Hey Guys! I know, I know, I should be updating Dragons: Race to the Burrow, but I've been awfully busy. Honestly. But exams will soon be over and I'll get back to that in full force. In the meantime, I couldn't get this idea to leave me alone, so here we are. Hope y'all like it!
(Don't judge the pairing without checking it out first, yeah? You could always stop reading if you get uncomfortable.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
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When the Lilies Bloom
Chapter 1: Bound and Found
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"Kill me now, Dumbledore…"
Harry was in the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic, every part of him screaming for release as Voldemort's voice spoke though him.
"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy…"
Let the pain stop, Harry thought desperately. Let him kill us… End it, Dumbledore…
I'll see Sirius again…
"Oh, Harry…" a voice - a muffled, feminine echo cut through Harry's screams as it registered in his brain. His heart filled with emotion and suddenly, the pain was gone.
He was lying on the floor, body covered in sweat and breathing ragged. An agonised scream that was not his own rang through the Atrium, and he raised his head with a herculean effort. Voldemort was one his knees, flesh charred and robes smoking. His glowing red eyes were bright with rage, confusion, and… fear?
Before anything else could happen however, Voldemort raised his wand and pointed it at Harry.
"Avada Kedavra!"
As the green jet of light flew towards Harry, he just caught the look of horror on Dumbledore's face before he closed his eyes.
But the oblivion that Harry had been expecting did not arrive. Instead, his eyes shot open as he once again screamed in pain, dimly aware that something cold and thick was pouring out his scar. As the pain finally subsided, he weakly looked down to see his hands covered in a liquid he would have called blood had it not been for its unnaturally dark colour. His eyes flicked up to meet the startled faces of dozens of Ministry employees who had not been there moments ago, Dumbledore's shocked gaze, and Voldemort's wide eyes filled with fear.
As the Dark Lord grabbed Bellatrix and disapparated away, Harry's exhausted body finally gave out and he closed his eyes before collapsing.
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"Don't let go, Harry!" the shadowy form of Bertha Jorkins cried, her voice echoing as if it were very far away, just like Cedric and the old man's had. "Don't let him get you!"
The three shadowy figures began prowling around the golden dome in the middle of the graveyard, whispering encouragement to Harry and hissing inaudibly at Voldemort.
And then, another figure began to emerge from the tip of Voldemort's wand, and Harry's heart was racing wildly, because he knew who it was going to be, as if he'd expected it since the moment Cedric had appeared. He knew, because the woman was one he'd thought of more than any other tonight…
A ghostly figure fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him. And Harry's heart skipped a beat as he looked back into the ghostly face of James Potter.
He walked closer to Harry and whispered in the same distant, echoing voice, "We won't be able to remain too long after the connection is broken, but we will give you time… you must get to the Portkey, it will take you back to Hogwarts… do you understand, Harry?"
Nodding quickly, fighting to keep a hold on his wand, Harry gasped out, "Where- where's mum?"
James just smiled, lifting a smoky hand to place it over Harry's chest.
"Harry…" Cedric's figure whispered. "Take my body back, will you? Take it back to my parents…"
"I will," Harry ground out, struggling to not let go just yet.
"Do it now," his father whispered. "Be ready to run, do it now…"
"NOW!" Harry yelled, pulling his wand upright with an almighty wrench, and the golden thread broke.
Voldemort screamed in rage.
"Harry…" A melodic voice sounded through the haze of confusion and sleep as Harry Potter's eyes snapped open and he sat up in his bed, breathing hard.
It had been a while since he'd had a nightmare about the graveyard, Sirius and the Department of Mysteries being fuel enough to lose sleep over.
He sighed as he put on his glasses and pushed aside the drapes of his four poster bed, looking around the sixth-year Gryffindor boys dormitory. Everyone was sound asleep, Ron's snores filling the room as usual.
Deciding he couldn't go back to sleep now, he pulled some clothes on and exited the dorm after grabbing the Marauder's Map and the Invisibility Cloak.
As he wandered through the corridors of Hogwarts, he thought back to that fateful night in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. It was the one question that had never been answered, despite Dumbledore having explained all about the Prophecy and the Horcruxes to him.
He knew that his body had been harbouring a piece of Voldemort's soul for almost fifteen years, up until the night at the ministry when the Dark Lord had cast the Killing Curse at him, destroying his own Horcrux.
Ever since being divested of the vile thing, Harry had undergone quite a few changes. For one, his scar had stopped bothering him at all, and was beginning to fade with time. He no longer had any visions of Voldemort and had stopped feeling the Dark Lord's emotions through the now non-existent bond. He'd hit a growth spurt, gaining several inches of height and filling out so that he was no longer skinny but lean. That may very well have nothing to do with the Horcrux, but something told Harry most significant change, however, was in his magic.
His magical ability had increased exponentially, with Dumbledore theorising that the piece of Voldemort's soul had been dampening his magical core all this time and preventing him from tapping into his true potential.
Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts had been filled with sessions with Dumbledore, Quidditch practices, NEWT classes which had the Professors bearing down on the students harder than ever, and trying to figure out what in hell Draco Malfoy was up to. His efforts to uncover Draco's plans had yet to bear fruit as following the ferret around the Marauder's Map didn't seem to be doing any good.
Even though his connection with the Dark Lord had been severed, that was not to say he's stopped having nightmares. He still woke up in the middle of the night out of breath, sweating, and confused. And ever since the Department of Mysteries fiasco, he'd been hearing a voice in his dreams, calling to him. Not menacing or malevolent like Voldemort, but soft, gentle, and soothing. And Harry, for the life of him, couldn't figure out whose voice it was or what it meant.
That is, until tonight.
The dream about the graveyard had brought forward a question Harry had buried deep in the recesses of his mind. When the priori incantatem, the 'reverse effect', had taken place and victims of Voldemort had begun appearing out of the tip of his wand, Harry had been sure he would see her. He had been expecting her to emerge just like Cedric and Bertha and the old man.
But she hadn't.
Instead, only his father had appeared, and when Harry had asked why she wasn't there, he'd said nothing. He'd just smiled, as if Harry was missing something obvious, and placed his hand over Harry's heart.
It didn't make sense. It had been her sacrifice that had allowed him to survive Voldemort's Killing Curse, hadn't it? She had died so that he could live, willingly placed herself between her son and the monstrosity that was Lord Voldemort, defenceless, knowing that there would be no escape, that she was sure to die. And that had triggered the ancient magic that came from the one thing Tom Riddle could never hope to comprehend; love. She had traded her life for his, and had destroyed Voldemort in the process.
So, then, why hadn't she appeared when his father had done? And why was he hearing her voice in his dreams?
Because it was her voice. Harry felt like somewhere in his subconscious, he had always known that. But thinking about the graveyard and the peculiar lack of her ghostly form had finally made it click. It was, indeed, Lily Potter's voice.
He'd never told Dumbledore about it. He supposed that the Headmaster, with all the knowledge he'd accumulated over the years, might be able to make a 'guess' as to what this was all about, but he already had his theories about what happened to Lily, didn't he? As far as Dumbledore was concerned, the fate and destiny of Lily Potter was a closed matter.
And, strangely enough, it somehow felt wrong to tell him about this. Maybe it was the part of him that had grown to be… not quite mistrustful, but definitely cautious when it came to the old man, or maybe it was something else.
Or maybe, he thought, it was the part of him which had subconsciously brought him to the left corridor of the seventh floor, facing the empty stretch of wall opposite to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
Harry blinked as he realised where he was.
Might as well try, huh?
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Hermione Granger was not pleased.
Sure, Ron had finally, finally ended his so-called 'relationship' with Lavender Brown, and Cormac McLaggen seemed to have finally gotten it through his thick skull that she was not interested. And with Ron out of the Hospital Wing, the Gryffindor Quidditch team doing better than ever and Slughorn having finally given up the information he had been withholding, there was no reason for her best friend to be looking as haggard as he did.
But, of course, he did. Harry looked as if he hadn't slept in over a week. And it wasn't even because of Malfoy. He'd noticeably reduced the amount of time he spent bent over the Marauder's Map looking for the little ferret, and while she might have ordinarily been glad of this development, whatever was occupying Harry's thoughts instead of Malfoy's 'plot' didn't seem to be doing his sleeping schedule any good.
She'd tried asking him several times about it, but he'd deflected her questions each time, murmuring indistinct responses before making his escape. It had gotten to the point where even Ron had noticed, but didn't have any better luck getting it out of their friend than her. Harry had been spending all his free time bent over a tome or another, some of which had made even her raise an eyebrow.
And today, she'd had enough. Ron had informed her at breakfast that Harry had been absent from the dormitory all night, slipping in just as the sun had risen.
"And how would you know that, Ron?" Hermione had asked him. "I thought you and sunrise didn't get along well enough to be around each other at the same time?"
"Ha, funny," Ron had muttered sarcastically. "I can get up early every once in a while, you know." She'd raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Okay, okay, fine. I, uh, accidentally fell out of the bed…"
As the last class for the day let out, Hermione grabbed Harry's arm before he could disappear and pulled him into an alcove, ignoring his protests.
"What?" Harry asked as she folded her arms over her chest.
"You tell me, Harry!" She exclaimed. "You're the one looking like Remus after a full moon!"
"It's-"
"-not nothing!" Hermione interrupted. "You're barely eating, you look like you could fall asleep anytime, you hardly pull your nose out of a book which, coming from me, is saying something! And Ron told me that you've been sneaking out of your dorm at night."
Harry cracked a half smile. "How would Ron, of all people-"
"He fell out of his bed in his sleep, but don't try to change the subject!"
Harry signed deeply, running a hand over his face tiredly.
"Okay," he said finally. "I guess it's time you knew. Meet me in the common room at midnight. And don't tell anyone."
Hermione frowned. "Harry-"
"It's not something I can just tell you, Hermione," he said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "I'll have to show you. Midnight."
And before she could say anything else, Harry ducked out of the alcove and made his exit.
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As the clock struck twelve, Hermione cautiously entered the Gryffindor common room and looked around to find it empty.
"Hey," Harry's voice said from beside her, and he appeared from under the Invisibility Cloak along with a very grumpy looking Ron rubbing sleepily at his eyes. "Come on."
"This had better be good," the redhead grumbled as Hermione stepped under the Cloak with them. They had some trouble in getting the Cloak to cover all of them adequately, but soon enough, Harry was leading them out of the common room and away from the Gryffindor Tower. As he proceeded to check the Marauder's Map to make sure the way was clear, Hermione realised where they were headed.
When the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy came into view, she finally asked, "Why are we going to the Room of Requirement, Harry?"
"You'll see."
As Hermione and Ron shared a look, Harry stepped out from under the Cloak and started pacing in front of the bare wall. After the third pass, a pain door came into being and Harry ushered them inside after opening it.
As he closed the door behind them, Hermione looked around the room in intrigue while Ron looked puzzled. It was a cosy looking study with rows upon rows of bookshelves covering the walls, a large desk with three chairs in the middle littered with heaps of parchment and some quills.
The two of them stood there in bewilderment, trying to make sense of the situation, Harry walking to the table and beginning to shuffle through the scrolls of parchment, picking out some of them. Hermione couldn't understand how on earth he could find anything in the mess he was digging through, but Harry didn't seem to be having any trouble.
After a few moments, he finally seemed satisfied as he straightened the bundle of parchment and motioned towards the empty chairs.
"Sit," he said simply and the two, still having no clue as to what was happening, did as they were told. He placed the bundle of parchment in front of them. "Read."
And, after sharing another look, they began reading. Hermione's eyes got wider with every page she read, her head reeling, while Ron was soon scratching his head as he tried to process what was in front of him. Whatever they had expected to find, this was most certainly not it. As they reached the end, it registered somewhere in Hermione's overwhelmed brain that asking them to sit had been a wise move indeed.
Finally, she looked up at Harry.
"You- you think- but Harry-" she tried to say.
"It's not possible!" Ron exclaimed.
"Not possible, Ron? Knowing that a piece of Voldemort's soul was living inside me for fifteen years?"
"But that's different!" Hermione protested. "Horcruxes are the darkest kind of magic!"
"And this," Harry said patiently, "is the most ancient kind."
"But we know she's- she's dead," she said.
"Do you remember what I told you about the graveyard where Voldemort regained his body? What happened when our wand locked and he was hit with the priori incantatem?"
"Yeah, mate, you said that his most recent victims began coming out of his wand," Ron recalled with a shudder.
"She wasn't there, guys! My father was there, and she wasn't! He was killed before Voldemort ever reached my mother. And still, she wasn't there!"
"Harry, that doesn't necessarily have to mean…" Hermione tried, but Harry, apparently, wasn't done yet.
"You know how I used to have visions of Voldemort? How I kept hearing him in my dreams? Well, it's happening again! And this time, it's her voice I'm hearing," Harry explained passionately. "You saw my notes, Hermione. I'm telling you. The ancient magic that was triggered when she stepped in front of me and all but invited Voldemort to kill her? It did more than help me survive. Her soul left her body, as is the purpose of the Killing Curse, but the ancient magic that was set in motion by her actions essentially bound her soul to mine. Think of it, Hermione, it's the exact opposite of a horcrux! To make a horcrux, you channel hate, you tear down your own soul by committing the most heinous of crimes; murder. But this, this is much purer than that! What she did was the most selfless thing of all, an act borne out of love and nothing else. That, that was what kept her from moving on to the next realm, kept her bound to this world, to me!"
Harry was breathing hard now, emerald eyes shining like they had never seen before.
"Believe me when I say this Hermione, and I mean this literally.
"Lily Potter is still alive in me."
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Reviews will be much appreciated, especially as this story is the first of its kind as far as I know (bar one, which I will mention upon request).
- DragonsAndBroomsticks
