A/N: First, I want to apologize because I do not have time to answer
reviews. I'm going to go shop for birthday presents in about five minutes.
Here's the next chapter!!!
~
Chapter 8: Answered Questions
Harry went about the next day with a new skip in his step. He had seen Dumbledore! He had even set the new password when he left so he would be able to get in there whenever he wanted!
"Harry!" Harry stopped at Grander's voice.
"You're in a very good mood," Grander commented.
"It happens every once in a while."
Grander grinned. Then he sobered. "I don't want to put a puncture in the rareness of it, but I kept thinking of this prophecy last night. I found it again and I was going over it this morning. There are a few things I want to know about your resurrection though. I have class at the moment, however. Unless, that is, you would want-"
"That's okay," Harry said quickly. "Can I see it?"
Grander held the prophecy out to him. Harry read through it again. His heart fell a little at it's certain terms. He sighed and handed it back to Grander, muttering, "What's the use in continuing to fight if you know you're going to loose?"
Grander looked up, surprised (though not as surprised as Harry when he realized he had spoken aloud.). "Innocent lives! Don't you understand? When Harry Potter had to fight down a score of Death Eaters and his grandfather had just died, he had nothing left! But he kept fighting and he won, didn't he?" Grander blinked. "Sorry, that's the same thing I say to students when they say they won't have time to finish their homework."
Harry grinned a little. "I think you mean, I was in the Department of Mysteries, the sole reason for being there and risking the lives of all my friends had just been smashed to pieces, my godfather had just died, and I was possessed by Voldemort! Dumbledore saved the day, not me."
"Again with this Dumbledore person!" Grander said. "I've honestly never heard of him! He was Headmaster, you say?"
"Yes," Harry said sighing. "And he was everything I was. Head of the Order of the Phoenix, Supreme Mugwump, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, President of International Confederation of Wizards.he had his face on a Bertie Botts, you know."
"You did too!" Grander said.
"No, I didn't," Harry corrected. "I never let them. I would have had to sign a paper saying it was okay and I never did."
"That's because they don't need a paper once you're dead."
"Ah," Harry said, understanding.
"Anyway," Grander said. "Back to this annoying prophecy..."
"I hate Divination," Harry grumbled.
"So do I," Grander agreed. "I quit really early when I was in school. Bunch of nonsense. And the teacher was always going on about how it could never be completely accurate. I went to Arithmacy instead."
"You sound like my friend," Harry said. "Hermione Granger. She did exactly that when she was in school."
"Sound like we would have gotten along," Grander said, nodding. "Anyway, I think I'll look over this prophecy during my free hour. Unless.you would like to take my class for me now. I think some of the kids liked you."
Harry shook his head, seeing that the question had not been properly deflected earlier. "You're kidding, right? I'm really not that good at teaching."
Grander raised his eyebrows. "I've been trying to teach them magic like you told me to, but it would probably be easier if I could actually perform the spells myself."
"What are you trying to show them?"
"Anything," Grander said fervently. "I barely know any magic. Please take my class!"
Harry sighed and nodded. "As long as you tell me what you were studying."
"It's all-"
"If you say 'in the computer' I'm going to take a very large stick to that machine of yours and break it into a hundred little pieces."
Grander grinned. "We were going over the International Peace Treaty of 2570."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "And you honestly expect me to know anything about that?"
"It doesn't matter," Grander said, shrugging. "You can just use it as a charms class or something. Teach them how to defend themselves."
"Now that's something I actually know how to do."
* * *
He had the class's undivided attention. Harry cleared his throat unnecessarily.
"You can put your books away. I'm hoping we can do something useful today."
The students excited looks but did not talk as they hastily put their books back into their bags.
"I've been thinking it over," Harry said when they finished. "And I think we'll do the Disarming Charm today. Does anyone know anything about it?"
A single hand shot into the air.
"Yes, er."
"Hannah, Professor," said the girl. "It makes an object leave a person's hands."
"Good," Harry said, nodding. "Er.5 points to Gryffindor?" Hannah nodded happily. Harry grinned. It might be fun to be able to control house points. "Okay, can anyone tell me something about using this charm during duel conditions?"
The class looked startled.
"Dueling?" asked a boy in the front blankly. "What, with wands?"
"No," Harry said sarcastically. "With Muggle guns. Yes, with wands! Anyone?" Not a single hand raised into the air. Harry took a deep breath. "I suppose we'll start there."
* * *
Fifteen minutes into class, Harry realized that he was getting no where. Every face wore a frustrated look and a few were even banging their wands on the desks, trying to spark some magic out of them.
"That's enough!" Harry called out and the class looked at him.
He shook his head. "I knew you didn't know much magic, but I never expected this!"
The class looked at each other.
"Please, sir," the girl he recognized as Hannah spoke up hesitantly. "But Hogwarts has never really placed much emphasis on learning magic."
"Yes it has," Harry said fiercely. "Just not anymore."
The class exchanged glances. Hannah's hand found its way into the air again.
"Yes?"
"Please, sir," Hannah said, she said it very quietly so that Harry was sure she was using up a lot of nerve to ask. "But you say things like that and people say that you say you went to Hogwarts, and it makes no sense! I looked it up and all the teachers have been teaching for years! By the age you look, you should have had the same teachers we have now!"
"Or should still be having them," a boy in the back of the class muttered.
Harry sighed and sat down in his seat behind the desk where he had been standing to instruct the class. "What are you asking?"
"I don't mean to sound rude or anything," Hannah squeaked out. "But who are you exactly and why are you here?"
Slowly the class too moved to their seats and Harry knew that he had their undivided attention. "That's very a long and complicated story, not to mention, probably completely confidential."
"I knew it!" Said a boy in back loudly. "So you are you connected to Voldemort!"
Harry jumped that the boy had connected him so easily, but hastily said. "What makes you say that?"
"It's obvious," the boy said, rolling his eyes. "You showed up around the same time he did and no one wants to explain anything! It only takes logic."
"Looks like you have a tad more logic than magic," Harry said, steering himself expertly away from the subject. "Speaking of which, no one in the class has preformed the Expelliarmus charm yet." He looked around expectantly. No one made a move to get up. "Well?"
"Please, sir," Hannah said, yet again being the speaker for the class. "We've waited a very long time to hear this and we would really like to know more."
"Well I'll be." Harry muttered, running his fingers through his hair. "I'm honestly not at liberty to tell you there sort of things."
"Are you from the Ministry?" piped up a girl in back.
Harry laughed. "I'm certainly not from the Ministry."
"Then where are you from? You popped out of no where!"
Harry honestly couldn't bring himself to deny that. Thinking quickly, he thought of a plan. "For every Expelliarmus spell each one of you perform correctly, I'll give you a hint."
Instantly wands were in hands and the spell on the tip of every tongue. Harry watched with approval as every student attempted the spell with renewed vigor. He had forgotten how influential the power of curiosity could be.
Harry's eyes snapped when he saw sparks fly out of one wand. The boy whose wand had shot the sparks looked expectantly at Harry. Harry shook his head. "It has to actually work."
The boy looked annoyed and tried again, after waiting for a failed attempt from his neighbor.
"Expelliarmus!"
A wand flew through the air and into the waiting hand of a smiling Hannah. The shouting stopped and every head turned to Harry. Harry took a deep breath. That had happened much faster than he had expected it. He thought quickly. He probably should have been thinking of the clue while they were practicing the spell.
"You've...er...heard of me before," Harry supplied lamely.
The students looked at one another.
"You said your name's Harry," said one boy. "The only 'Harry' I've ever heard of it Harry Potter!"
Harry couldn't help but grin. It slipped slightly when he saw the girl who had performed the spell, Hannah, suddenly looking at him incredulously.
Hoping to prevent her from saying something and alerting the entire class, he said quickly, "That's it for today. Practice the spell while you're gone. It could come in useful. Class dismissed."
There was the regular noise as everyone grabbed their bags and made to leave. Harry did not look at them as they left, but kept his eyes firmly on his desk, pretending to do something. He heard nothing in the room but did not look up. He sensed that someone had not left.
"You're really Harry Potter, aren't you?" asked the voice of Hannah.
Harry refused to look up. "What gives you that idea?"
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Hannah said. Harry looked up, frowning.
"I mean," Hannah said, rather flustered with her substitute teacher's attention. "You know more magic than all the professors combined, you keep talking about 'when you were in school' even though you're certainly not all that much older than some of the students, plus, with the clue you gave us in class, it seems only obvious. Besides," she went on. "Voldemort's back. Why wouldn't Harry Potter be back to beat him?"
"I'm not back to beat him," Harry said. Then he cringed as he realized he had confirmed her suspicions. "I'm just back. It's not like we're connected somehow. I just happened to come back at the same time he did."
"How?" Hannah asked simply. "You say it so casually, but it's never been done before!"
"I don't know," Harry admitted. "I'm just back. That's the most I know."
"That doesn't make any sense at all," Hannah said. "It takes powerful magic to do something like that."
Harry looked at her.
"We're not all as uneducated as this school wants us to be," Hannah said stubbornly. "I've read half the library already, most of them during class. I can easily do a lot of spells, including the one we did today. I want to help."
Harry was forcibly reminded of himself when he was her age. That or Hermione. "I don't even know if I can help," Harry admitted. "No one knows any magic here and you can bet that's what Voldemort's going to use."
"So technology is our weakness," Hannah said. Harry saw an idea spark behind her eyes. "Why don't we use our weakness to our advantage?"
"Easier said than done," Harry said grimly.
Hannah frowned for a moment, thinking hard. "Not to say that we could, but if technology could beat Voldemort, how could it do that?"
Harry looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Technology can't-"
"I know it can't," Hannah said quickly. "But what if it could? What would need to happen for Voldemort to be beaten by our technology?"
"Loose his ability to do magic?" Harry suggested. Suddenly a thought came out of no where. "That's not a bad idea..."
* * *
"Grander," Harry said quickly, stepping into his office where the man was bent double over a piece of parchment.
Grander looked up and blinked twice as if to clear his eyes. "Yes, I think I might have deciphered-"
"Forget that," Harry said stubbornly. "I've had an idea. What if we can manage to make Voldemort lose his powers?"
"What are you talking about?" Grander asked.
"Rain Plants," Harry said. "If you touch some of the sap with your bare skin, you loose your powers for 24 hours!"
"Those really aren't very common," Grander said, looking worried.
"Can you get one?" Harry asked seriously.
Grander thought for a moment before nodding. "It won't be cheap or easy, but I'll get one."
Harry nodded.
"How did the class go?"
"Good," Harry said. He started to tell Grander about Hannah finding out, but he thought better of it. Grander might panic. "How did the prophecy go?"
"Oh!" Grander looked back to where he was sitting at his desk. He frowned. "Not as well as I had hoped. Now, see here where it says 'The serpent- tongued will destroy the wrong And the good will rise, ready and strong.' I think that's referring to you rising from the grave. The man who summoned the lightning to destroy it said that his master had sent him. I think that's referring to Voldemort."
"Because I'm really ready and strong, aren't I?" Harry asked sarcastically.
"By our standards," Grander said grinning. Suddenly he let out an exasperated sigh. "The first two lines are obvious 'When the legends became myth come to the real, The fate of the world might then be sealed' That's you and Voldemort coming back. The last two lines, however..."
"Say that I'm going to die," Harry said quietly.
"We don't know that!" Grander snapped. "We just haven't had an actual prophecy in so long! I'm not sure what to do."
"I know someone who can help you," Harry said suddenly, coming to a decision.
"Who?"
"Dumbledore."
Grander looked at him. "Have you lost your marbles? Dumbledore's dead, remember?"
"Yes," Harry said sincerely. "But I found his portrait."
"Portrait?" Grander said, suddenly interested. "Where?"
"In his office," Harry said. "Behind that gargoyle. I can show you if you like."
"What are we waiting for?" Grander said, stuffing the parchment into his pocket. "Let's go!"
Harry blinked and led the way. He came to a stop in front of the gargoyle. "Dumbledore," Harry said. The gargoyle jumped aside.
Harry and Grander stood on the staircase. Grander was looking around excitedly. When they reached the top, Harry opened the door.
"It's me," Harry said. "And I brought a friend." Grander could no longer contain his excitement. He practically pushed past Harry to see the room that had been lost to time.
"This is amazing!" Grander said. "And look! It's that bird that I saw!"
"Fawkes," Harry explained. "He's Professor Dumbledore's phoenix."
"So this is the phoenix that is the mascot of the Potter house," Grander said in awe.
"Potter house?" said a voice on the wall. Dumbledore was looking at Harry amused.
"Yeah," Harry said, embarrassed. "Happened after I was dead."
"And who is this?" Dumbledore asked, looking at Grander.
"Roger Grander, at your service," Grander said, beaming.
"Granger?" Dumbledore asked.
"Grander," Grander corrected quickly. "That's what I go by as well. I don't like the name Roger."
"Indeed," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. "I am Albus Dumbledore, the last Headmaster to use this office."
"So you're Dumbledore!" Grander said, looking exceptionally impressed. "Harry's told me all about you, of course."
"As interesting as this all is," Phineas Nigellus said from his place on the wall. "Perhaps Dumbledore can tell you what he's been meaning to tell you."
Harry looked expectantly at Dumbledore.
"Yes," Dumbledore said. "There is something I need to know first, of course."
Harry waited.
"Is that your original wand?"
Harry dug into his pocket and brought out the wand in question. "Yes."
"How did you get it?"
Harry paused, thinking. "It was in my grave when I woke up."
"Explain what happened when you found it."
"It was hot," Harry said. "So hot I dropped it."
"And then?"
"I put my robe over my hand and picked it up, but it was quite cool when I did that."
"Exactly what I needed to hear," Dumbledore said, nodding. "Harry, a wizard is connected to their wand, you more than most because you not only met the creature who's feather was in your wand, but he knew you and recognized you."
"What does that mean?" Grander asked.
To Harry, however, everything was beginning to make sense. "As long as Fawkes was alive, my wand regenerated with it."
"And when the tail feather caught fire," Dumbledore pressed. "It regenerated, as happens to a phoenix when they die."
"And because of my connection to my wand and Fawkes," Harry said, everything falling into place. "I was brought back as well."
~
A/N: A little more 'Answered Questions' at the beginning of the next chapter, like Harry's age. Anyway, like I said, gotta go!
~
Chapter 8: Answered Questions
Harry went about the next day with a new skip in his step. He had seen Dumbledore! He had even set the new password when he left so he would be able to get in there whenever he wanted!
"Harry!" Harry stopped at Grander's voice.
"You're in a very good mood," Grander commented.
"It happens every once in a while."
Grander grinned. Then he sobered. "I don't want to put a puncture in the rareness of it, but I kept thinking of this prophecy last night. I found it again and I was going over it this morning. There are a few things I want to know about your resurrection though. I have class at the moment, however. Unless, that is, you would want-"
"That's okay," Harry said quickly. "Can I see it?"
Grander held the prophecy out to him. Harry read through it again. His heart fell a little at it's certain terms. He sighed and handed it back to Grander, muttering, "What's the use in continuing to fight if you know you're going to loose?"
Grander looked up, surprised (though not as surprised as Harry when he realized he had spoken aloud.). "Innocent lives! Don't you understand? When Harry Potter had to fight down a score of Death Eaters and his grandfather had just died, he had nothing left! But he kept fighting and he won, didn't he?" Grander blinked. "Sorry, that's the same thing I say to students when they say they won't have time to finish their homework."
Harry grinned a little. "I think you mean, I was in the Department of Mysteries, the sole reason for being there and risking the lives of all my friends had just been smashed to pieces, my godfather had just died, and I was possessed by Voldemort! Dumbledore saved the day, not me."
"Again with this Dumbledore person!" Grander said. "I've honestly never heard of him! He was Headmaster, you say?"
"Yes," Harry said sighing. "And he was everything I was. Head of the Order of the Phoenix, Supreme Mugwump, Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, President of International Confederation of Wizards.he had his face on a Bertie Botts, you know."
"You did too!" Grander said.
"No, I didn't," Harry corrected. "I never let them. I would have had to sign a paper saying it was okay and I never did."
"That's because they don't need a paper once you're dead."
"Ah," Harry said, understanding.
"Anyway," Grander said. "Back to this annoying prophecy..."
"I hate Divination," Harry grumbled.
"So do I," Grander agreed. "I quit really early when I was in school. Bunch of nonsense. And the teacher was always going on about how it could never be completely accurate. I went to Arithmacy instead."
"You sound like my friend," Harry said. "Hermione Granger. She did exactly that when she was in school."
"Sound like we would have gotten along," Grander said, nodding. "Anyway, I think I'll look over this prophecy during my free hour. Unless.you would like to take my class for me now. I think some of the kids liked you."
Harry shook his head, seeing that the question had not been properly deflected earlier. "You're kidding, right? I'm really not that good at teaching."
Grander raised his eyebrows. "I've been trying to teach them magic like you told me to, but it would probably be easier if I could actually perform the spells myself."
"What are you trying to show them?"
"Anything," Grander said fervently. "I barely know any magic. Please take my class!"
Harry sighed and nodded. "As long as you tell me what you were studying."
"It's all-"
"If you say 'in the computer' I'm going to take a very large stick to that machine of yours and break it into a hundred little pieces."
Grander grinned. "We were going over the International Peace Treaty of 2570."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "And you honestly expect me to know anything about that?"
"It doesn't matter," Grander said, shrugging. "You can just use it as a charms class or something. Teach them how to defend themselves."
"Now that's something I actually know how to do."
* * *
He had the class's undivided attention. Harry cleared his throat unnecessarily.
"You can put your books away. I'm hoping we can do something useful today."
The students excited looks but did not talk as they hastily put their books back into their bags.
"I've been thinking it over," Harry said when they finished. "And I think we'll do the Disarming Charm today. Does anyone know anything about it?"
A single hand shot into the air.
"Yes, er."
"Hannah, Professor," said the girl. "It makes an object leave a person's hands."
"Good," Harry said, nodding. "Er.5 points to Gryffindor?" Hannah nodded happily. Harry grinned. It might be fun to be able to control house points. "Okay, can anyone tell me something about using this charm during duel conditions?"
The class looked startled.
"Dueling?" asked a boy in the front blankly. "What, with wands?"
"No," Harry said sarcastically. "With Muggle guns. Yes, with wands! Anyone?" Not a single hand raised into the air. Harry took a deep breath. "I suppose we'll start there."
* * *
Fifteen minutes into class, Harry realized that he was getting no where. Every face wore a frustrated look and a few were even banging their wands on the desks, trying to spark some magic out of them.
"That's enough!" Harry called out and the class looked at him.
He shook his head. "I knew you didn't know much magic, but I never expected this!"
The class looked at each other.
"Please, sir," the girl he recognized as Hannah spoke up hesitantly. "But Hogwarts has never really placed much emphasis on learning magic."
"Yes it has," Harry said fiercely. "Just not anymore."
The class exchanged glances. Hannah's hand found its way into the air again.
"Yes?"
"Please, sir," Hannah said, she said it very quietly so that Harry was sure she was using up a lot of nerve to ask. "But you say things like that and people say that you say you went to Hogwarts, and it makes no sense! I looked it up and all the teachers have been teaching for years! By the age you look, you should have had the same teachers we have now!"
"Or should still be having them," a boy in the back of the class muttered.
Harry sighed and sat down in his seat behind the desk where he had been standing to instruct the class. "What are you asking?"
"I don't mean to sound rude or anything," Hannah squeaked out. "But who are you exactly and why are you here?"
Slowly the class too moved to their seats and Harry knew that he had their undivided attention. "That's very a long and complicated story, not to mention, probably completely confidential."
"I knew it!" Said a boy in back loudly. "So you are you connected to Voldemort!"
Harry jumped that the boy had connected him so easily, but hastily said. "What makes you say that?"
"It's obvious," the boy said, rolling his eyes. "You showed up around the same time he did and no one wants to explain anything! It only takes logic."
"Looks like you have a tad more logic than magic," Harry said, steering himself expertly away from the subject. "Speaking of which, no one in the class has preformed the Expelliarmus charm yet." He looked around expectantly. No one made a move to get up. "Well?"
"Please, sir," Hannah said, yet again being the speaker for the class. "We've waited a very long time to hear this and we would really like to know more."
"Well I'll be." Harry muttered, running his fingers through his hair. "I'm honestly not at liberty to tell you there sort of things."
"Are you from the Ministry?" piped up a girl in back.
Harry laughed. "I'm certainly not from the Ministry."
"Then where are you from? You popped out of no where!"
Harry honestly couldn't bring himself to deny that. Thinking quickly, he thought of a plan. "For every Expelliarmus spell each one of you perform correctly, I'll give you a hint."
Instantly wands were in hands and the spell on the tip of every tongue. Harry watched with approval as every student attempted the spell with renewed vigor. He had forgotten how influential the power of curiosity could be.
Harry's eyes snapped when he saw sparks fly out of one wand. The boy whose wand had shot the sparks looked expectantly at Harry. Harry shook his head. "It has to actually work."
The boy looked annoyed and tried again, after waiting for a failed attempt from his neighbor.
"Expelliarmus!"
A wand flew through the air and into the waiting hand of a smiling Hannah. The shouting stopped and every head turned to Harry. Harry took a deep breath. That had happened much faster than he had expected it. He thought quickly. He probably should have been thinking of the clue while they were practicing the spell.
"You've...er...heard of me before," Harry supplied lamely.
The students looked at one another.
"You said your name's Harry," said one boy. "The only 'Harry' I've ever heard of it Harry Potter!"
Harry couldn't help but grin. It slipped slightly when he saw the girl who had performed the spell, Hannah, suddenly looking at him incredulously.
Hoping to prevent her from saying something and alerting the entire class, he said quickly, "That's it for today. Practice the spell while you're gone. It could come in useful. Class dismissed."
There was the regular noise as everyone grabbed their bags and made to leave. Harry did not look at them as they left, but kept his eyes firmly on his desk, pretending to do something. He heard nothing in the room but did not look up. He sensed that someone had not left.
"You're really Harry Potter, aren't you?" asked the voice of Hannah.
Harry refused to look up. "What gives you that idea?"
"It's obvious, isn't it?" Hannah said. Harry looked up, frowning.
"I mean," Hannah said, rather flustered with her substitute teacher's attention. "You know more magic than all the professors combined, you keep talking about 'when you were in school' even though you're certainly not all that much older than some of the students, plus, with the clue you gave us in class, it seems only obvious. Besides," she went on. "Voldemort's back. Why wouldn't Harry Potter be back to beat him?"
"I'm not back to beat him," Harry said. Then he cringed as he realized he had confirmed her suspicions. "I'm just back. It's not like we're connected somehow. I just happened to come back at the same time he did."
"How?" Hannah asked simply. "You say it so casually, but it's never been done before!"
"I don't know," Harry admitted. "I'm just back. That's the most I know."
"That doesn't make any sense at all," Hannah said. "It takes powerful magic to do something like that."
Harry looked at her.
"We're not all as uneducated as this school wants us to be," Hannah said stubbornly. "I've read half the library already, most of them during class. I can easily do a lot of spells, including the one we did today. I want to help."
Harry was forcibly reminded of himself when he was her age. That or Hermione. "I don't even know if I can help," Harry admitted. "No one knows any magic here and you can bet that's what Voldemort's going to use."
"So technology is our weakness," Hannah said. Harry saw an idea spark behind her eyes. "Why don't we use our weakness to our advantage?"
"Easier said than done," Harry said grimly.
Hannah frowned for a moment, thinking hard. "Not to say that we could, but if technology could beat Voldemort, how could it do that?"
Harry looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Technology can't-"
"I know it can't," Hannah said quickly. "But what if it could? What would need to happen for Voldemort to be beaten by our technology?"
"Loose his ability to do magic?" Harry suggested. Suddenly a thought came out of no where. "That's not a bad idea..."
* * *
"Grander," Harry said quickly, stepping into his office where the man was bent double over a piece of parchment.
Grander looked up and blinked twice as if to clear his eyes. "Yes, I think I might have deciphered-"
"Forget that," Harry said stubbornly. "I've had an idea. What if we can manage to make Voldemort lose his powers?"
"What are you talking about?" Grander asked.
"Rain Plants," Harry said. "If you touch some of the sap with your bare skin, you loose your powers for 24 hours!"
"Those really aren't very common," Grander said, looking worried.
"Can you get one?" Harry asked seriously.
Grander thought for a moment before nodding. "It won't be cheap or easy, but I'll get one."
Harry nodded.
"How did the class go?"
"Good," Harry said. He started to tell Grander about Hannah finding out, but he thought better of it. Grander might panic. "How did the prophecy go?"
"Oh!" Grander looked back to where he was sitting at his desk. He frowned. "Not as well as I had hoped. Now, see here where it says 'The serpent- tongued will destroy the wrong And the good will rise, ready and strong.' I think that's referring to you rising from the grave. The man who summoned the lightning to destroy it said that his master had sent him. I think that's referring to Voldemort."
"Because I'm really ready and strong, aren't I?" Harry asked sarcastically.
"By our standards," Grander said grinning. Suddenly he let out an exasperated sigh. "The first two lines are obvious 'When the legends became myth come to the real, The fate of the world might then be sealed' That's you and Voldemort coming back. The last two lines, however..."
"Say that I'm going to die," Harry said quietly.
"We don't know that!" Grander snapped. "We just haven't had an actual prophecy in so long! I'm not sure what to do."
"I know someone who can help you," Harry said suddenly, coming to a decision.
"Who?"
"Dumbledore."
Grander looked at him. "Have you lost your marbles? Dumbledore's dead, remember?"
"Yes," Harry said sincerely. "But I found his portrait."
"Portrait?" Grander said, suddenly interested. "Where?"
"In his office," Harry said. "Behind that gargoyle. I can show you if you like."
"What are we waiting for?" Grander said, stuffing the parchment into his pocket. "Let's go!"
Harry blinked and led the way. He came to a stop in front of the gargoyle. "Dumbledore," Harry said. The gargoyle jumped aside.
Harry and Grander stood on the staircase. Grander was looking around excitedly. When they reached the top, Harry opened the door.
"It's me," Harry said. "And I brought a friend." Grander could no longer contain his excitement. He practically pushed past Harry to see the room that had been lost to time.
"This is amazing!" Grander said. "And look! It's that bird that I saw!"
"Fawkes," Harry explained. "He's Professor Dumbledore's phoenix."
"So this is the phoenix that is the mascot of the Potter house," Grander said in awe.
"Potter house?" said a voice on the wall. Dumbledore was looking at Harry amused.
"Yeah," Harry said, embarrassed. "Happened after I was dead."
"And who is this?" Dumbledore asked, looking at Grander.
"Roger Grander, at your service," Grander said, beaming.
"Granger?" Dumbledore asked.
"Grander," Grander corrected quickly. "That's what I go by as well. I don't like the name Roger."
"Indeed," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. "I am Albus Dumbledore, the last Headmaster to use this office."
"So you're Dumbledore!" Grander said, looking exceptionally impressed. "Harry's told me all about you, of course."
"As interesting as this all is," Phineas Nigellus said from his place on the wall. "Perhaps Dumbledore can tell you what he's been meaning to tell you."
Harry looked expectantly at Dumbledore.
"Yes," Dumbledore said. "There is something I need to know first, of course."
Harry waited.
"Is that your original wand?"
Harry dug into his pocket and brought out the wand in question. "Yes."
"How did you get it?"
Harry paused, thinking. "It was in my grave when I woke up."
"Explain what happened when you found it."
"It was hot," Harry said. "So hot I dropped it."
"And then?"
"I put my robe over my hand and picked it up, but it was quite cool when I did that."
"Exactly what I needed to hear," Dumbledore said, nodding. "Harry, a wizard is connected to their wand, you more than most because you not only met the creature who's feather was in your wand, but he knew you and recognized you."
"What does that mean?" Grander asked.
To Harry, however, everything was beginning to make sense. "As long as Fawkes was alive, my wand regenerated with it."
"And when the tail feather caught fire," Dumbledore pressed. "It regenerated, as happens to a phoenix when they die."
"And because of my connection to my wand and Fawkes," Harry said, everything falling into place. "I was brought back as well."
~
A/N: A little more 'Answered Questions' at the beginning of the next chapter, like Harry's age. Anyway, like I said, gotta go!