Chapter Nine:
Harry dreamt, blackness swirled, took forms in nightmarish figures, lasting moments before they dissolved and returned. Finally the blackness began to swirl around him, everything blurred and he felt himself becoming one with that darkness, his being becoming like those shadowed figures, swirling till he was part of the whirlwind himself.
Then everything stopped – for a moment all was dark and motionless, then light came, flooding in, racing around him to illuminate the scene.
Harry opened his mouth, a scream ripping up his throat, horror and disgust and helplessness filling his being.
He chocked, staggering, and then straightened, looking about him with horrified fascination.
He stood in a field of the dead, the light that shone over the scene came from the skull of sickening green that hovered over the clearing. Harry wandered through this dream, looking at the dead, wondering what had happened here. It did not take him long to find out.
Half of the bodies were those of young children, which made Harry sick. This had been a school – a Muggle school, it seemed. Or had it been an orphanage? For many of the children were very young.
He continued walking – he couldn't wake, couldn't make himself look away from the pitiful figures of children, terror etched on their faces – and each face was burned into his mind. He didn't know their names, but they were just some of the many people who had suffered from Voldemort's new reign of terror.
And Voldemort would pay for the lives he'd taken here tonight – Harry would make sure of that! He came across a young woman. On her chest was a badge – she was a worker here, and it confirmed Harry's second guess – this was an orphanage.
Suddenly the world seemed to rock, and his eyes in the waking world opened. Sirius was standing over him, eyes concerned. Harry realized that his cheeks were damp with tears and suddenly he was swept into his godfathers warm embrace.
He just sat there, tears trickling down his cheeks, trying to come to terms with the horror he'd just seen. He tried to remember if something like this had ever happened before – and came up with nothing.
He could only remember rare times when he'd cried after his third birthday, and he'd not been comforted in any of those situations. Finally he pulled himself together and pulled back out of his godfathers arms.
"Panther, what happened?" Sirius asked him, gently. He knew that Harry wouldn't want to remember what he'd seen, but knew also that he had to tell.
"Voldemort. He attacked a Muggle orphanage. Some people might still be alive," Harry replied, standing up.
"Where are you going?" Sirius asked him, leaping to his feet. Harry dressed himself with a quick Wandless spell and bounded from the rooms, mentally checking his weapons as he skidded through the corridors, Sirius hot on his heels.
Harry slammed to a halt beside the gargoyle that marked the entrance to Dumbledore's rooms. He muttered the password (it had returned to Sherbet Lemon) and bounded into the room and up the stairs.
Sirius arrived around the corner, panting slightly and gasped out the password, as the gargoyle had only just jumped back into its position in front of the wall.
It gave him a cold look, before springing to the side again and allowing him through.
When he arrived in the study, Harry was seated in front of Dumbledore, carefully explaining his dream. When he'd finished Dumbledore immediately walked over to the fire to speak with some people to get a crew out and looking for survivors.
Harry glanced at Sirius and they both headed towards the door. "We'll go now, if you need us, call Padfoot, I need some proper sleep," Harry told Dumbledore, yawning.
"Yes, yes, do that," Dumbledore replied absently, and the pair of them quickly retired. Harry finished that night without any more nightmarish dreams, much to his relief.
In the morning when Sirius came in to wake his godson, he found Harry wide awake, up and dressed.
He'd charmed his robes into the ones that Hogwarts students wore, and his appearance something like that of the Harry Potter who'd fled the Wizarding world months before.
Harry turned, in front of the mirror, examining his appearance minutely. "Do you think this looks like people here would expect me to look like now?" He asked his godfather, frowning slightly.
"Everyone changes a lot when they hit their teens, so any oddities could easily be explained away by that – you need glasses by the way," Sirius replied.
"Glasses! Of course! I knew I'd forgotten something!" Harry exclaimed, closing his eyes for a moment. Immediately there was a flicker of golden light around his face and he had glasses – slightly different glasses than before, but that went better with the more mature look his face had gained.
"And what brought this on, if you don't mind me asking?" Sirius asked, smiling.
"I think I might pay a little visit the Gryffindor and Slytherins double potions class this morning," Harry replied, grinning wickedly.
Sirius laughed. "Record it for me, I want to see the looks on their faces!" he replied, heading outside to go down to breakfast.
Harry chuckled softly and let the illusions fall away, carefully storing them for when he would need them again later. He then brought back the ones that were 'James Black', and went to breakfast.
He went to eat with Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor Table, telling them in whispers of his plans for the morning. Ron and Hermione decided that for once, they could look forward to Potions, as Harry would make it very … interesting.
Finally breakfast ended and, as usual, 'James' disappeared. No one did know where he spent the time between the classes that he did attend to help his "uncle" teach. It was a rumour that anyone who was going to ask him ended up in the hospital with injuries soon afterwards, though no one who'd been in the hospital wing admitted to such.
Usually he browsed the school, checking out various hidden passageways, and even managing to discover a secret room that Sirius admitted the Marauders hadn't found, which was promptly added to the map, which Sirius had 'borrowed' off Dumbledore when they returned to school.
Today, however, he walked down to the dungeons and performed a quick invisibility charm over himself, quickly bringing all of his illusions around himself.
He waited, a cool smile playing at his lips as he waited patiently for the class to arrive and begin. The Gryffindors, of course, had to arrive early so as not to get into trouble, and the Slytherins turned up after the bell, moving slowly and not appearing to care whether they were on time or not.
Harry felt his hatred of Snape, nurtured by months of Sirius's company, rising, and, to stop himself doing something really stupid, blew up Malfoy's cauldron.
Snape immediately rounded on the culprit, and, on discovering that it was his favorite student, smiled and repaired the cauldron as best as possible, before aiding the Slytherin boy in getting his potion back up to date.
Harry raised a fist and knocked on the door. Malfoy had just begun teasing Ron and Hermione about being friends with an ex-criminal.
When Snape opened the door, expecting to see 'James' here to annoy him, was very surprised to find an older version of one of his most hated students. Harry Potter.
"Potter! What are you doing here?" Snape demanded, immediately capturing the interest of the entire class. The Gryffindors gaped to see their old friend returned to them.
The Slytherins were gaping because they'd thought that Harry Potter was long dead and were annoyed to see that they were wrong.
Ron and Hermione smiled so happily those in the room seemed to think that they'd just burst with happiness.
"What am I doing here?" Harry mused, looking thoughtful. Tapping a finger to his mouth. "Let me think … I was under the apparent illusion that I was going to school here … perhaps I was wrong."
"No, I believe you are correct in that aspect. Perhaps you would like to tell me where you've been for all this time?"
"Perhaps later," Harry replied coolly. "I'm not coming back yet – I just dropped by to see how my old class was going."
"What do you mean, you're not coming back
yet?" Snape demanded. "You have been pardoned, you are aware of that, aren't
you?"
"Of course I am," Harry replied coldly.
"Fortunately for me, I am aware that Lucius Malfoy is a Death Eater, and
therefore will hand me over to Voldemort the moment I come back. I will not be
returning until I am completely sure that this is not going to happen."
"Are you a part of this class or not, Potter?"
"Why? Because if I am, you want to get
me in trouble for speaking to a Professor in such a fashion? At the moment, I
am not a part of this class – when I return to school, I believe that I'll have
to be re-sorted, as, having been arrested and then pardoned; I was, in a legal
sense, killed and brought back to life. Like I said, I was just… passing by this way and dropped in to see my
old friends. I will leave now, since you appear to be having such a good time
terrorizing your students so that they can't learn properly, and then taking
points off them for getting potions wrong.
"You spelt 'boomslang' wrong, by the way – it's only one word, not two," with that Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, disappeared out the door, leaving his old year mates and most hated teacher gaping after him.
A moment later 'James' appeared around the corner. "I just met up with Harry Potter, I can see why you like him, Ron, Hermione," he remarked with a wink that no one else caught.
"James. What are you doing here?" Snape snarled. This day was not turning out well.
"Harry mentioned that you weren't being very polite," 'James' remarked. "But I came to see what's happening with my favorite fifth year class, if you must know!"
Snape glared at him, and Harry ignored it completely, having become quite familiar with that glare over the past five years, and more so since he'd returned to school as 'James.'
When the class ended, Harry waved his two friends out of the room and waited until it had cleared of occupants before approaching Snape.
"What do you want know?" The man snarled.
"I suppose you didn't know about the attack on the Muggle orphanage last night?" Harry half asked, half stated, eyes sad.
"How did you know about that?" Snape demanded, looking up abruptly.
Harry sighed. "I see things like that in dreams, on occasion," he replied coolly. "I had the doubtable pleasure of being shown the scene after the fight had taken place. It was me who told Dumbledore about it so that he could organize a party to go and look for survivors. I hope it didn't put you on the spot."
Snape looked surprised that Harry knew about his spying game. "No, it didn't, as far as I'm aware," he said dryly. "And I wasn't at the attack, although I heard something about it in the Daily Prophet this morning."
"Be glad that you weren't there. It was awful," Harry assured him, and strode quickly out of the classroom to catch up with the fifth years heading for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
The next few days passed in relative peace and quiet – apart from the fact that it was all over the newspapers that Harry Potter had been in Hogwarts for a few moments.
Everyone had been positively astounded to hear him call the Minister of Magic a Death Eater, but it was raising questions about Minister Malfoy that he could only put down for so long.
Harry's life as James were going rather well, he and Sirius were having a lot of fun torturing Slytherins in lessons, although Sirius was bound by a magical promise not to play pranks on them.
Harry, without telling his godfather, had broken through the spell and was planning a very fun evening tonight. Namely, pranking Malfoy from now into next year …
He met up with Ron and Hermione in the Library – they were working on an essay on Wandless Magic and It's Uses In Transfiguration for McGonagall.
Him being a Wandless Mage, he'd prove to be very helpful for them, even though he'd have to be careful to limit what he said so that McGonagall wouldn't become suspicious about how fifth year students managed to know things that weren't in any textbooks in the school.
Once they'd completely the essay – they'd been working on it for the past four days, so there wasn't all that much left to do – Harry, Ron and Hermione settled down to their prank playing on Slytherins.
"Now, I want to try something that'll make even Padfoot surprised – that'll be difficult, with his history," Harry remarked.
"Well, you know everything he did at school, don't you?" Hermione asked him thoughtfully.
"Yep. He's done just about everything. From making the Slytherins walk around with robes flashing various fluro colours, or signs saying 'Gryffindor Rules', to making them sing every time they opened their mouths," Harry replied.
"Hmmm, that could be difficult then," Ron
mused. "Do you think that we should call Fred and George in?"
"Nah – I've got to prove to Padfoot that
we are the new generation of Marauders. I've got to live up to my fathers
expectations," Harry sighed.
"Hey! Wait a sec! We could put a bucket
outside the Slytherin common room, so that whenever somebody exits the room,
they get something down to them. Have it different for everyone, every time
that they get it done. Sometimes sawdust, sometimes so that they flash rainbow
colours all day … get the drift?"
"Yeah!" Ron said, eyes shining
enthusiastically. "But don't tell me the Marauders never did that?"
"They did … kind of. They did it as
separate pranks, not all in one," Harry replied, eyes twinkling wickedly
Ron and Hermione joined Harry in laughter, though all three quickly shut up when Albus Dumbledore himself entered the library so as not to draw attention to themselves.
They were wondering if their attempt had failed, as the headmaster was walking straight for their table, but when he reached it, he merely looked at James. "James, I believe you've been wanting to speak with me?" He half asked, half stated.
"Yes, actually, Albus," Harry replied, going along with the headmasters wish to call him by his first name. Ron and Hermione shared a brief smile, they knew how uncomfortable it was for Harry to call the headmaster Albus – it didn't seem right to Harry, or them either.
"Then please, come and speak in my office," Albus said, blue eyes twinkling merrily. Harry smiled in return, waved a quick goodbye to his friends, using the hand movement that he and Sirius used for 'we'll talk again later'.
He'd taught Ron and Hermione some of the hand language, just the basic phrases, so that they could let each other know some things. Both smiled, waved and quickly formed the signal for agreement with his statement.
Harry and Albus walked quickly up to the Headmasters office, the gargoyle springing aside with no need for a password from the Headmaster and occupant of the office.
Seated safely within the office, Harry whipped up a quick ward against listeners, and stroked Fawkes' head absently with one hand.
"What did you want to talk to me about, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, once Harry had given the all clear.
"My dream the other night," Harry replied, getting straight to the subject he wished to discuss.
"My dear boy, you had similar ones over last year, I thought we'd finished with this discussion?" Dumbledore remarked, smiling faintly.
"So did I. But not once in my time at the
Seekers Academy did I have one of these dreams. So I suppose my real question
is: Why now?"
"Well. That is a completely different
matter. Are you sure that there were no dreams at the Academy?"
"They are kind of hard to forget," Harry
remarked glumly. "So no, I did not have any dreams there. None bar the normal
kind, in any case."
"How could anyone think of any dream as
'ordinary' is beyond me," Dumbledore remarked. At Harry's delicately arched
eyebrow, he returned to the topic of the conversation.
"My only thought on the matter is that somehow Shadow Master – God rest his soul – put up barriers to protect from them, or that the already existent barriers that keep school and mountain protected from the gaze of outsiders blocked them."
"That would make sense, the barriers were very strong, Shadow Master once showed me how to test them for power," Harry remarked, shivering at the remembered power those barriers possessed.
"That would be the kind of thing he'd do with a beginner," Dumbledore remarked with a faint frown, as if disagreeing with his now dead relative. "Good, we have that out of the way – it couldn't really be any thing else, or you'd have experienced something since you left the Academy. Now, there is something else that I'd like to show you. First, that blade you wear, could you show me it in it's true form, please?"
Harry had mentioned that he had disguised the sword when he'd talked to Dumbledore after he'd first arrived. Looking somewhat surprised, he'd completely forgotten that he'd never actually shown the sword in it's true form, Harry did just that.
Dumbledore's soft intake of breath startled Harry – he'd gone and surprised the old man again, it seemed. "What?" He asked curiously.
"That blade once belonged to Salazar Slytherin – one of a pair. It's twin you have seen – and used – before," Dumbledore turned and took down the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Harry remembered the sword well, and the incident that Dumbledore referred to, when he'd actually used it.
"Your blood was shed on it, and you nearly died with it in your hand. You used it to kill another living thing – an evil thing – you are this swords chosen bearer also," Dumbledore remarked, holding it out to Harry to examine.
Harry took the sword carefully, running his hands over it. He smiled faintly. This was indeed the twin to his other sword, in shape and design they were identical, save for the fact that one had a gold hilt with a ruby in it's center and the other had a silver hilt with an emerald stone instead.
He tested the sword on his finger and smiled faintly – it was as sharp as his other sword.
"You have shed blood on this before, and have now done so again – it is yours," Dumbledore remarked. "I'll let you get back to your friends in the Library."
Harry smiled, thanked the headmaster and hurried back to his friends, thinking for a moment. A quick spell with Wandless magic and both swords crossed over his back, one hilt over either shoulder, both of them changed so that people saw only two battered swords, rather than the flawless blades that both of them actually were.
A moment later he was back at the entrance to the Library, waving to his friends to come with him. They immediately stood up and headed out of the Library, following Harry to the hidden room that he'd discovered, so that they could be sure Fred and George wouldn't come in unannounced.
Harry warded the room quickly using his skills in Wandless magic and turned to his friends. "That was interesting," he remarked, then added, "speak your mind, the room is warded."
"What did Dumbledore want to talk to you about?" Hermione asked immediately.
"I had a dream about the attack on the Muggle Orphanage, and I hadn't had one while I was at Seekers Academy, so I wanted to ask him his theory on that."
"And that other sword that you have on your back? What about that?" Ron asked eagerly.
" You both remember me telling you about the Chamber of Secrets and fighting the basilisk?" Harry half asked, half stated.
At two impatient nods, he continued. "Well, what I never really explained was that the sword was that of Godric Gryffindor, and I brought it out of the hat. My other blade was once Salazar Slytherins, and the pair have fought against each other countless times.
"You have to pay a price for both of them, to win Godric's sword, I had to show loyalty to Hogwarts and did that by both sticking by the Headmaster and by defeating the last mark that Slytherin left on the school. My blood pretty much covered the blade, along with that of the basilisk, so it was bound to me by my own blood, and that of an enemy that I killed using the sword.
"Salazar Slytherin, while being a good blade master, was much more sly and tended towards trickery rather than open fighting. His descendents were the same, and when one of them brought the sword to the Seekers Academy, it was hung up there and rarely brought into the open.
"The way to win this sword is to know the dangers of taking it from it's sheath. Since it's owner is not alive to battle it for – that's normally how the swords are passed on, one blade master is defeated by another and relinquishes the sword – a person may be told that if they take blade from the sheath but are not he person that it is meant for, it will kill them, which is true.
"The blade called to me, and I answered the call, knowing the dangers of doing so. Luckily for me, I was the one who the sword belonged to, and it did not kill me. Because I could have died, this sword also is bound to me by blood, if of a different nature," Harry explained to his wide eyed friends.
"You can't tell me Sirius knew about that," Hermione remarked after a moment.
"Well, I could, but that would be lying, and while I may do that to everyone else, I don't to you," Harry replied with a grin, dodging the cushion that Hermione threw at his head.
"So, what did you mean about the dream," Ron
asked, remembering the first thing that Harry had told them about. "What did
Dumbledore have to say about that, and why didn't you tell us about it?"
"Didn't I?" Harry asked, somewhat
surprised. "I guess it never came up, and I didn't really want to remember
about it, it was that horrible …" He explained what Dumbledore's theory had
been.
"But Harry, from the dreams you told us about last year, they came when Voldemort was feeling particularly violent or angry. This time he wasn't even in the dream," Hermione remarked, frowning slightly. "So that would suggest that there is another reason behind your lack of dreams, and why you had one then."
Harry groaned. "You're right! Now I have to try and get to talk to Dumbledore again, and that'll be next to impossible," he remarked.
"Well, you do want to find out what's going on," Hermione pointed out, going back to a book she'd brought with her.
"You're right, of course. Well, why don't we go and perform that prank on the Slytherins, hey?" Harry said a moment later, when no more questions came up from either of his two friends.
He let down the wards as both of his friends nodded in agreement. Quickly checking the Marauders Map, which he carried with him everywhere, careful to keep a cloaking spell on it, in case he dropped it, he made sure that no one was nearby when they exited the room.
They hurried down to the dungeons, Ron remarking cheerfully to Hermione, "See, some good did come out of the Polyjuice Potion, at least we know where the common room is now!"
"Panther knows where it is anyway, since he's a member of the staff," Hermione pointed out icily, reminded of the time that she had been half transfigured into a cat back in their second year at school.
"Hush up you two," Harry hissed at them, dragging them both into a shadowed corner as Pansy Parkinson swept past, pug-like nose in the air as she went to dinner.
A quick relieved grin spread over the pranksters faces as they headed quickly for the dungeon wall that was the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room.
Harry held up a hand to stop his two friends and, using a combination of Wandless and Elemental Magic, wove the prank, and then carefully hid the spell so that it could not be taken off by anyone except him, or another master of Wandless Magic, working with an Elemental Mage, as Harry was the only person alive who had both talents.
"There," he murmured. "This prank will get me up a bit with Sirius, from now on we can do ideas as we think of them, since I don't need to prove to Sirius that we are just as inventive as the Marauders were. It's much more fun when you actually have to sneak into the rooms to do these things."
"I'll take your word for it," Hermione remarked coolly. "I'd rather not find out first hand."
Ron and Harry both laughed softly as the three of them headed quickly for dinner, none of them having eaten since breakfast. In the Great Hall, they split up, Harry heading up for the teachers table, as he hadn't eaten there for some time, and Ron and Hermione to the Gryffindor Table, to spend some time with their friends in Gryffindor.
"Where were you?" Sirius asked Harry softly as the boy sat down beside him.
"Setting up some fun for the Slytherins in the morning," Harry replied. "Well … they might not think it's much fun, but the rest of the school will have a good laugh," Harry replied.
"What'dya do?" Sirius asked eagerly.
"You'll find out in the morning, along with everyone else," Harry replied with a grin, his godfather punched him lightly in he shoulder.
"That's right, let your old uncle suffer! You've told me something's happening and now you wont tell me what, meany!" Sirius grumbled.
Harry chuckled softly. "I'm proving that my friends and I can do just as good as the Marauders of old," he muttered in his godfathers ear. This made Sirius look even more interested.
"I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning," Sirius remarked, before returning to his food.
After lunch they were taking the Gryffindor Seventh Years, and teaching them the Patronus, so Harry would be along with Sirius, because of his excellence at that particular defense spell.
He waved a quick goodbye to Ron and Hermione, not being able to get close to them in the throng of students heading out of the hall. Ron and Hermione both had Herbology, followed by Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid and the Hufflepuff's again.
Harry slipped silently into the defense room, watching with a faint smile as the students looked around, searching the shadows to see if they could find him – no one had succeeded yet, and no one would for a long time if he had his way.
Standing silent beside the door, Harry watched and listened as Sirius told the class what they'd be doing that lesson.
"Well, as you all know, a lot of the Dementors have joined Voldemort, and so you'll certainly be needing to be able to get rid of them when needed," he began. "There are many spells that you can use to get rid of Dementors, but the one that is so obvious that you already know about, is the Patronus.
"Now, I'm a fair enough hand with the Patronus spell, and I'll demonstrate for you, using this Boggart as an aid."
Sirius threw open the case which held a Boggart, rather like that which Remus Lupin had kept the Boggart in when Harry himself was learning the spell. The Boggart rose from the case in the form of a Dementor – there was a collective gasp from the students, and Sirius yelled "Expecto Patronum!" a silvery cloud came from his wand and the Patronus forced the fake Dementor back into the box.
The class gave a small cheer. "Well, now you've seen my attempt, and that's a very good Patronus for any wizard. But I'm going to leave this part of your instruction to the Master – my nephew, James. James, want to come out and do a demonstration?"
Harry inclined his head, stepping out from the shadows beside the door and surprising the students as he always did. Sirius once more threw open the case. Harry raised his wand, speaking in a quiet but firm voice – "Expecto Patronum!" and thinking of the fact that he lived with his godfather in Hogwarts.
The giant stag that was his Patronus exploded from his wand, the students had to shield their eyes as the huge shining creature charged the Dementor, sending it helter skelter back into its box.
The class was left gaping in awe as the huge stag disappeared. "You see what I mean," Sirius remarked, voice slightly weak.
Harry smiled coolly. "Well, lets get started, shall we?" He asked pleasantly. The class actually stayed silent and paid attention to him while he explained the Patronus and it's casting, before calling them up one by one to perform the spell.
By the end of the lesson, almost everyone had achieved a decent Patronus, and those who hadn't had managed to produce something, though not up against a Dementor.
In conclusion of the lesson, Harry smiled at them all. "Well done, you all have potential in this subject, and those of you who didn't manage it, don't worry, you'll get it sometime. If you want help, come and see my uncle, he'll direct you to me, and I'll help you as best I can."
Then he slipped into a corner and 'disappeared' though in reality, he merely moved around to stand near the door. As usual, the class spent the last few minutes searching for him, and not finding him.
When the bell did ring, Harry opened the door, bowed to the astonished class and slipped out of the room and down the corridor to the Library.
He was researching swords and blade masters, although he already knew quite a bit about them from his experiences at the Seekers Academy, some books only the Hogwarts Library held, and Harry could also use the Restricted Section of the Library whenever he felt the need to.
This was a lot of fun, since he had never actually been allowed to enter the forbidden section of the Library. He had been in once, sure, but that had hardly been a pleasant experience.
Taking a book up to Madam Pince to borrow, Harry caught sight of Dumbledore entering the Library and quickly collected his books on swords, and one that was about various kinds of dreams, which he thought might be able to help him.
"Albus!" He called softly to the headmaster, getting the venerable wizards attention immediately.
"Ah Harry, what did you want to talk to me about?" The Headmaster asked him, keeping his voice soft, as it was a Library.
"You know I was asking about that dream I had," Harry began, waiting for Dumbledore's nod of agreement, "well, I just realized, Voldemort wasn't in it, and before all of my dreams had Voldemort in them."
"We must talk later, James," Dumbledore said, eyes flicking over the room quickly. "Come to my office tomorrow, during first period." The headmaster left with those words, while Harry cursed himself for an idiot. He'd been speaking out in the open, without even a minor warding spell.
Shaking his head, Harry slipped away, moving quickly through the many secret passageways that helped him to maintain his reputation of 'disappearing'.
Reaching a point that was close to a secret room, Harry lit the way with some Elemental fire and spread the Marauders Map on the wall in front of him, after first carefully placing the Library books on the floor at his side.
"In the name of my father, I ask you to reveal your secrets," he whispered, tapping his wand against it. Immediately a single word wrote itself in a neat, flowing script across the page: Password.
Harry sighed slightly. Sirius had told him about a spell that the Marauders had placed on the map so that their descendants could use it more easily, though it was slightly messy.
He took out a pin and pricked the tip of his finger, pressing the minute wound against the paper so that a drop of blood touched the parchment as he whispered: "Prongs."
Each of the Marauders had left different information, though the map was still fairly well the same. Harry's father had marked in some secret rooms that he had not told the others about, they all had their own secret rooms, Harry knew from what Sirius had told him, and he was going to his fathers.
The password, however, changed every half hour, so he had to keep the map close to find out what the password was now.
The room, once you managed to get inside it, was beautiful. Harry knew that his mother had done much of the decorating, and painted many of the pictures that lined the walls, as in the bottom of each was a beautifully drawn lily flower, with the name Lily penned above it, in gold.
Harry paused for a moment, looking around the pictures. His mother had been a great artist, that was for sure – especially when it came to painting, and drawing flowers.
One of them was of a Petunia, and the inscription at the bottom clearly stated that it had been done when his mother was ten, before Hogwarts.
Petunia and Lily – Friends Forever.
Harry shook his head and settled down on the couch to read for a while. After a very short time, his eyelids started to droop, weariness overcame him and he slept.
He was standing in the room, but it was different, two people where there – a young man who looked remarkably like Harry, and a young woman with brilliant red hair, pale, porcelain skin and vibrant green eyes.
These, Harry knew, where his parents, Lily and James. Both were poring over a small book with a black leather cover and gold over the corners and spine.
His mother was writing, her pen flowing neatly across the page, and James appeared to be speaking to her. Both wore the badges of Head Boy and Girl, so Harry knew that they were both in their Seventh Year, and from their dress, they were about to go to Graduation.
Lily smiled as she finished the last word and closed the book, locking it with a pretty golden key, which she slipped beneath one of the cushions on the lounge, before placing the book in a secret compartment in the wall.
Harry noted that she just pressed in the correct brick, and was careful to remember which one it was. In the compartment were several other books, all bound in a similar fashion to the one that Lily put in. For a moment he saw the inscription: Lily Evans and James Potter, on the cover.
Unfortunately, this was not the end of his dreams.
The world around him swirled and changed. When it came into focus again, Harry wished that it hadn't. Voldemort stood in the center of a circle of Death Eaters.
As he knew the Potions Master well, Harry easily picked out whish of the figures was Snape, and it was not too difficult to find which was Lucius Malfoy, either.
"My faithful Death Eaters! Tonight I will make a strike against the petty fools who oppose me, one that will shake them up and pave the path to success! Tonight, we attack Hogwarts…"
Those words sent shudders around the circle of Death Eaters, and one of them – not Snape, Harry noted coolly, considering that he had just had quite a shock, stepped forward. "Master, why have you told us this only now?" He asked.
"Do not question me, insolent human!" Snarled Voldemort, raising his wand. The unfortunate Death Eater screamed before the Dark Lord even began the Cruciatos Curse.
Harry was jolted awake, his scar burning viciously. He shook himself and stood quickly. As he did, he removed the small illusions that he had used on himself.
He sent a quick burst of light that only Sirius would be able to see, as the man had the senses of a dog and it was different to anything that a human could properly detect. Just to make sure, he added a slight scent to the call, one that only Sirius's nose would pick up on.
As he did this, he hurried from the room, heading to meet his Godfather at their rooms, which was where Sirius would head for.
Harry was the first to arrive at the rooms, so while he waited he checked on the many weapons that he kept about his form. The many knives, in his belt, boots, armpits, around his wrists, the likely spots, but there were many others too.
He had a collection of throwing stars, his two swords were a comfortable weight, crossed over his back, he had never been stronger with Wandless and Elemental magics before now.
Suddenly the door flew open and Sirius loped into the room, panting slightly. "What's happened kid? It had better be good, I was eating, and you know the penalties for interrupting me and food without a good reason!" his godfather threatened, though he smiled as he said it.
"Is Voldemort attacking the castle any time now a good reason?" Harry asked, turning to face his godfather. Sirius immediately noted that all of the illusions Harry had previously used were gone.
"Yes," he replied immediately, and began checking his own weapons. "What do you know about the attack?" Harry repeated his dream quickly.
"I know it's not much to go on, but … there they are!" He was keeping an eye on the map, and saw as several Death Eaters made their way on to the grounds.
Sirius nodded his head. "Take the illusions off me too, please. If I'm going to fight, I want them to know who their up against!" he said.
Harry smiled. A moment later two figures clad in the robes of graduates from the Seekers Academy bounded from the room, heading downstairs quickly, wands drawn, Harry held a throwing star in his left hand, and Sirius a dagger.
The pair of them had just reached the Great Hall when someone spotted the Death Eaters. There was a moment of mass panic, but both the warriors were relieved to hear Dumbledore's voice ring out, magically magnified.
"Will everyone please calm down! Prefects and Head Students, come out to the front please! Aurors, be ready to accompany the students! Everyone, you've been through the drills, now lets put them to the test!"
The headmaster spoke truly, they had had numerous drills on what to do in the event of a Death Eater attack. With sighs of relief, Harry and Sirius slipped from the castle, out onto the grounds.
The students would remain in the Great Hall, which would have protective spells raised by the Professors – they would have been moved to the Common Rooms if there had been time, but no one was sure how fast the Death Eaters would get here this time.
There was a momentary panic when everyone realized that Snape and the two Defense teachers were missing, but Dumbledore calmed everyone down, saying that he knew where all three were.
"Do you really know where they are, Sir?" Hermione asked the Headmaster softly.
"I know where Severus will be, but as for Peter and James … from what I know of them, they'll be out there in the action, protecting the school," Dumbledore replied sadly. "I just hope that we'll see them all again come the end of this fight."
The two newest Gryffindor Prefects nodded sadly and turned to the window, to see if they could catch sight of their two friends out in the fray.
Suddenly there was a flash of light outside, and a fire ball a meter in diameter sped into the Death Eaters. There was a collective gasp from the students and Aurors as the scene was lit up.
Dementors and Death Eaters stood side by side, ready to fight. In the lead, looking fearsome and terrifying was Voldemort himself. Suddenly there was another flash, this time though, a Patronus burst from the darkness that had gathered outside, for while Harry had slept, the night had crept over the landscape.
The Seventh Year students who'd been doing Defense that morning recognized it immediately. "James is out there!" One of them muttered, and soon the whole crowd was murmuring the same, searching to see some sign of the Professor's nephew.
It was not long before they did see someone, though the boy out there looked like a cross between the young man known as James and the boy that the Gryffindors had seen, Harry Potter, and with different characteristics to the both of them. Taller, slimmer, with a gymnasts build, they could see the tell tale swords crossed over his back, but it was his companion that made them stare.
It was unmistakably Sirius Black, and he seemed to be fighting to reach the boy that no one recognized, although both Ron and Hermione knew they were looking at the true form of their friend Harry Potter.
Sirius's behavior on reaching the other was surprising.
He did not try and attack the other, but rather stood back to back with the boy, fighting viciously and giving the Death Eaters something to think about.
The great silver stag that was 'James' Patronus galloped around the battlefield, keeping the Dementors back, which made things much easier for the two battlers.
Suddenly a spell lit up the sky, Voldemort was bowling the Death Eaters left and right as he came forward to deal with the two fighters himself, since his followers didn't seem to be doing much of a job of it.
Back outside, Harry was fighting with a cold ease. He'd used up his throwing stars, and hadn't had time to use the recall spell that he had placed on all of his weapons.
Suddenly he saw Voldemort baring down on himself and his godfather, the Dark Lord raised his wand, and though Harry could not hear the words over the noise of the battle, he knew what the spell was.
A moment later, as Harry had known it would, green light exploded from the wand. Harry watched as it raced towards him, fear tightening his chest muscles till breathing was almost impossible.
As the spell bore down on him, Harry felt as if time itself slowed, and though he knew that people said you saw your whole life rushing past you when death was coming, Harry did not.
Suddenly he felt a stab of helpless rage against the dark lord who made him feel so helpless with just two words. He opened his mind as he never had done before, calling on his magics, both Wandless and Elemental, but not placing the mental wards that he usually would to control the powers that lay at his command.
The last thing that Harry saw before darkness claimed him was a flare of bright green and golden lights. And then he knew no more.
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I like that cliffie! And if you're all nice little boys and girls and review, I'll have the next chapter up before you know it!
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I now have 230 reviews, 34 of which I got for this chapter – you guys are great! Special thanks to my beta reader, Queen of the Jungle!
~WolfMoon~