Chapter 9: The Waning of Time

AN: Rights are to JK Rowling and Warner brothers. Please write a review, feedback would go a long way to improve my work. People are reading but I don't know if they are staying or enjoying it. I don't care if you want to tell me I am the worst writer ever (if you do please tell me why and what I can improve) just tell me what you think! I still very much need a beta to help me improve on my work. Today's chapter is the first without a card as the title. There was an appropriate card to list as the title, but it would have given to much away and has not been revealed yet. We have a few time jumps in our future so be warned. We cover two full readings today! This chapter will be short as I didn't want to stretch it out. Thus you are short of about 1,000 words.

As always, I really need a beta. I make little mistakes in grammar and spelling and could use help in phrasing.

Special thanks to and TysonG for reviewing each new chapter. You guys are awesome.

Sorry for the wait.

Sorry for what happens, please don't hate me.

The Five of Cups

Harry loved flying. The wind ripping through his hair, and the empty surroundings, for once, not suffocating. Freedom, careening through an endless blue sea with only gods above to look down, unmatched by his peers. That was why he yearned with excitement for Quidditch. To witness others shoot around with daring exploits, pushing the magical brooms past their limits using teamwork to dismantle the opposition should be the greatest thing to watch.

Harry hated Quidditch. The teams had no cohesion and flew in slow, predictable patterns. Teammates would line up passes before attempting them and get picked off for it, only to repeat the process the opposite way. With the class of eagles against badgers should be in the bird's favor, as they had the returning team against a collection of newcomers in Hufflepuff, but the teams remained close, scoring five goals apiece. The coveted seekers, whom the game could be played between and the outcome would remain the same, floated lazily in the sky, peering at the world below from their high towers. A third year, Cedric Diggory, appeared comically small against the larger frame of Eddie Woods, a prefect in Ravenclaw. The discussion in Slytherin's common room was strange the previous day on which team to cheer for today. Cedric came from a lineage of purebloods, but the Ravenclaws acted as a closer ally of the snakes. A bludger rushed at the platforms only to be turned away by the magic barrier surrounding the stands to protect the observers.

Instead of the game, Harry examined the teachers, a much more interesting show. His head of house sat tall and proud, his face etched with loathing for the game. Contrasted against him sat the usually hard McGonagall, bursting with awe with a full grin extended across her face. Flitwick and Sprout leaned into each other whispering heated statements back and forth with Sinistra behind them covering her chuckle with her mouth. Absent from a more decorated seat was the Headmaster, a fact that he informed Harry the previous day, as the Wizgamont convened on the Saturday and Sunday. Hagrid was sitting in the back, oohing and awing with the surrounding crowd. The autumn air was brisk enough so steam was leaving his mouth, reddening Harry's nose as the boring children's game ticked into the hour mark.

It was the 26th today, the weekend before he could attempt magic again, the long waiting of September in the far distance. His moment depicting Swords still illusive. He hoped, waited, even prayed to nameless gods he didn't know hoping to show him what he needed to do, where to go, what was the way. His tea with Hagrid stood firm as his solace every week, the gentle and kind man related to Harry in more ways than both assumed. Dumbledore was similar. The elder wizard met with him every week to talk, making time for him, a foreign concept until this year. They discussed all kinds of subjects, the professor even helping him learn Egyptian when Harry hit a snag. With his peers, they ostracized him. Amongst his housemates he made no progress.

Blaise would glare at him, and Crabbe and Goyle would ignore him. Nott and Malfoy would grimace in his direction with cruel faces as would Parkinson, Moon, and Bulstrode. Davis and Greengrass cold-shouldered him at every turn. In his joint Herbology he worked with Su, who barley discussed their work topic with him. The Hufflepuffs rotated him in Preservation, each day loathing on their face; Finch-Fletcley, Bones, Macmillan, and Hopkins all having bit the bullet. The only class he did not sit with the opposing group was in the Gryffindor classes, in Potions he worked with Nott as further punishment for rule-breaking, and in Transfiguration he was often paired with the Professor, odd numbers between the classes made this common.

Harry frequently wondered if the other classes segregated as his own. Did the Gryffindor's intermingle with Hufflepuff, what about Ravenclaw?

The golden golf sized ball flew past them with barely a moment between it entering and exiting his view. A few people in the stands doubled-taked, but none watched it fly away, but Harry did. He followed the ball as it maneuvered through plays and around the post. Up, down, right, left it zigged and zagged and flew without care. It soared as Harry wanted, free of the pull of reality. Above, the seekers remained still.

The Five of Cups.

The news read as a dull affair. Incompetence stemmed from the ministry, enough that Harry wondered if his paper was as unbiased as he originally believed. If an office acted as corrupt and ineffective as the current regime; how did they continuously hold power? Increased strife with the Empire of China, assassin plots against the Saharan coalition, and insulting the Germans by naming a few. The weather in the east continued appearing odd, horrible monster storms starting and ending with little rational out of season.

In France, Nicolas Flamel was stepping down from his position at Beauxbatons. The famed crafter of the Philosopher's Stone deciding to settle down.

Harry sat alone in the library, as usual. In his weeks of being at school none had talked to him here; none had even approached him. He focused study on topics from his book, the dominant topic of his time. The leather-bound often described disgusting rituals and cruel magic spells, though other times it contained innocuous ones, and spells to heal. Harry's favorite spoke of hiding and tricking people's attention away. He grew more comfortable with the languages and did not need to reference the speaking text as often to read sections, he once carried a conversation with himself flipping between the Greek and Egyptian for each participant.

Another first year was often alone in the library.

It was the fluffy-haired girl, Granger, the one who had upset Snape in class. Honestly, he disliked the girl, which struck him as odd with how kind she acted to most people. She was loud and rude in class; she would cut the teachers off with her skyrocketing hand and slowed down lectures and practical lessons. Her tone sounded condescending in all conversations.

But she, like him, sat isolated in the library. She, like him, was alone. She, like him, never smiled outside the prying eyes of her peers, the lonely brown eyes only appearing when no one watched.

He subconsciously knew he should approach her. Together they could be less lonely, together they could help each other prosper in this cruel building. Harry wouldn't. As much as he wished and hoped, he would fail. She was too driven and smart. He would drag her down to his level and leave her with nothing, even if she had him. What joy did he bring?

Honestly, he respected the girl, admired her. He found that odd considering how she presented herself. She was driven and kind. Hardworking and smart. She always asked question's that Harry was too afraid to. She always wore a slight smile that filled her face when she learned something new. Often Harry forgot to read and instead would look at her face scrunch up when not understanding something, or her eyebrows furrowing when thinking, or her satisfied, triumphant smirk when figuring it out, which she always did.

As Harry eventually packed up and left never noticing the front of her text, Dueling for Dummies, thecover depicted two men crossing swords in front of a tribunal of six-member, eight swords in all.

The Eight of Swords.

When the night arrived, it appeared with another night to decide his fate, another night to reveal the truth. The repeated motions and clever maneuvers worked the fading edges of the deck. The soft repetition lulling him into a deep trance coercing the magic to show him fate. Harry couldn't breathe. His heart either stopped or beat too quickly to register within. The cool glow of the moon cascaded over his bed with his roommate echoing around as the sinister triple lay bare before him.

The first revelation showed his past, again held by the second major arcana card, The High Priestess. Her frosty face judged Harry for not finding her hidden truth, an accusation for not trying to.

Diviners regarded his second as the worst card. His present was also a major arcana. The crumbling mass, its crown removed by lighting, burning in a horrid storm with two men falling to their fate below the mountainside. XVI, The Tower. A sign of Ambition ending in failure, ruin and disaster.

The last card depicting his future watched the skeletal man riding his horse through fields of skeletons. He was to die, as XIII, Death, was his future. When the morning of the 27th arrived Harry strode with Alastair in his pocket to breakfast, bags heavy under his sleepless eyes.

The Tower.

He cast no magic. Professor Dumbledore, during their Friday meeting, said that the following Monday he could try magic again. Harry even cast Lumos before him. The pair smiled at the success, though now it troubled him. Did The Tower correspond with his magical ability? Would casting trigger the events? He wished to use magic and to use it well. Would using it now strain his body and kill him?

Harry examined every corner, every open door. He lurked through crowded halls to find the safest path; he feared death. The concept of an end terrified him. No matter how much he wished for the pain to end, what would happen if he died. He was not a righteous person, if God existed Heaven was not his destination. If Hades instead greeted him, he was not Elysium bound. What if religion lied and death was the end?

Harry would bite, fight, and claw to that finale. No longer would he regret his life, he would succeed.

The bell tower rang to signal the end of an hour.

The Tower.

Tuesday, while in Preservation practical with Hufflepuff, the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had Charms. The class, which this pair had tomorrow, went over Wingardium Leviosa a spell to make an object float.

After the class, Harry cut through the courtyard, hoping to reach the library quicker to read and learn more. The pride stalked the courtyard with him, leading it was a red-faced Weasley, his voice shrill and loud.

"It's Lev-I- OH-sa, not Lev-i-oh-sa. It's no wonder she has got no friends."

Around him, the boys and girls of the group laughed at his cruel joke. The clear blue sky above not matching the sinister ongoing below, the crisp autumn air cutting as much as the remark. The girl with beaver teeth turned and ran the opposite way.

She wasn't at dinner.

The Tower.

Professor Flitwick was highly entertaining to watch. As he hopped around the room helping people with the spell, clapping with glee as one after another succeeded with the task, often glancing at Harry in anticipation. When class ended, he held Harry behind.

"Why didn't you try the spell, Mr. Potter." Harry met him with a shrug.

"The Headmaster spoke to me, he told me how you were cleared to cast magic." He tried to meet Harry's eyes, but the cruel green met the floor instead.

"Please, can you try it for me," looking up was a mistake. Harry was certain that the professor was a part goblin. Despite that, his brown eyes were kind and wanting. His voice carried desperation.

Harry flicked out his yew, grasping it as practiced. He pushed their connection and tried to block the sounds of his crumbling life. He spoke the words, focusing on the feather before him, lightening it, pushing it up, stringing it from above. He tried to force the flowing energy inside of him to grab that concept and perform his task.

His magic did not listen. Attempt after attempt yielded no magic lifted the feather.

"Why don't you try to use Lumos."

He did, the faint glow began, hardly noticeable on the white wood.

"And Wingardium Leviosa."

He tried calling his magic again. Again, he failed. An attempt at screaming the spell had no positive action either.

"Why don't you practice a few minutes every day and meet with me next week again?" Harry shook his head in affirmation and left, walking through the baron halls.

"Potters alone again,

Coming around the bend,

Tomorrow will see at last,

The consequences of the past,"

The screeching Peeves tore past Harry, who watched with wide eyes. He stood until an angry and bitter caretaker strode past holding a mop and bucket. As he glanced at Harry, he yelled and cursed at the young boy to move on. Harry ran to the Great Hall and sat alone, picking at his food. With wondering eyes he found, sitting at the Gryffindor table, Hermione, red and puffy.

Later, Harry went to visit Hagrid for their Wednesday. The giant spoke of magical creatures with fiery passion and taught Harry about so many topics like nursing baby dragons, grooming manticores, and pruning hippogriffs. As the sun set, Hagrid walked him to his dorm, chatting about cerberuses. Harry slept the night, dreaming of a bleeding sky, a towering monster, and a possessed Quirrell with angry red eyes.

The Tower.

The Dursleys hated Halloween. It was a horrible day in their household. Vernon would yell at children at the door and tell them how they worshiped Satan. Petunia, when Harry was eight, took glee in informing him that this was the day his parents died. She never spoke of how, only implied they deserved their fate. The only negative of the experience was how he failed to follow their deaths.

Classes ticked away as he wandered the halls with indifference he never experienced. His parents had died ten years ago, James and Lily, people he never knew; why did their passing affect him so? The strangers of his origin having no influence on him. Around him people smiled and celebrated openly. Perhaps Halloween was a larger holiday in the magic world than in his first. The groups would go strangely silent when he walked past, the stares of the student body more intense than before. Some people looked with hope, others, mainly older Slytherins, with loathing.

Harry kept his head down and walked.

The Tower.

Dinner was bright and festive. Pumpkins decorated the hall, with bats and paper ghost running amuck above the dining hall. The food appeared more prepared than normal, and the professors dressed more formally. Except for the headmaster, his robes glistened and sparkled in an array of colors, he adorned a plain black one. He smiled down at Harry from the head table, the only staff member not smiling. Dumbledore looked older than normal, his eyes heavier and moist. At his table most smiled and chatted, but few amongst the eldest ate with solemn eyes and angry stabs. His turban-wearing professor was missing.

At the Gryffindor table, a certain bushy-haired girl was absent.

Once the meal and dessert finished Dumbledore stood and cleared his throat, silencing the chattering hall. He opened his mouth to speak when the doors of the hall crashed against the walls, leading in a wounded Quirrell. His turban draped on the ground revealing his bald head, his arm crushed, and his leg hobbled under him. His eyes shimmered in fright and horror.

"Troll, troll in the castle." He continued forward before swaying and falling against the door, sliding down leaving a trail of blood. The masses swelled with screams and yelling, panicking all around.

"Silence." The headmaster's voice called over the all seating and silencing the students. "Prefects I ask you to bring the students to their dormitories. Fillius, Aurora, Hagrid, Severus, and Kettleborn with me." He led the group from the hall briskly. Most of the room still sat. Until the red-headed bully stood firm and approached McGonagall. What he whispered to her gave her a frightening face.
"Fifteen points from Gryffindor for atrocious behavior, but fifteen points to Gryffindor for doing a brave and hard thing. Does anyone have any information on the whereabouts of Hermione Granger?" After a silent answer, "Pomona, Babbling, Nymphadora Tonks and Cepheus Black, with me, please." She led her group from the hall as the prefects led the groups out into the Entrance Hall to go to their common rooms. The Slytherins parted from the Hufflepuffs lower in the school. Harry walked in the back of the group, behind Parkinson and Bulstrode.

"I heard that winey mudblood crying in Myrtle's bathroom," Parkinson whispered.

"You mean Granger," Bulstrode replied.

"Ya, maybe if we are lucky Moaning Myrtle won't be the only ghost their anymore, maybe they will close that stupid bathroom down for good then."

The students moved further and further away as Harry stood still. She had no clue about the troll, and he knew her location. He should tell the prefect to save Granger. But you could emerge a hero and be adored. The castle is too vast. There is no chance that you would be hurt by saving her. Your classmates will love you, celebrate you. This is your moment. Seize your sword.

His feet moved before he could think of an answer to the previously hostile voice. Carrying him up the dungeon steps and to the main stairwell. The normally well-lit corridors leered down hauntingly, monsters jumping from the shadows. Harry ran up the steps regarding his Charms professor below entering a hallway. He should call for help. No, this is your moment. You cannot share the victory; it must be yours.

He arrived on the second floor and ran to the loo. A horrible stench hit his nose. It was a rancid smell of decay and death, maggots and filth. Water flooded into the corridor with a light red tint as crashing and a high pitch scream emitted with some grunting. He froze. The cries of help trigger a memory of a time before, the screaming, pulling it forward. Death and sadness were his first memory.

The flowing red hair and a kind smile. Warm green eyes. A slim face and fluffy robe. Lily. His mother was perfect and kind. She spoke to him; he watched her through bars as her blood dripped on the floor; she curled it on the floor, symbols he remembered, protection, death, sacrifice. His book used the same symbols in harsh rituals. She stood proudly in the center of her creation, blocking the babe from the door as the living dead entered the room.

He was white as chalk with a bald scalp. The man had glowing red eyes and plain black robes. He spoke with Lily before killing her in a green flash. Tom Riddle approached him in bed, speaking in a soft tone, unnatural for his gruesome killing. The runes on the floor glowed, but the man only watched Harry. Then he spoke the oldest words in Harry's memory and ended the vision with a green light.

The wall in front of Harry exploded as a tree trunk went through it. He dove back as the screaming continued. Two words overtook his being, Save her.

Harry leapt to his feet and charged into the bathroom, seeing the beast for the first time. The green monster was enormous. It was taller than Hagrid with green skin peeking out from animal hides tossed on its body, hides that never were cleaned. Its hands held long claws, and its mouth housed crooked, long, sharp teeth. It bore over Granger who clutched a bleeding leg with a chunk of porcelain sticking out. Her face was bloated and red as she rolled away from another strike from the makeshift club, pain etched on her face.

Save her.

"Granger." He shouted gaining the attention of her as the troll recovered from the shock of his attack, steading his arm for another lift of the enormous weapon. "I will save you."

"And what is your plan?" She dodged another attack from the monster. Her voice was dry and cracked.

"I'll distract it and you run."

After another miss, she yelled back, "Run, have you seen my leg."

"Just do it," Harry screamed, grabbing a chunk of a toilet from the ground and hucking it at the troll. It took seven hits and thirteen throws to get the green feral eyes on him. Harry backed away slowly as Hermione made it to the other exit of the bathroom, limping into the hallway.

Harry ran from the room as the troll began its attack, missing by a hair. In the hallway he ran to the witch who supported herself on the wall, stepping together forward to the Grand Staircase. Diving under her arm, he put her weight on his own with a strength he didn't know as the two moved as fast as they could away.

The monster screamed and beat the door of the smaller exit Harry used as butterflies filled his stomach. He had done it; he saved her.

The wall crumbled as the troll broke free. His heart replaced the butterflies as they tried going faster. They needed to escape.

The monster was fast reaching them in seconds, swinging his club like a cricket bat.

Harry and Hermione tried to dodge, but not in tandem, leaving them stationary as the club crashed into the brunette's side.

The pair flew together through the wooden door they stood in front of Harry cracking against the stone wall in the room slumping down with Granger in his lap. A metallic tang filled his mouth as he emptied a stomach of blood and acid on the adolescent girl before him. Her arm appeared pulverized, matching her ribs. Crimson rushed from her nose and escaped from her ears and mouth. Her brown intelligent eyes met his own, dimming from before. She looked at him with a tender smile.

The Tower.

The beast attacked the wall between him and his prey.

Her warm, bloodied hand reached up to caress his face before grabbing his own, tears flowing from her. She smiled at him despite the agony. Her mind was full of regret. She wished to sit with him in the library as much as he did. Despite being in Gryffindor, she was not that brave. She remembered her father and mother, her younger sister, a kind house. Her cat whiskers, who she left at home. The old fat black cat loving to sun. That is where she was, under the warm sun in a grassy meadow, fresh flowers blooming around in a flurry of color. In the distance her family played as she lay flat, peeking from her book to glance at the clouds, the smell of Easter ham and pie from a basket not far away. She slipped further and further into that dream before whispering to him.

"Thank you, Harry Potter, for trying to save me."

He was no longer in her mind. All that remained was an empty space with nothing to fill it. He sat in the red thick film before grabbing his wand.

He channeled all his desire for life, his hope for revival. To preserve which should not be lost. His entire being overflowed with a desire to save her, to do something good. He yelled out the Greek incantation "apokatastíste ti spasméni zoírestore," or restore a broken life. The spell also needed the blood of a living innocent, someone who had never killed. He brandished his wand, red painting along its white shaft as he maneuvered the complex and motion. As he finished the word magic gathered around, swirling with him as the epicenter. His wand let loose the ring of the bell, the toll of Ollivanders shop. Hermione's dead eyes still watched him. The spell failed; she was dead. Two minutes had passed since she began her test against the troll.

The goliath broke through the wall. It swaggered forward with glee, finally trapping its hunt. It smiled down with its jigsaw mouth upon Harry. Harry was enraged, more upset than he had ever been. He failed, and this girl was dead, she wanted to be his friend and she died. She trusted him, and now she is dead.

Harry did not care anymore. The world, his life, none of it mattered. The only truth remaining was the disgusting thing needed to die. A troll exists as a monster, a blight, a cancer in all but name. It was worthless and evil and needed to die.

Harry looked down at the peaceful face of Hermione, the last smile still on her face, a glimmer of hope held in her eyes. The bells rang around, filling his ears with the murderous song. The voice egged him on. Do it, do it. He killed the girl; it needs to die. Everything is the monster's fault.

It was, but it was also his. He had many opportunities to get help. A better wizard may have saved her, even Professor Flitwick who scuttled only a few floors below. Between the legs of the green beast the horrified eyes of Flitwick watched Harry, who gripped the petite witches' hand tighter.

"Give me the strength I need for this Hermione, I'm sorry we couldn't be friends, I'm sure it would be a blast." Frozen tears started as he looked at the monster before him. The stunned professor moved as much as the troll as the bells continued their chimes. The crumbling room around him paused as Harry lifted his arm.

His mind repeated over and over how worthless the monster was, how evil, how he needed to die. Hatred, utter loathing.

He spoke as he mirrored the pattern he learned so long ago. Overlaid on the body of the troll was the white form of Tom Riddle. The hybrid loomed with its green and red eyes as Harry drew the bolt of power with his matching white wand to the memory. He whispered the words.

"Avada Kedavra."

The room filled with green and Harry knew black.

Death.

I am sorry for killing her.