VOLDEMORT'S LAST SPELL, by Louis IX
Disclaimer: Check first chapter for full disclaimer and other warnings. I don't own anything related to Wolverine, X-Men, or Marvel Comics. Or Indiana Jones (sorry, that one crept up unannounced).
Chapter 8 – Identity Crisis
posted February 13th, 2008
Logan and Marie were promptly escorted to the Elvish village, and the council of Ancients was immediately summoned. However, while the ancients were quick to establish who he was by using some fanciful gestures and words, Logan didn't recognize them.
"I was searching for a couple artifacts." he told Eleigh, while the council continued debating. "My memories are quite disturbed, but I know that I owned a staff at some point. And that I was searching for a cup."
"That's not very precise, Har." the Elf answered. "There are many staves around the world. Almost as many as there are cups."
"I don't know much apart what I already said. And why are you calling me Har all the time?"
"Because that's your name."
"Har? But..." Logan trailed off. He had intended to say that Logan was his name, but he wasn't so sure, now. He remembered his conversations with Professor Xavier, and the fact that "Logan" had seemed a borrowed name. "So... my name is Har." he muttered. Perhaps they held another answer to his life. Perhaps... "How old am I?"
Eleigh didn't seem too sure of himself, suddenly. "I don't know, Har. Lareth might know, though."
"Who's Lareth?" Marie asked. She had stayed there the whole time, but had been too stunned to say anything until now.
"He's the leader of our civilization. He's currently living with the Amazonyel tribe." the Elf answered, making Logan wince at the last word. "What is it?"
"Just a slight headache. Why would Lareth know my name?"
"He's the oldest Elf living. He might have known you from... before you lost your memories." A pause. "He has been called by the council, and he should be here shortly."
"From the Amazon forest? From Brazil?" Marie asked, dumbfounded that one could make the trip so quickly. "Which kind of plane do you use?"
"Plane? What's that? We only use our fountains for instant transportation." Eleigh answered, shocking her into silence.
Logan – or Har, now – frowned. "How old is Lareth?"
"He's a dozen times as old as I am." Eleigh answered.
"So," Marie spoke again, "since you seem to be in your early thirties, he's what... 300 years old? 350? Is that even possible?"
The Elf stood up, slightly affronted. "For your information, thirty isn't my age. I'm more than three times that. I've reached my first century three years ago, in fact."
"But..." Marie spluttered. "He'd be... He'd be..."
"Lareth reached his twelfth century seven years ago. And Har here is known to be much older than him." Eleigh said before exiting the room.
Marie looked at him with wide eyes, before turning to Logan. And she didn't faint. No, she didn't. But she had to sit, and missed the chair, making him laugh.
"Welcome back, Har." the gnarled old man said, eliciting a bow from the addressed man. He chuckled. "No need to bow to me. I should be the one doing that, but my back isn't as responding at it once was."
"Eleigh told us you might know my age." Logan said without preamble.
"He said so? Well... under other circumstances, he might be right. But not in this case."
"What do you mean?" Marie asked.
"I mean that I do not know of Har's age. I'm quite surprised to see you in such a young countenance, Har. In the last millennium, your existence had become a myth even among us. But I'm sure of two things: you are Har, and you are older than I am. I spoke to you a couple years before your disappearance, in fact, about that very thing."
"Which thing?" Logan asked.
"Your age. I was a young scribe at the time, and I had intended to write the story of your life."
"Have you written the book already?" Marie enquired.
The old man chuckled as he turned to answer her. "The book? More like a whole library!" He turned back to Logan. "I'm sorry, but it disappeared in a volcano eruption, twenty years ago. I have started working with the young scholars on writing a new one, but my memories aren't fresh about the events, although I do remember many things you told me." A pause. "You told me about the Great Cold that had encompassed the world, leaving only ice and snow to cover the earth. You told me you lived through it, teaching the tribes how to live under the harsh conditions. You told me you met with my ancestors, only to recognize them as the descendants of your own contemporaries. You told me about the fact that you left those contemporaries to explore the world, and about the civilizations you have helped. About Atlantis, for instance."
"Atlantis? Civilizations? The Great Cold?" Marie asked to no one in particular, as her mind was churning with the data. "But... Atlantis is only a myth! And... the glaciation..." she trailed off, turning to look at Logan, who was digesting the information as well. "It was more than twelve millennia ago!"
"So sayeth the wise." Lareth answered laconically, looking at Logan as well.
Until before their meetings with the Elves, Marie thought that she was dating a man slightly older. After Eleigh's first revelation, she had thought that he was older than her by three centuries, then a millennium. Learning that it was perhaps more than ten millennia instead was too much.
She did faint, this time.
Logan and Marie spent two weeks with the Elves, but the incessant stares were wearing the young woman down. They were polite, they were graceful, they were civilized despite their aborigenous appearance... but they still stared at them strangely.
"When do we leave?" she asked him once.
"Tomorrow." he answered immediately, shocking her.
She blinked, before registering what he was doing. He was packing! "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Lareth and the council have finished tracking the whereabouts of my staff. The cup seems to be protected from their means of detection. They think..."
"What?"
"They think that holding them might reinstate my memories. Will you... will you stay with me if I suddenly change my name?"
She paused. The revelations about his age had been hard to bear, but she was a resilient woman, and, now that she was slightly more prepared, she could stomach more of them. She nodded decisively.
"Thank you, Marie."
The next day saw them following the council members as they strolled leisurely through the forest, until they came across a clear pond. Lareth concentrated on the pond and started to hum, the sound resounding around them in a strange manner.
"What is he doing?" Marie asked Logan in a whisper.
"I dunno. We'll see." he replied in the same tone.
As the old Elf's wordless chant reached a certain volume, he started to wave his hands over the smooth surface. Ripples started to appear, making the trees' reflection waver. It quieted as soon as Lareth stopped moving.
"The passage is open." he finally said. "Just get in the water."
Marie was tempted to ask about it, but Logan had already started walking. Since he was still holding her hand, she followed him into the water. When they were both in the middle, the water was reaching their upper torso. "Ready?" he asked.
"As much as I can be." she answered, shrugging.
And they dunked their head under the surface, submerging completely. A brief feeling of weightlessness ensued, and they quickly stood up to inspect their surroundings. Truth be told, the trees were still there, at the exact same place, even, but the Elves had disappeared.
"Where have they gone?" Marie enquired as they slowly made their way out of the pond.
"The question is: where have we gone?" he replied absently, his nose in the air. "The atmosphere here is different. We have moved. Look." he finished, pointing at the water surface.
Under their eyes were the reflection of the same trees, but with several Elves between them. And they were waving at them. "Bye, Lareth." he muttered, waving back. The water rippled once more, and the surface was soon flat again, only showing the reflection of the forest around them.
"We're dry." she suddenly said, surprised at the fact.
He chuckled. "Put that on the account of the Elves' magic."
"There's no such thing as magic." she protested, almost automatically.
"Really? The T-Rex and the pond tend to disagree." he replied amusedly.
She put her hand to her hips. "And since when are you so... accepting, Logan? I never thought you could accept all the things that they bandied about you without batting an eye."
"I was thinking..."
"God help us." she inserted with a mischievous smile.
He smiled as well, before turning serious again. "I don't know much about my past. What kind of man was I? From what he said, I was some sort of wandering prophet. Even if everything could have been fabricated, it's still a primary lead and I want to know more."
After a dozen seconds, she nodded. "Okay. Let's find this staff, then."
Logan nodded, and took something from his pocket. As he was looking at it intently, Marie found herself curious. "What is this?"
"A magical compass Lareth gave us. It indicates the mouth of a cave in which we should start investigating."
"A cave? How interesting. Is it filled with dangerous monsters?"
Logan's only response was a nod, before he started walking towards the west. She hurried behind him, and, after a few hours of trekking through the forest, the two of them found themselves at the mouth of the aforementioned cave. And it was quite large already. They looked at each other, shrugged, and took their flashlights from their equipment before heading inside.
The cave appeared to belong to a large network of interconnected subterranean rooms. The first three were empty, but the fourth was full of bones and skeletons of assorted animals. Of large animals. They could swear that one or two of them were bears or larger animals.
"Well... this is a large thing we're a-hunting, good sir." Marie said, trying to alleviate the atmosphere. When he didn't answer, she turned her head to look at him in askance... only to find something looking at her from the reflection a puddle of water was giving. It was a snake. A very large snake.
She turned to stone. Literally. The basilisk's gaze was lethal when it was unhindered, but "only" turned onlookers to stone if it was reflected.
Logan wasn't feeling the gaze, though. Surprised, the basilisk lost a few seconds trying to understand why his favourite weapon wasn't working. In that short time, Logan had extended his claws and jumped at the snake's throat, arms forward.
While a single steel sword wasn't often enough to slash through the beast's skin, six adamantium pointy blades were largely sufficient to pierce it. Mortally wounded, the snake shook and trashed around, his massive body striking Logan and Marie's statue as much as the pile of bones or the rocky cavern's walls.
While Logan was crushed against the ceiling, falling unconscious from the shock, Marie's statue was broken into bits that were quickly mixed with rocks and other rubble from the dying beast's shocks with the walls.
Logan's healing factor was a boon as much as a curse. Over the course of his long life, it had often brought him back from the dead. But it was often with broken bones that were painful for a few days. His adamantium-laced skeleton helped in that regard, but it was still painful to awaken under slabs of rocks and a stinking basilisk carcass.
Once awake, he looked around, trying to locate Marie. Where she had stood, only rubble remained. Some had a shape, while others had been roughly taken from the cave's walls and ceiling. As he noticed her broken head near the far wall, sorrow struck him again, and he knelt to cry for his fallen friend and lover.
He spent a whole day collecting most of the parts from Marie's frozen shape (he couldn't get them all: some were unrecognizable from the surrounding debris) and burying them near the cave's entrance. This done, and after a last goodbye, he collected his wits and proceeded inwards again.
The labyrinthine network of caves had several exits outwards, and only one inwards. After exploring all those leading out unsuccessfully, Logan decided to proceed further inside. It was a long corridor, large enough for the snake he had killed before, and he was extra careful while walking in. But no other basilisk came forward, and he finally reached a dead end. A dead end with three doors.
One was a large slab of stone, circular and without any handle or hinge. Pushing it didn't give anything, and he left it as it was, unaware of the room – and castle – beyond. The two others were human-sized doors. Since pushing or pulling them didn't work, he slashed through them with his claws. The reinforced wood was old, and it yielded rapidly. Behind the first door was a laboratory with cauldrons and many flasks holding strange substances. Behind the second were living quarters for one : a dining table, a kitchen, a library, and a bedroom.
And, atop the mantle of the bedroom's chimney was a staff.
He froze.
It was his staff! He recognized the shape, and he also felt as though the gnarled thing was calling for him!
Not thinking clearly, he reached out with his hand. Almost like a joyful puppy, the staff jumped from its resting place into his hand.
And he collapsed under the mental assault that ensued.
Flashes of light.
Moments of life.
During his forced hibernation, his mind had protected his memories from the destruction incurred by the prolonged lack of oxygen, storing them behind a stasis-like barrier. Now reunited with his staff, which still held a part of his power, the barrier had collapsed.
Logan. Har.
Har-Kan. Har-Ree. Harry.
Har-Old of Myridine.
Myrddin. Merlin.
He had fallen unconscious under the last name, once upon a time, and had awoken under the first.
Now, after collapsing under the first, he arose with his entire memories under his control.
He was all those names. And more. He was a wizard. Not a specialized one, but a mightily powerful jack-of-all-trades. Now equipped with a metallic skeleton. It annoyed him, that humans had dared open him like a fish to play with his bones, but it had also proven helpful in many cases. However, the job had been badly done: his bones were "only" coated with adamantium.
Aided with his memories of smelting mithril, he focused his power on the metal around his bones, and, several heart beats later, the metal was included in his genetic makeup as well, allowing him to apply an ability that he hadn't used in more than a millennium: self-transfiguration.
A burly mutant had entered the room. A white-haired wizard exited it, admiring his staff and his handiwork.
Once in the corridor, he looked at the long corridor and thought about Marie again. Could he resurrect her? He knew that resurrection itself was impossible, but... was she actually dead? He frowned. Despite knowing much about magic in general, he didn't know if the effect the Basilisk had had on her was curable or not. In "his" time, a person turned to stone by one was considered dead. He'd have to ask some wizards if a cure had been invented in the intervening time.
He turned around. Now that he was in touch with the magic around him, he distinctively felt the protecting ward on the round "doorway". Curious about it, he aimed the staff at it and willed it open. The magic resisted for a second, but the door – and the whole Chamber – had been built using the staff, and the magic recognized it. The stone itself resisted more than that: centuries of disuse in a dank atmosphere certainly allowed for some mechanical difficulties in opening doors.
Once in the larger Chamber, Harry turned around, and discovered with a shock the ominous face that was looking at him. Using the staff's own memories to find about its history, he had the surprise of recognizing the man in the picture.
It was Salazar Slytherin.
His own son.
He was quite sad at having had a child gone down the path of Darkness, but, truth be told, he had had enough descendants to mourn that one's choices for long.
The Chamber's only other exit was a corridor lined with snake statues – confirming Salazar's obsession with serpents – which was ended by another door. Using the staff again, Harry exited the room, and he eventually found his way to the surface...
...only to find himself face to face with a ghost. In a toilet. A girls' toilet.
Moaning Myrtle shrieked in surprise, before hurrying to her favourite hiding place: the U-tube of the third cubicle.
Harry exited the toilets, shaking his head with a smile at the ghost's surprising antics. He found himself in a corridor overlooking a maze of stairs. Stone everywhere, and portraits which were looking at him strangely.
'Must be a castle of some sort.' he thought, and his staff answered by telling him of the castle's history as it knew it: Nimue building it, and Rowena and Salazar fighting for it as it was turned into a school. 'It's surely a school right now.' Harry concluded, aided in this decision by the noise.
Three hundred children, ranging from ages 11 to 18, were eating in the same room. That kind of meeting was always noisy, which made the Great Hall easy to find.
When he arrived in front of the opened doors, nobody had seen him.
When he crossed the doorway, several students and staff members noticed him.
When he had reached the middle of the room, almost everyone had seen him. Several persons had drawn their wand, the ongoing struggle with Voldemort being on everyone's mind as the unknown wizard had entered the room with his grey hood up.
When he found himself in front of the staff table, Harry lowered his hood.
"Great Merlin!" swore Horace Slughorn.
Harry turned to him. "Yes?" he asked politely.
The Potion Master turned to Dumbledore, his mouth moving without producing any sound. Harry turned as well, and noticed something particular about the old man in front of him. The man was quite old, but he was also alert and... what was that twinkle in his eyes? He said the first thing that came to his mind.
"You're a Veel."
That sentence shocked several listeners, but not because they knew what a Veel was. They thought that Harry had said something derogatory. Or just plainly accused Albus Dumbledore of being… evil.
The addressed headmaster looked at him for a few seconds before speaking. "Usually, visitors announce themselves to the staff members of this venerable institution, so that they can be properly welcomed in my office." he stood up, and motioned to the door located to the side of the staff table. "We can head there, if you want, mister...?"
Harry thought about it. "Merlin" was probably over the top, since his name was now use as an swearword. "Call me Harold, mister...?" he mimicked.
"Albus Dumbledore." the Headmaster said, his eyes shiny with mirth. "I'm the Headmaster here."
"Lead the way, then, mister Headmaster."
The two of them arrived in the office, closely followed by the Heads of House.
"Lemon sherbet, mister Harold?" Dumbledore asked.
"What are they?" Harry enquired.
"Ah, they are but the strangest thing the Muggles have made yet. Sweet but sour at the same time. A perfect image of life, if I may say so."
"You may." Harry replied, before taking one in his mouth. "Hmm, yes. Sour and sweet. Must be good with some tea."
"My mistake. Hanky!" Dumbledore called for his favourite house-elf.
With a crack, the creature appeared next to his master, making Harry jump a foot in the air. "What was that?" he asked. "What is that?"
"This is Hanky, a house-elf."
"A house-what?" Harry asked, dumbfounded, while the four Heads looked at each other. What was this man doing here, not knowing about Dumbledore and his sweets, and jumping when a lowly house-elf appeared?
"A house-elf. Their kind is rumoured to descend from the elves of legend. They are wonderful servants."
"The elves of legend?" Harry asked, before closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. 'Let's not act rashly, now.' he thought. 'There must be some lie under this story, especially after a thousand years of human evolution. I'll get that story later. Now that I've found the descendants of my magic students, I'm in no hurry.'
"I'm sorry." he said aloud. "I'm not from around here."
"We did notice." Dumbledore said, before motioning for him to sit. The four Heads took a seat as well, and Hanky served tea for everyone. "What brings you to our school? And what made it so I wasn't warned when you crossed the gates?"
"Huh... which gates?" Harry asked.
If he had wanted it that way, he couldn't have chosen a perfect moment. Three among the four Heads spat their tea through their nose.
"I'm sorry. Perhaps you Apparated right next to the Great Hall?" Dumbledore asked, knowing full well that it wasn't possible thanks to Hogwarts' wards.
"As I told you, I'm not from here." Harry insisted. "I don't know what you meant by... Apparated. I reached the school through a subterranean corridor."
"Ah. A secret passage, then." Dumbledore said amusedly. "You're perhaps not from here, but you must know someone who told you about this place and its passages, don't you?"
"Err... no. I found the passage by... accident, after battling a great snake. It led to a sort of Chamber, where a statue of my... er... I mean, a statue of Salazar Slytherin was etched into the rock."
"Albus!" McGonagall whispered furiously. "Isn't it the Chamber of Secrets?"
The Headmaster hummed pensively for a few seconds. "Can you show us to that chamber?"
"Of course."
And Harry led them to the toilets he had exited from, and down the drain to the room with the statue.
"Great Merlin!" Slughorn swore again, eliciting a sigh from Harry.
"Sorry, Harold, but you must be aware that your resemblance with this statue is... striking." Dumbledore said, before pausing. "As Head of House, Horace must have access to some Slytherin pictures we're not aware of, and he must have identified you immediately thanks to these pictures, I think. You said "my", earlier. Was it "my ancestor"? It's not a shame to have such an illustrious ancestor, you know. I have a Gryffindor ascendant myself."
"Uh..." was all Harry could manage. These people thought he descended from his own son? It was hilarious! But it was also deliciously misleading, pushing questions such as his age away... for now.
And he really needed to get some in-depth documentation on the last millennium.
The Ravenclaw Head spoke up suddenly, and Harry turned to him. "Excuse me?"
"I asked about your earlier words. You called the Headmaster "Aveel" or something like that."
"Oh." A pause. "Like your colleague here, I mistook him for someone else." Harry shrugged. It was as good an explanation as any other, and he didn't want to reveal his links with the Elves to people who appeared to have enslaved members of his earliest descendants. A careful look around showed that only Slughorn and Sprout bought it as face value. The others turned to Dumbledore, who merely shrugged in the same way. After this, Harry knew, he'd probably have a private meeting with the Headmaster concerning his careless slip-up, but the others wouldn't be invited.
"How have you been able to open all these passageways?" McGonagall asked, peeking through the statue's open mouth.
"With my staff." Harry replied simply, holding the object up.
"An interesting item." Dumbledore commented. "In most places I know, wizards cast spell with a wand."
"Ollivander." Harry said almost immediately.
"Yes!" Dumbledore said brightly. "It appears that you know about the British World of Magic, after all."
"It's just a name I heard in passing." Harry said, looking at his feet. How many slip-ups could he manage in one day? He had referred to Oliver Ollivander, one of his students, a millennium ago. It seemed that his descendants had taken the family trade, after all.
"Could you demonstrate?" Dumbledore asked, looking at the door.
Understanding that the Headmaster was speaking about the opened doorway, Harry pointed the staff at the statue's mouth and willed it shut. The stone groaned again before setting. "Now. Perfectly sealed."
"That's good to know." Dumbledore said. "With that war going on, I don't want my school invaded. Now..." he turned around and faced Harry, his wand drawn. "The game has lasted long enough. Are you friend or foe?"
Harry was quite surprised. Gone was the genial Albus Dumbledore. In his place was a formidable warlock, who had already won a war against Dark powers, and was now leading another. "I'm Harold of Myridine. What I told you is the truth."
The word "truth" seemed to light a fire behind Slughorn's eyes, and the man rushed to Dumbledore to whisper some words in the older man's ear.
"Do you agree to submit to Veritaserum?" Dumbledore asked Harry.
"What is it?"
"It's a serum that only allows you to speak the truth."
A pause. "Only if you give me a written list of the questions you are going to ask." Harry countered warily. Nobody liked to see their secrets spread around. Harry least of all. "And an oath that you aren't going to ask more."
Dumbledore smiled grimly, before nodding. A few wand moves later, he had produced such a list and the required oath. Harry glanced at him appraisingly before reading the list. He then nodded to the old Headmaster.
"What's your name?" Dumbledore asked after delivering the three customary drops.
"Harold of Myridine." It was the truth. But not the complete truth. Dumbledore hadn't asked for his full name or his current name or any variation thereof. He was thus free to give any of his official names – and he had had a few of those.
"Are you a dark wizard?"
"No."
"Are you a descendant of Salazar Slytherin?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"What do you know about Voldemort?"
"I fought some of his forces in Japan, years ago. Bad guys all around. Prefer to torture and to kill before asking questions. Flee when outsmarted."
That answer made the others pause and smile tentatively. Was that wizard a new ally?
Knowing that the Veritaserum had a limited time effect, Dumbledore pressed on. "What's your job or qualification?"
"I'm unemployed at the moment. If you're asking about what I have done before or what I could do, the answer is varied, but my previous occupation was... teaching." Which was true even with Logan's identity, as he had been teaching the young mutants how to fight.
"How old are you?"
"I don't know." Compared to most of his previous answers, this one was a naked truth.
Bound by his oath, Dumbledore refrained from asking "What do you mean?"
Only when the serum wore off was he able to formulate his question.
"I don't know when I was born." Harry replied. "Therefore, I can't know my exact age."
Given that he was a wizard, Harry's apparent age was interpreted by Dumbledore as roughly around the century.
Flitwick wasn't the Charms local expert for nothing, though. "I recently devised a spell that can display a person's age in an interesting fashion." he piped in, before whipping his wand out. "Ostentatio Aetas!"
Fancy numbers appeared above Harry's head, and started turning – much like a car's counter. The problem was that Harry's counter didn't seem to be limited.
As the numbers continued to roll around, Harry turned towards the diminutive teacher. "You could have asked before casting a spell on me." he said sternly.
"I'm sorry." Flitwick apologized. "It hasn't been perfected yet. Visibly. I need more of a left flick, I think... yes..."
As Harry watched, the small man left them, his head in the Arithmancy formulas needed for spell creation.
"Filius is our Charms expert." Dumbledore said. "Well... what I mean is..."
Harry raised his staff until its head hit the rolling numbers – which had reached the thousands, by now. The numbers flickered out. "I do know it is difficult to create new spells from nothing. I appreciate the professional effort, but not the lack of politeness."
"I'm sure he meant well."
"Horrible things have been made by people meaning well." Harry said, his expression haunted by his own ghosts. After a second, he shook himself, only to see McGonagall looking at him shrewdly. Well... not exactly him. His arm.
"What?"
"I noticed your arm when you raised you staff, a tad earlier." she said. "Are these... runes?"
A pause. Harry looked at his arms. Of course, there were runes on them. Runes that had been there, and on several places on his body. Runes that had saved his soul at least twice in his long life. Runes that had pushed the Elves into researching how to repeat them, creating a lore about Runes in general. A lore that had been copied by wizards – but he didn't know that yet. "Er... yes?" he said tentatively.
Dumbledore's eyes lit up. "Would you be willing to teach Ancient Runes to our students? Our current teacher is retiring after this year, and it would really help us."
"Ancient Runes? Do you have Modern Runes as well?"
"Er... no. It's called Ancient Runes because nobody knows where they came from."
At this, Harry snorted, before coughing in his hand to disguise his near slip-up. Nobody, eh?
"All right." he finally said. "I'll do it."
"Great!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "Now let's head back to my office, where we'll discuss your wages."
When Harry read the previous professor's teaching notes, he snorted again – although he was safely alone in a hotel room above Diagon Alley. With a pack of History books next to his bed. And a "wand" too: since he had to appear normal to the wizarding population, he had temporarily transfigured his staff into one of those puny-looking bits of wood.
The program for Ancient Runes was lower in density than what he knew in the subject. And what he knew was enough to earn him the title of Rune Master, if he even deigned to pass the tests the Ministry of Magic had devised. He had initially thought that he'd be forced to return to the Elves in order to get instruction to become a Rune Lord (the other step above Mastery), but it wasn't necessary. And, apparently, human wizard didn't know about that title or what it entailed.
That was how, the following years, he found himself teaching the Ancient Runes elective course to students from third to seventh year. He met students like Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange. Like Evan Rosier and Bellatrix Black. And like Remus Lupin, James Potter, and Lily Evans. And he distinctively felt something particular about these three last students.
He knew Remus Lupin was a werewolf the moment he walked past him in the school. And that reminded him that he had a quest that had been put on hold in his hurry to insert himself in human affairs again: to put an end to the abominations that were lycanthropy and vampirism – the curse, not necessarily the individuals.
He soon decided to spend all his free time on this, spending his summer months hunting vampires and re-learning how to heal werewolves. With his help, Remus Lupin was transformed into a Lycan – a werewolf Animagus – a mere month into his third year. However, Harry didn't want people to know about that particular ability as of yet, and he made the young student vow to keep the charade during his whole stay in school.
James Potter and Lily Evans, on the other hand, were strangely familiar to him. He tried to find out why, but nothing came to his memory about a reason behind this. He resolved to keep an eye on them, and to help them to the best of his abilities. He taught Lily everything he knew about Runes – even using the runes he had on himself, after copying them down, as a practical example of protection scheme. He taught James several things about Defence that weren't learnt in school – going as far as explaining the Animagus self-transfiguration and the advantages thereof.
It was only in their seventh and last year in school that it became apparent that the two of them would finish married.
One day, Harry had a revelation about the reason behind his fascination with them.
It had been a regular school day, and their class had just left his classroom towards their Potion classroom. A few minutes later, Harry noticed several sheets of parchment lying on the floor. He magically summoned them and ordered them, only to find that it was a Potion essay from one Lily Evans. And, given the chatter that had gone on when the student had left, it was due today.
Since he didn't have any class right now, he decided to head there.
Slughorn was discussing about some Potions which effects weren't obtained by drinking them, but by inhaling them. Harry excused himself, explained the reason for his presence, and gave the essay back to Lily. He had the surprise of seeing Slughorn looking at him shrewdly when he turned back.
"Do you want to stay for the practical test?" the rotund man asked. "You might even assist me in testing the final product."
Not having anything better to do, Harry complied. After all, he was genuinely curious about the effect the Potion could have on him. It was a Reminiscence Potion focused on early memories, and his early memories, being as far as they were, could be interesting.
After seeing Slughorn sniffing a couple Potions and nodding, he tentatively took a vial and inhaled the grey fumes.
And he fainted.
He awoke two weeks later, in one of the the Hospital Wing's beds. With an intense headache. The Potion had been tweaked to recall several memories from the recipient's first years of life, but the ingredients used implied that this duration was a percentile of the recipient's whole life. And, given his extended lifespan, he had just relived his first millennium.
The interesting part, however, was the first year of this millennium, as he had distinctively recognized a modern house and his parents.
James and Lily Potter.
Wanting to find the two of them, he stood up quickly, only to fall back on the bed as his headache returned with a vengeance.
"Up so soon?" a gentle voice came from his right. It was the hospital matron. "You might need something for this aching of your head."
She gave him the requisite potion and explained how he had come to her Wing. Apparently, Slughorn had been disturbed that he had fallen unconscious, especially as the Potion was 100 percent effective – the Potion Master had tested it himself.
The period for the final exams had come and gone, his absence not really disturbing his students as they were already more than prepared for the Ancient Runes one. Right now, the woman informed him, the students were boarding the Hogwarts Express towards London.
That information jolted him out of bed, and he rushed through Hogwarts towards the station. It was too late, though, as the Express was already leaving the platform.
Through one of the windows, though, he noticed something that made him smile. Lily and James Potter were alone in a compartment, and they were kissing.
He slowed down and watched as the train accelerated southwards.
Another couple conclusions came to him. Since those two were his parents, he had to have been sent to the past. Magically, perhaps. Unfortunately, there were close to nothing known about time travel, especially with such a long "distance." He also knew something else: his last name. His official one, that is. Potter. The only thing missing was his date of birth...
Some of his plans for the summer couldn't be postponed, as he had provoked a meeting of vampire clans he had every intention of crashing into, in order to bring a hefty blow in the Vampire population. That operation was a mitigated success, as he got wounded in the process of beheading the seven elder vampires who had attended.
After healing his wounds, he also had another task: to retrieve the Cup. The one he had dubbed Holy Grail and that had been retrieved by one of his Paladins. He remembered hiding it, but the castle where it had been stored was a ruin. He followed several trails, some of them involving disbanded orders of chivalry like the Templars. That particular one did bear fruit, actually, as he found himself in a hidden shrine in Egypt.
As he arrived, the building was on the verge of collapsing, and an American archaeologist and his father exited it. Noticing the cup on the verge of falling into a crevice into Earth, he Summoned to his hand... only to find it empty.
Unbeknownst to him, the Holy Grail had been found by Arimathea's "sons" and drained by them in the process of enhancing their power and creating some powerful underlings as well – usually, for a vampire to gain a certain level, centuries of experience were needed ; the blood from the cup gave a potential vampire a jumping start of five hundred years.
Some of these vampires had fallen to the Knights Templar, enhancing the vampire's primal fear of the symbols of Christianity. Others had fallen in clan wars or against werewolves or wizards. Some clans, a bit too adventurous, had been completely wiped out by the Elves. But many vampires remained.
In his travels, Harry had renewed his friendship with the Elven tribes, and each of them had given him a room for when he stopped by. He hid the cup in one of these before returning to Hogwarts for the upcoming school year. He hadn't had time to visit his soon-to-be parents, but he thought he'd have time the next summer.
That was without taking into account his date of conception.
The evening of Halloween, while students participated in the usual pumpkin-decorated feast, Harry felt a great cold take hold of him, as if half of his power was being siphoned off. It alarmed him, and he spent a month trying to discern where all that energy had gone to. It was only an offhand remark from Dumbledore, after a teachers' meeting, that appeased him. Apparently, the Potters – who had been married just before Halloween – were expecting a happy event.
Harry tried to visit them, but Fate seemed to prevent his every try to reach them. Only when he thought seriously about it did he reach the conclusion that he couldn't act on the timeline any more – at least not until his "younger self" was sent to the past. Any change right now could be disastrous: if he wasn't sent to the past, everything he had participated in would collapse. And he had participated in many things.
It was mind-boggling.
Knowing that his margin of error would only reduce with each day passed, he told Dumbledore that he wouldn't continue teaching after the school year, and made himself a portkey to his room in the nearest Elven forest, where he would settle later, in order to stay in stasis until his younger self departed into the past.
He couldn't do anything else. Each time he tried to speak to someone about this, his mind locked up and he found himself voiceless. He knew that the Runes he had taught Lily were sufficient to help them, but he didn't know if she would be able to use them to their fullest extent – he should have known, though, because he was there, after all.
After the Hogwarts Express left towards London, the following summer, he walked past Dumbledore as the Headmaster was leaving for an appointment with a prospective Divination teacher. Once in the Elven settlement, located deep in the Forbidden Forest, he prepared himself for a possibly long stasis. His only condition for interrupting the ritual was if young Harry Potter disappeared.
As he was falling into unconsciousness, his last thought was about the condition: was it restrictive enough to wake him only for the important event, while being precise enough to effectively wake him up at that precise moment?
Only time would tell.
To be continued in next chapter: Coming Clean...