Bold + Italic - Direct citation from the book
~Italic~ - Spells in Parseltongue
This chapter is in continuation with the previous one and it sheds light on Harry's previous night's action. It tries to explain the difference between the persona of canon Harry and Harry of this story. I would do an injustice to myself if I explain everything in the header section so kindly go through the story.
"Please…no… leave me alone….why?...Why are you doing this to me?...muffled screams…."
"Someboddyy..help…me…."
"Has someone seen my son, four years old, black eyes…"
"My daughter…my daughter…she went to fetch water, did you see her? She was going to return within minutes,… please find her, and tell her… tell her that her li'lle brother is crying for her….."
"Maamma….mamma..sobs…mamma"
"Avada Kedavra!"…. "mamma..mamma…"…. "pa'foo…pa'foo…dada 'here dada?"
He wakes up with a jerk, disoriented, his clothes completely drenched in sweat, looking as if he has just returned from Quidditch training on a stormy day. He looks around and finds himself alone while the clock has already struck 9 o'clock, half an hour ago. Usually, a teenager would dream of the fairer sex and ways to enjoy his time. Alas, his dreams are full of nightmares of people tortured, life's destroyed, families destroyed and his parent's death. These were the clear indications of the arrival of the great evil which had risen to power last time because good people in power were shy to use it for the welfare of society. Change is inevitable, so there was a power shift and this time it fell into the hands of not so good ones who were led by him from the shadows. They wielded it however they wished, changed the law left and right in the name of reform and brought up new regulations to help themselves and their best buddies to get away with any crime they committed in the name of blood purity.
He feels the life beaming in the Castle, hears the joy in the voice of his friends and contemplates the future gleaming in the eyes of his schoolmates. He and maybe Dumbledore alone hear the slithering of a snake who is getting ready to crush the hope and life out of all living beings and convert the joyous calls and laughter into the cacophony of pain and suffering. It goes without saying that this snake is far more dangerous and evil than the basilisk he had faced in his second year. The last time when this monster walked on the earth, he had painted it red with the blood of the magical being who refused to bow down in front of him. The magical lineage meant nothing to him, right-wrong, good-evil, everything is just words for him, power, he lived and died for power, he spared and killed for power.
Only due to his mother's sacrifice, the atrocity of this monster did come to an end then ordinary men were able to breathe a sigh of relief. Thirteen years are not enough to rebuild the society that was brought down to its knees by his mindless and inbred followers. It was strenuous to subvert the damage in such a short span even if they had worked round the clock. In addition, these years were complemented by the leadership of spineless and pompous leaders like Fudge. He allowed death eaters to go scot-free and continue their master's noble work from behind the shadow while filling their and Fudge's private coffers with gold. All the hopes and chances of rebuilding the country went to waste while the economic and social condition hit a new low. All in all, providing the most favourable and ripe situation for the uprising of a dark lord or a dictator, but we already have one, our resident favourite dark lord, Tom Marvolo Riddle aka Lord Voldemort. He is meticulously planning his return and putting it into action simultaneously and it has not met any resistance so far. He thinks that he will not face any opponent apart from the Great Dumbledore in the upcoming future.
But he is so wrong this time because he doesn't know a far more persistent and stubborn boy has decided to stand against him with all his intent and might. He had decided that let it be the last thing he might do even so he shall do it with such zeal that his actions shall reverberate across the stars and galaxies for upcoming centuries. He will be the unstoppable force that will move the earth and sky to put a full stop to the tyranny of Voldemort and his followers. He is not some weak-willed fourteen-year kid anymore, trying to be plain and blend amongst the common masses. In his small lifetime, he has dealt with bizarre and life-threatening events that make him far different from typical magical and growing up too early. He has accepted his fate of facing the monster begrudgingly. He acknowledged it whole-heartedly after seeing the massacre and the act of savagery with his own eyes after the Quidditch world cup. The account of heinous acts committed in the Blood war he read in his parents' journal and in the newspaper girded him. The adjoining change he experienced is that he stopped looking up to the common masses for their confirmation and applause and became a man of his ideals and principles.
Merlin blesses the wand of his godfather for sending the journal of his parents. The character and behaviour of his parents originally possessed were poles apart from the perception he has built on the airing and commenting of people around him. Both of his parents had unwavering and dominating personalities yet were very compatible with each other. His mother was a pragmatist and his father was highly progressive. The best thing was that neither of them gave a Knut to thoughts of other people about themselves and always had informed opinions. He could easily see his stubbornness, fiery temperament, cunningness, curiosity and enthusiasm he had inherited from his mother like her emerald eyes but had stopped using the latter ones, all in the name of becoming a quintessential Gryffindor. Like him, she was also going to be sorted into the Slytherin when she had said, "Place me any far from the house which adorns my favourite colour and I will burn you to hell." The more he read her journal, the more he felt close to his mother in all attributes. He realised that he was giving away all the best things he had inherited from her and modifying his personality for pleasing his friends and fickle-minded common masses.
He had never liked when his friends or people kept on judging and directing him in an attempt to control him and the primordial of all of them was his ex-best friend whom he stunned and burnt the bridge of friendship without any regret. People readily accepted and even a few of them even praised him for befriending a muggleborn as all of them saw that both Hermione and his mother were of muggle origin but overlooked the fact both of them are poles apart as his friend is rude, bossy, holds a very high opinion of herself, Godric saves you if you act or have an opinion that doesn't agree with her restricted opinion or limited experiences of the magical world and Merlin save the Avalon if you try to hide a single fact, she would keep on pestering for that information until you gave up or fled away or in his opinion stunned her but he will hold his opinion until he gets the reaction of his last night action.
His mother had her own shortcomings though it was none of the above-mentioned ones. She was very easily approachable and for that reason, many younger Slytherin girls asked for her help when she was perfect and Headgirl during her school years. She never used to have half-baked opinions and always supplemented her knowledge to build her opinions and make informed decisions throughout her life's journey. She would never interfere in your life and also wouldn't allow you to do so until it is affecting her and her acquaintances, some of the best instances were whence she used to get back to Marauders for tormenting her childhood friend Snape and they were never able to get a wind that she has fooled and outsmarted them.
His father was a demon with his wand, completely unmatched in the field of Transfiguration and duelling and could easily take down at least two to three death eaters on his worst days. If he had survived the war he would have taken up Mastery in Transfiguration or Alchemy or both and may have achieved the level of Dumbledore in these fields as not everyone gets extra credits in OWLs and NEWTs for Transfiguration and Charms and recommendation from the headmaster himself for pursuing mastery. He not only became an Animagus at the tender age of fifteen but helped his friends to manage it, especially Peter who was completely hopeless for a wizard. His father was a proud man and drew his inspiration from extensive lineages such as Linfred of Stinchcombe, his earliest ancestor and creator of Pepper-Up Potion and his father, Fleamont Potter, creator of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and quadrupled the family fortune. He was fairly talented in Potions also as he was the one to brew the Animagus potion at a young age.
He was displeased with his father when he read about his obsession with tormenting Snape in his mother's diary, especially when he had humiliated Snape on the evening of his Defence Against Dark Arts OWL examination. He understood why Snape hated him with such passion because he saw him as the offspring of his tormentor and the woman he loved or was obsessed with. In the later entries when she had started dating him, he failed to understand why was she dating him, he had doubted that she might be under the influence of a love potion or any enchantment but quickly disregarded it as she was far better than him in potions, charms and enchantments. In the later entries, she brought up the reason why she was dating his father and was heavily rejoiced after knowing it. After he read his father's journal he was disgusted with himself that he had doubted his father and was proud of his actions of becoming Animagus and tormenting Snape and his buddies.
Many say that his father was an arrogant toe-rag and would hex anyone for antagonising him nonetheless it was a bit far from the truth. He was a very proud person right from his childhood and had no ounce of cunningness in him however he later incorporated it into his life. He used to hold grudges and if you have wronged him, his friends or any innocent person then you are marked and should be ready to face the consequences of your action, he was like a righteous hero who will avenge you in his own cost. He held no respect for the authorities as he saw that junior death eaters used to go scot-free in the name of minimal evidence or second chances and innocent people used to suffer due to such actions.
He took the matter into his own hand and started pranking and humiliating these troublemakers which boosted his popularity in the school. He superbly used the persona of playboy and socialite antics to draw the attention away from his actions. He was a man of his own rules and didn't give a Knut about anyone's opinion. He was the best in the field of wielding magic among his schoolmates as in his childhood he was educated in various aspects of life and magic by his parents and he had taken those lessons as fish takes to water. Due to his upbringing, he was like a proud mountain, an unmovable object displaying its permanence and providing shelter to the needy and deserted as he had done in supporting Remus financially after school and in school life emotionally by becoming Animagus.
When Snape was sorted in the Slytherin, he had joined the cohorts of Malfoy with great enthusiasm and committed to this comradeship. His friendship with muggleborn Gryffindor was a ticket to wiggle out if he was caught, he had to just make a statement, "My best friend is a muggleborn Gryffindor… why would I commit such an act?" and he was declared innocent of all crimes. Although, most of the time he was not caught as efficiently covered his tracks.
The humiliation he faced on that evening was the retraction his father had planned for the deeds Snivellus and his friends Avery and Mulciber had inflicted on Mary MacDonald, it had not gone as he had planned albeit the message was delivered. His mother had tried to save her friendship with Snape even if she suspected his involvement because she knew that this friendship was the last strain that had prevented him from falling into the bowels of darkness. She regretted his upbringing and hence always showered him with forgiveness and kindness which he mistook as love. Also, her mother never fancied him and looked at Snape as a younger brother. He was becoming a sadist and narcissist due to his actions, companionship and upbringing. When he had humiliated and called her Mudblood, he had burnt all the bridges of friendship and paid dearly for it as he had lost his one and only true friend.
Seeing the true persona of his parents, he started to shed the false exterior that he adorned to protect himself from his tormentors in his childhood. He added a few more false faces of laziness and indifference to his personality after befriending Ron and Hermione to please them. After reading his parent's journal he started introspection and came up with startling discoveries about himself and made his mission to be the child of his parents in all aspects and not just a carrier of their name. It was high time Sirius had given him those journals as he noticed the gap in his personality and how his fake one was slowly displacing his original one.
The more he receded to the original one, the more he was at ease with being himself. His dad's journal was filled with learning about magic from his father and forefather. This knowledge and information were passed from generation to generation and if his father was alive today he would have taught him himself. A few of them were how one is composed of magic and the means to easily access it, the concept of the magic leaving its traces along with its identification of caster, how to identify it and the practical methods applied to progress in the subtle art of magic identification and manipulation.
He always felt the warm rush of magic flowing through him whenever he casts a spell or passed through enchantment and even while performing accidental magic. Heck, he can almost sense magic out of everything if he tried hard enough. He completely disregarded these experiences for the foolish notion of performing magic in a normal way by using wand movements and incantations. He never explored his talents in secrecy and hid them from everyone as he did with his childhood experiences. Well, by hiding his magical ability he did a good thing as this aspect is regarded as family magic and is strictly prohibited from sharing with anyone who doesn't share blood or bond by marriage. His father and forefathers' concept of performing magic was based on will, intent, power and imagination as its four pillars. The result of the application of his learning from his father was visible from the first class of this year as he was the first one to master any spell and it incensed Hermione.
His mother's journal was a goldmine of information on customs, traditions and understanding of the magical world, the contrast between magical and mundane worlds, how much purebloods were wrong and how much they were right. According to her, muggleborn are the descendant of squibs which results from marrying their close cousin for the sake of keeping their blood pure even modern genetics proves that marrying close cousins proportionally increases the chance of a child born being born with Autosomal recessive inheritance, it completely hampered their magic turning them into squib but with the time the genetic mutation might be cured and a magical child will be born with most of his/her family magical trait rejuvenated like the one in her case, which she found out while talking with his father during final years. That trait was none other than the infamous talent of being Parseltongue. In her childhood, she had accidentally spoken to snakes and forgot about it, taking it as accidental magic and she mentioned the event to his father. His father had a nagging suspicion that she was a Parseltongue and persuaded her to check her theory.
The conversation went something like this: "Lils, love, please trust me, I am going to conjure a snake and try to talk to it, many people view Parseltongue as dark magic. I wouldn't say there is no such thing as dark magic, there is and it has been repeatedly used to harm people but people forget that magic is all about intent, a person can use a tickling charm to torture a person to insanity…"
"James, don't test my nerves, I am not some fool who doesn't understand the concept of magic, go ahead and conjure the snake, if you feel that I am Parseltongue then let us put your delusion to test and prove you wrong that it was not, go ahead…"
"Serpensortia!" A horned serpent appeared on the ground and started to slither towards her, she was compelled by magic to talk to it and she spoke, ~Hello!~ And that was enough to shock her, she couldn't digest this revelation and emptied her stomach there only. "Vipera Evanesca", with this serpent vanished away in the thin air and swift "Evanesco" vanished the vomit within a moment, her boyfriend's strong arms engulfed her and she kept on sobbing until her heart lightened out while he held her and kept on telling it is just another magical trait and everything would be fine that she is the same Lily Evans whom he loves the most and will always standby and protect her till his dying breath. It had taken a week for his mother to accept her family legacy and after that, she repeatedly started using it and found that while casting in serpent tongue it increased her control over magic and delivered far better results than she had experienced.
She found that magical language act as a better conduit of magic than mundane languages and having a skill similar to a dark wizard doesn't make a person bad as there might be many more similarities but it is the action and intent of a person which makes one far better and different than dark wizards. It would be a lie if one would say that he was not startled from the source of his Parseltongue ability and it would have been very foolish of him to disregard this talent and let it go to waste. This added one more thing he shared with his mother, not with the monster Voldemort. He added to his checklist to visit the Chamber and check for any other magical relics present there however it will be put on hold for this year in the face of his participation in the Triwizard tournament.
It was good that his godfather was able to preserve their journal and send it to him along with his letter before heading for Tropical to regain his health. The research and study they carried out for their mastery were lost as per his godfather, it also consisted of the ritual which his mother had performed to protect him. But, he had doubted that his parents must have hidden their work somewhere behind the blood wards in the ruins of their home in Godric's Hollow. It showed that Dumbledore was not omniscient and his parents had a lot of secrets which they took to their graves. He would have also been negligent of all of it if his godfather wouldn't have given him the journals which enlightened him and made him grow up at the right time of his life.
Alas, all of this growing up didn't go well with his friends, Hermione was having a hard time digesting his new psyche as he rebuffed instead of following her lead when she tried to push him on the path she wished, his increased knowledge and desire to pursue it along with changing his elective from Divination to Runes didn't sit well with Ron. His increased sneaky nature, spending more time in the library and practising magic instead of being lazy with Ron or listening to the rant of Hermione and improved performance in class without any external help also widened the gap in their friendship. In search of friendship and acceptance, he has been fooling himself and kept on fantasising that the magical world is different from a muggle one even if his consciousness kept on showing him the reality. His parent's journal gave him the power and assurance to accept himself and propelled him on the path to his greatness.
A lot of thanks to all people who read the story and are willing to read the future instalments of this story. Kindly review the story.
Author's note:
1)This story is going to be updated from a week to a fortnight on a regular basis.
2)I promise that this story is going to see the last chapter and will not be abandoned.
3)It would be an injustice to the characters if I reveal about them. So, be tuned and wait for the next update.
P.S. This is an early update as I had my next installation ready to be posted.
All the characters of this story belong to JK Rowling unless stated otherwise.