 1818, right?" She asked.
"That is correct." Severus confirmed without a moments hesitation.
"And his line ended when he married a young lady of the Gaunt line, and they famously sired a smooth dozen squips, ending the lineage." She continued. "So him being their descendant of the squib line, a muggleborn born of their descendants, would explain the parseltongue."
Albus nodded, but didn't comment. The convenience of this family history smacked less of plausibility than it did a well-constructed and well-researhed lie. Time to nip any uninformed guesses in the bud.
"You should know he is also a time traveler from the future." Albu said with all the joy of a child putting down his rabid dog.
Silence met his declaration as they digested this revelation. He didn't eve bother elaborating. Minerva eventually broke it.
"He does resemble Tom when he was younger, back when we were both at Hogwarts." She said. "If you squint while looking at him. He also has VERY similar mannerisms. And charm."
Albus appreciated her wisdom in not coming right out and saying the obvious conclusion her line of reasoning brought her too. He further appreciated that they all had such faith in him that they didn't need him to qualify his claim of time travel, which he would have happily done.
"I disagree." Said Rebecca, causing Albus to raise an eyebrow. "Either his mother was, or will be, a completely different phenotype AND our understanding of Tom's parentage is completely wrong, or else you're chasing a red herring here."
"Could you phrase that in a way us non-mediwitches can understand?" Alastor pressed.
She hesitated.
"I can't say much about what I found during my mandatory examination of him this morning, but what I can say is that green eyes are a recessive trait." She explained. "Tom Riddle had dark brown yes, as did both of his parents and grandparents. Even if Tom Riddle were to... marry?... a woman whom inherited genes for eye color only of green, due to inbreeding or some such, the child would still be brown-eyed. That is one example. Give me photos of a young Tom Riddle and Hadrian Morrigan and I can point out a host of other facial features that are impossible."
Filius poked a hole right though that.
"And are you positive his facial features, including eye color, are all those he was born with?" The diminutive professor asked. "Did you detect any signs that his facial features, or eyes in particular, having been altered? Either through cosmetic or reconstructive surgery."
Rebecca made a hissing intake of breath, the kind that itself sufficed as an answer.
"I am incapable of answering that question, but I would point out that half his face had been reconstructed not 24 hour ago due to injuries." She explained. "And no mediwitch is perfect in putting everything back in its place."
Translation: This guy has seen so much battle, and had his body so thoroughly battered and rebuilt, that if he still had ANY resemblance to his natural parentage, it would be a miracle.
"And I think it's safe to say this isn't the first, or even the tenth, time Mister Morrigan has suffered such injuries and the following reconstruction." Moody added.
"How do you come to such a conclusion?" Pamona, ever the bleeding heart, demanded.
"Because of how he fights." Alastor told them. "He isn't a soldier, or even a warrior. He is a survivor. He fights with a hodgepodge of techniques he's picked up from enemies and allies alike. I've seen it before. The raw, undisciplined - but creative - tactics employed by desperate children trapped in war zones and growing up forced to do terrible things."
He continued.
"Simply put, he fights dirty as all hell, and it isn't the fighting style of a desperate caged animal, but the tactics of somebody who has faced these same tactics." Alastor finished. "Tactics that leave the body unrecognizable. He maimed those would-be assassins. Maimed them horribly. And that's how he fights people he DOESN'T wish to kill."
It was a frightening thought. If he turned out to be an enemy they would need to approach capturing or defeating him with great caution, or else overwhelming force. Hence this meeting.
"And his fights to the death seem to be twice a week at this rate." Severus said offhandedly.
The series of confused "what's?" and "huh's" the rest of the room threw his way only served to intimidate the ma. Albus did find it adorable how flustered Severus could still get from being the center of attention. Despite his status as the second most abnoxious drama queen in Hogwarts. A place Albus intended to keep him in until his dying day. He was the champion of overacting and flambouyancy, and the boy better not ever forget it!
"You mean... You didn't hear about the forest of Dean incident Friday night?" He asked, genuinely surprised at their lack of information.
Albus saw the telltale sign of something clicking in Alastor's head, a new piece fitting into the puzzle that was Hadrian Morrigan. Consider Albus' surprise when Severus summoned, of all things, the latest article of the Quibbler.
"Ghillie Dhu Resurrected?" Albus read aloud, but the photograph of a devastated mountainside was what captured his attention.
"This is exactly the type of magical damage which Professor Morrigan caused during his fight with the quartet in Diagon Alley." Alastor explained. "So now we know who tore up that serene wilderness."
Albus passed around the article and gave his colleagues time to incorporate the new information.
"So... what?" Minerva asked. "After his meeting with the Marauders and their spouses, Hadrian... went to meet somebody in the forest of Dean and it went south?"
That did seem to be the likely explanation.
"Was there a body left there?" Asked Rebecca. "In Dean, similar to the body of the poor woman Hadrian fought last?"
"I'm..." Alastor hesitated, straining against his oaths as an Auror. "Not at liberty to comment on an open case."
"So, 'no' then." Everybody in the room except for Alastor and Rebecca concluded aloud.
At the confused looks on Rebecca and Alastor's faces Severus explained.
"If whatever altercation Hadrian was involved in Friday night showed any sign of an injury or death to another, then Alastor would have marched out of here to arrest the young man instead of remaining here to discuss things further." He said.
Alastor ceased his standing and retreated to a chair to grumble away from them.
"He is powerful, we already knew that." Albus concluded, turning away from his staff to contemplate the landscapes through the window. "Potentially as powerful, in terms of raw magical potential, as Voldemort or myself. But untrained, and less well studied. If he is in fact the son of Voldemort, as I suspect, then we must ask ourselves a host of questions.
Albus stood and turned away from his generals. Peering out of the window behind his desk at the ground below.
"What form of time travel did he use? Is it deterministic? Are all of his actions to keep in line with the timeline he knows? Is it paradoxical, and are his actions causing untold damage to the timeline due to ignorance or malice? Or most concerning of all, is it branching or overwriting, and is he hoping to rewrite history?" Albus listed. "I prefer to work from the assumption that it is the last, and he is trying to change the past. Which leads to SO many more questions. Is he with his father or against him? It wouldn't be the first time in history a dak lord was thwarted by his heir. Nor would it be the first time one sought to usurp his predecessor and become far worse."
Albus paused then to let his words sink in, as he was want to do, for it inspired the imagination and creativity he so valued in his staff.
"Severus I can FEEL your condescending glare drilling into the back of my skull. What vital piece have you picked up on that I missed?" Albus said without turning around.
He could see in the reelection of his window that the potions master had the good shame to blush at the laughter of his colleagues.
"Am I the only person who sees in Professor Morrigan a startling resemblance to both James and Lily?" Severus asked rhetorically.
The observation brought Albus up short. His mind stalled for a few moments, as it tended to do when digesting a new piece of juicy information, but the resemblance was greater than Albus himself wanted to admit.
"But Lily is sterile, ever since her botched surrogacy ritual?" Filius pointed out.
Yes. That had been unfortunate. It was a simple ritual amounting to turning the unborn fetus into a portkey and transporting them to the womb of another woman, followed by a blood inheritance ritual with the new mother and father. It had been a good plan, passing off their potential child of prophecy as the child of another couple, as the ritual would have rewritten their physical features and actual magic into that of the adopted parents. They lost Patricia Pettigrew to that botched ritual and, lo Peter forgave them, he doubted James and Lily would ever forgive themselves.
"A ritual she has spent the last 16 years deconstructing and reverse-engineering in the hopes of being able to conceive again." Severus countered.
The conjecture expanded.
"So you are proposing a counter theory that he is, the yet to be conceived, child of James and Lily Potter?" Minerva offered.
"Yes." Said Severus. "Of course, that doesn't explain the parseltongue, but for all we know both Lily and James carry the gene for it... It's funny, Lily actually has ancestry to a squib line of the Morrigan family..."
You had to give it to the man, he knew his blood history. It was actually a plausible explanation.
"In fact, if you weren't so sure he was a time traveler, I'd be tempted to suggest he either is the child of Voldemort born some twenty eight years ago during his travels, or he is that lost child of James and Lily and that Patricia survived, taking the boy into hiding and raising him as a weapon in secret. But has been artificially aged somehow." Pamona offered. "Of course, at this point we're just making up nonsense and I think we need to take a step back from this rank speculation."
She was absolutely right.
"We know too little about the man. But what we do know is terrifying." Said Albus. "He is a time traveler from the future. A future where child soldiers must learn to fight in the most horrific ways possible just to survive. Which tells us that this cold war is about to get very hot. What we don't know is his motivations. Is he trying to prevent this future, or personally benefit from it?"
"Indeed. I suggest more focused observation." Minerva said. "Retrace his steps since his arrival in our time. Try to glean motivations behind his actions. And by we, I mean you, Albus."
Albus chuckled at the turn of events.
"And yes, I will cover your workload as deputy headmistress for the week." Minerva finished, cutting off his next question. "But in conclusion, what DO we know for certain?"
Albus conjured a chalk board.
"He is a time traveler from the future. He either will one day slay me or slay the person who slayed me. No, I will not explain how I know that." Albus interrupted his own list. "Since his arrival he has seduced Garrick Ollivander..."
"Excuse me?" Pamona interripted. "Don't tell me you put credence into the rumors about their relationship in Diagon alley at face value?"
"I meant seduced with promises of power. Not in a sexual way." Albus clarified, not wanting to explain the Elder Wand to them and how excellent of a bargaining chip it would make in winning over Garrick. He honestly wished he'd thought of it. "He has furthermore courted Alastor Marchbanks, a former unspeakable of the Time division and likely a person involved in his own time travel, as well as Bellatrix Black, one of the deadliest fighters in Britain. He has furthermore made fast friends with the goblin nation and several member of the Order of the Phoenix but has not yet made any contact with Voldemort or his Death Eaters. And is also working tirelessly to help the plight of werewolves everywhere."
Severus perked up, and if that weren't an obvious sign he had an epiphany, the snap of his fingers did.
"He's removing pieces from the board!" He exclaimed.
Albus immediately understood his meaning but didn't interrupt.
"Ollivander is the premiere wandmaker in all of Europe, and if he were to die or 'disappear' it would be a disaster for coming generations." Severus started. "And Hadrian spent the entire summer protecting him. In his future maybe Garrick went missing this past summer? It would explain the dirty tactics, as an entire generation with nothing but secondhand wands would be unable to cast higher level spells with any efficiency, so would have to resort to strategies like Hadrian has displayed."
Alastor nodded eagerly.
"And I would bet galleons to knuts that if we examined the wards around the wand shop, we will find that both Hadrian and the Goblins have added to them recently." Moody suggested.
Albus added it to his mental todo list for the week, before motioning for Severus to continue.
"Then there's Marchbanks. Who, a few days after meeting Hadrian, gets into an altercation with the dark lord after he tried to recruit the man." Severus continued. "Perhaps in the original timeline he accepted Voldemort's offer? If our speculation is correct and he is the one who developed the means Hadrian used to travel back in time, then that would be an important thing to change."
"So you believe it is a non-deterministic form of time travel and he is actively changing the future?" Filius piped up.
"Yes, and the way I see things, for the better." Severus continued. "Because in addition to them and Bellatrix, who I don't think any of us have difficulty imaging is capable of causing severe damage in a hot war, he has also removed any chance of the Goblins joining in on the war and is making efforts to do the same with the werewolves."
It did make sense. His choice of targets did indicate prior planning, but instead of pushing these targets to one side or the other he seems to have moved them into neutral ground. Removing them from the chessboard indeed.
"He is either trying to prevent the hot war altogether or mitigate the damage it could cause." Dumbledore concluded. "He is neither with nor against Voldemort nor myself, nor the Ministry or any other faction. He is merely trying to prevent as much loss of life as possible."
The motivations made sense. As did the tactics. He was a truly neutral member of this war, his own faction with the motivation of survival. Albus wasn't wed to this idea yet, but he would be a lair if he claimed he didn't want it to be true. But he would have to work from darker assumptions until he knew for sure. Call him a pessimist, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"You think he is good then?" Pamona asked.
"I never had any doubts about that." Severus answered. "He is clearly trying his hardest to do what he thinks is the right thing, but I don't think he will succeed."
Albus was genuinely surprised by the poor outlook.
"And why do you think that?"
"Because he is trying to do it alone, and while he is strong, he is not clever nor wise enough." Severus continued. "Honestly he's kind of an idiot, but not hopeless. Which begs the question of why he hasn't come to us for help? We would be the perfect allies, most likely to help in his mission if he told us."
That was hardly a mystery.
"Perhaps the young man doesn't fund us trustworthy." Filius said, hitting the nail on the head.
"And once again by 'us' I suspect you mean me?" Albus said in both jest and honesty.
Filius shrugged, but didn't meet Albus' eyes.
"You've never been the most trusting person yourself, Severus, are you telling me you trust this man you barely know?" Minerva asked the dark potions master.
Severus sighed, before making an observation that Albus was certain everyone in the room could relate to.
"I wouldn't say I trust him, but I can say I want to trust him." He said. "Damnit all, I hate to admit it but I just like the young man!"
"He is quite polite." Pamona Observed.
"And charming." Minerva added. "In a way that a younger Tom Riddle tried to emulate, but with Hadrian it's without effort and is genuine."
"Inquisitive too. Haven't had a boring conversation with him yet." Finished Filius.
Rebecca and Alastor sat quietly. Albus already knew Alastor's opinion of the man. That opinion being if Hadrian had been a Harriet he would have offered himself in marriage after seeing the aftermath of his battle with the four assassins. But Albus?
Logically, Albus agreed with every word. He wanted to trust Hadrian. Truly, he did. He liked the boy too, for all of the reasons previously listed. There was just one problem.
Hadrian had hurt him. Mortally.
The lies weren't what did it.
Faking skill in divination using his knowledge of the future was bad enough. Albus had taken great pride in seeing through charlatans of the past trying to gain access to his precious school. Hadrian's success in fooling him was certainly a blow to his honor. But what really stung was the manner in which he did it.
Albus had no illusions about who and, more importantly, what Hadrian was.
He was the master of death. The thing he himself was so very close to becoming but had decided to avoid at all cost at the advice of Hadrian himself. His warning about not uniting the hollows now smacked more of past experience than mere prediction. He himself had united them, and was surely in possession of a copy of the stone from his timeline. That's how he was able to see the shades of Arianna and Gellert during their interview.
And this "battle precognition" nonsense? Hardly! he was obviously using the resurrection stone, stationing shades of loved ones to watch his blind spots and instruct him on when to dodge and how to counter. With a little practice Albus was certain he could reproduce the illusion of omnipotence Hadrian had displayed in past fights.
But even this wasn't why Albus felt so wounded from the boy.
His surprise at Albus not knowing where the cloak was and warning not to reunite them. It didn't just smack of personal experience, but from historical precedent.
Albus had united the hollows in this now lost timeline. and it had done something to him. Corrupted him. Perverted him. Made him into something monstrous. Why else would Hadrian have let him attain that mortal injury seeking out the Horcrux in the gaunt shack instead of saving him? He had chosen to remove Albus from the board as well. Permanently. Fatally.
And that hurt. It hurt to know, to even think, that this young man saw him as some kind of monster deserving of death for the sake of a better future. To think that this sweet, kind, considerate and brilliant young man had, or would, someday kill him and take from him these artifacts of power and from these horrible experiences. What monstrous deeds could he have committed? What horrors could have resulted from his and Voldemort's war and the magics unleashed thereby that Hadrian would prefer him dead than redeemed?
It hurt. It hurt so very, very much. And the rest of that week were filled with nightmares regarding such. Vision of potential futures, where he united the cloak with the stone and wand he already possessed and was corrupted thereby.
Notes:
Your eyes do not deceive you. That's two updates in less than two weeks. Now that I'm between jobs I have a LOT more free time to type. Been sick so I only was able to devote two days, 4 hours each, to this chapter but I like how it turned out. I'm going to try and get another chapter out in two days. Not promising anything, just my personal goal. Which isn't that impausable considering there's already 1000 words for it that I cut from this chapter.
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Magic Knows No Boundaries is a fanfiction written by Cosette-Aimee. It was originally published on August 28th, 2006 and abandoned as of February 8, 2008.
Several authors, such as Celillia and Sir Jinx Alot, have attempted to rewrite the story, all unsuccessfully. The difference between them and I is that I will actually be rewriting the story instead of simply republishing it. I will be making many changes to the original story but will keep most of the ideas and plot, mostly making additions, not subtractions, from Cosette-Aime's work.
I do not own any of the works or characters