Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

By: Krystal Lily Potter

Chapter Twenty Five: The Legend of the Prince

Rating: PG-13 (more on the AA side)

Couples: HP/HG, DT/LB, PP/SF, LL/NL, DT/GW, LB/RW, LL/RW, HP/CC

Summary: As Harry and his friends enter their sixth year at Hogwarts they don't enter the cheerful world they left behind. They enter a world covered in a thick blanket of fear. It only hits Harry how important he really is when people start seeing him as the light that allows them to see under this blanket. Along with his friend he must battle the horrors of the past, present, and possible the future to begin the end of the war, hopefully before it hits Hogwarts. What happens when people start disappearing from under Dumbledore's protection, and one of the famous 'trio' disappears? It's up to the last two, plus some more friends, to find a way to save all the people that disappeared because they can't fight this war on their own...

Warning: Dark themes will be mentioned a lot and if worst comes to worst I'll rate this R because of that. There's swearing, mentions of suicide, murder, rape, gore/bloody scenes, and other dark things like that...honestly though it's not as dark as I make it sound...

This chapter is one of the most important ones yet. Many things will be explained in this chapter. Who the half blood prince is, why everything is happening now, who the victims were, exactly what's attacking students, why it's attacking students and so on...

ALSO this chapter switches back and fourth between times...a lot...so it's going to be a little confusing.

Harry James Potter laid in his bed, staring at the red hangings over head. His emerald eyes were plank and he had a look of shock on his face.

He had been like this for awhile now and nobody knew why. Nobody except Hermione that is. She would come up day after day and bring Harry something to eat, pretty much force him to go take a shower and to just talk to him.

None of the teachers made him come to class, they simply sent all his work plus all his homework up to him for him to do and they got it back the next day. No one bothered to check on him either.

This made a few Gryffindors greatly disturbed. Their hero was up in his room sulking away and not even Dumbledore seemed to get a damn!

"What's that old coot playing at?" Katie growled one day after a failed attempt to get Harry to go to Quidditch practice. "Harry's going to rot away! If it wasn't for Hermione he would be dead right now!"

"I know," Ron agreed as he flew around in the air on his broom. "I wish I knew what happened to him but Hermione is the only one that knows and she won't tell anybody."

The reason Harry was wallowing away in self pity was because of what they had found out about what was happening.

He was the reason all this was happening now...

Flashback

Hermione walked in as if the library was her own personal domain. Madam Pince smiled and nodded at her, which she replied to in the same fashion. A few random Ravenclaws waved at her, which she turned.

"Quite the popular little thing you are in here aren't you?" Harry asked in an innocent voice.

"I'm the library Queen," she replied sarcastically.

"You know I actually heard people call you that before," he insisted.

"I'd hit you for that comment but I know it's true," she said dryly.

He chuckled as he followed her down the history section of the library. Suddenly he realized Hermione was looking for something really important and he asked, "What are we looking for?"

"I've read the name 'Half Blood Prince' somewhere before, I know I have, it was only one line but it mentioned another book with the history of this prince in it," Hermione said and started walking up and down the rows of books.

"So look in history books about a Half Blood Prince?" Harry inquired.

"Yeah, so look at famous people and things like that," she replied.

He sighed and muttered, "This is going to be a long night..."

"Mr. Potter," a harsh feminine voice said as someone poked him.

Harry blinked lightly and looked up at the stern librarian. He noted blankly that she looked tired and not in the least angry.

A slight smile appeared on her face and she said, "The library's closing now. I'm impressed to see that you stayed in here. Neither you nor Miss. Granger stayed awake."

Harry looked over at Hermione and a light smile appeared over his face. As Madam Pince approached Hermione he said, "Don't wake her. I'll just carry her back."

"Of course," Pince replied, a light smile playing on her lips. "Be careful though."

"Yes Ma'am," he said and picked up his sleeping girlfriend. She moved a bit and muttered something but that was it.

"Did you need these books?" Madam Pince inquired.

"No, it was just for a bit of extra research," Harry said and walked out of the large room.

As he left a frown appeared over Pince's face and she muttered to herself, "What kind of extra research..."

Once he reached the common room Harry realized the predicament he was now in. He didn't want to wake Hermione but he had no way of getting up into her dormitory.


Sighing he turned and went up to his dorm instead. Everyone else aside from Neville was already asleep when he got there.

The other boy's face turned into an amused one as he saw Harry and said, "Try having a girlfriend in a different house, it makes it even harder."

"I can imagine," Harry replied and placed Hermione on his bed. He then walked around and quickly changed into a pair of dark green pyjama pants and a white t-shirt. He then unzipped Hermione's sweater and put it to the floor then took her shoes, socks and belt off her and put it in a neat bile on his night stand then got into the bed next to her.

"Night Nev," Harry yawned out.


"Night Harry," he replied and watched as his raven haired friend fell asleep with his arms around Hermione.

Sighing then smiling to himself Neville got up and closed the curtains around Harry's bed before laying down and going to sleep.

It was Sunday and neither Hermione nor Harry had awoken from their sleep yet. Everyone else in the boy's dorm had come and gone. Lavender brought a fresh pair of cloths for her friend up then she left.

Harry groaned from the large amount of sunlight that hit his eyes then he turned over slightly and looked at his clock. It was 11:00.

"Hermione," he whispered and rolled back over. "Wake up."

She muttered something and rolled over so she was facing the wall.


"Get up," he said as he got out of the bed. She just muttered again, grabbed the pillow and shoved it over her head.


"Fine then," he said with a smirk and started tickling her around the waste.

Her brown eyes opened and widened with shock as she burst out laughing. Tears started sliding down her cheeks from laughter.


"I'm up! I'm up!" she yelled between fits of giggles. Harry finally ceased with a proud look on his face. He went to move backwards, away from her but he tripped over a book that was thrown on the floor and fell onto his butt with a loud and painful thump.


Hermione burst out laughing at him while at the same time trying to scowl as she said, "Honestly, that's a reason why you put your books back." She stood up and took it into her hands. "Where'd you get this?"

"That..." Harry asked as he stood up. "...was from Remus. It has all my family history in there."

"Interesting," she said. Sitting down on the bed she opened it up and started looking through it. "Here's your parents Harry...oh wow your mother was a Healer and your father was an Auror! That's impressive! Your grandparents...seems like there was a lot of Auror blood in your family!" A frown suddenly appeared on her face. "What's this...beside your dad...Karmen Potter..."


"She was my aunt," Harry said as he sat beside her. "She was my dad's twin sister. She died in an attack a week after they graduated."

"Oh my," Hermione said. "That's so sad."

"I know," he replied and looked at the pages. "I've never looked at my distant family members..."

She flipped to the last page of the book and nearly had a heart attack. "The first magic person in your family was King Arthur! That's amazing! He was best friends with Merlin!"

"I knew that part," Harry said. "I looked at the last page of the book first just to see. It would be awesome to be related to Merlin."

"I know," Hermione agreed and continued following the book through the generations. As it kept going names changed as did people.

Suddenly she stopped and stared as they reached the first person with the name Potter. Something seemed to smash into Harry as he put a hand out to stop her from changing the page. "Vulcan Potter...show us his story."

An image of a young man with raven black hair and pale blue eyes that stood out brightly against his hair appeared. He looked a lot like Harry but there was many differences one could point out when comparing the two.


"Vulcan Arthur Potter was a powerful wizard but his life was cut short by discrimination. Although there was many by the time he was killed, Vulcan Potter was the first ever Half Blood..."

Hermione stared in shock as she stopped reading and Harry continued.

"When he was 27 Vulcan Potter was crucified by the people he had come to love. He was the spawn of impurity and started the evil, but why did he die when all other half-bloods were spared? The answer is simple. He was the first so if he left then it would be good enough for the King. Once the first was dead the rest could live."

Harry took a deep breath and continued reading.

"He was stabbed and he died from blood lose. On his dying breath he swore he'd be back and get revenge on the world starting with the 'new' half-bloods of the time. His own son and wife were in the crowd listening to that so they swore no Potter would ever be a half blood."


"To this day and forever on Vulcan Potter is, and will be known as the first half-blood...the Half Blood Prince..."

His emerald eyes widened and he dropped the book to the ground. He took in a gasping breath and said, "The Half Blood Prince is...my ancestor..."


"He's the first magical Potter," Hermione said then gasped. "You're eyes!"

"What about them?" he shot back a little coldly.


She shrugged it off and said, "It's just when you were possessed by this Half Blood Prince before you eyes turned pale blue and that's what color his are."

Harry studied the picture for a minute before saying in a shocked voice, "Those are the same eyes that the fake you and the fake me had! I'm positive of it."


"The Half Blood Prince has finally come back for revenge on the new Half Bloods which would mean the students in school. It's easier to track them..." Hermione trailed off as Harry's eyes widened.


"That's why there's been no Slytherins taken yet! It happens that at this exact time all Slytherins in the school are Pureblood. I snuck into Dumbledore's files once and saw that because I was curious. That's what James was trying to tell us!"

"So the Half Bloods are the ones being taken!" Hermione exclaimed.


"Yes that means..." Harry's voice turned from excited for figuring the mystery out to terrified. "That means that Lavender, Seamus and I are defiantly going to be attacked...and possibly Dean because he said he wasn't sure if he dad was a wizard or not..."

Hermione's eyes got a fearful look in them and she was about to say something when Harry cut her off with a 'shh' as he kept reading to himself.

"Vulcan Potter was the only person in history aside from Merlin to have his element not one of the four basic elements but an 'impure' version of one. His was shadows. It was the air element mixed with the impurity of muggle blood," Harry read.

"THAT'S WHERE I READ IT!" Hermione yelled. "I saw it when I was researching elements and that's true. When Muggle blood was first mixed with magic blood the results were terrible. Yes there was Muggle-borns at the time too but they were accepted."

"His inner animal was a wolf..." Harry whispered. "It all adds up, that's what I meant by Elements inside and inner animal. I didn't know how I knew it; it was like someone was writing the information in on my brain..."

Suddenly Harry remembered the warm feeling he had been the information had appeared in his head. "My parents...they've been helping all along..."

"OK so we've got half blood prince, inner animal, elements inside but what about defence rune, copies, blood and raw magic?" Hermione asked.

He thought for a minute before saying, "I'm not sure about the defence thing but the copies meant he was making himself look like the copies of other people, the blood meant he needs our blood for something and raw magic is found in your blood..."

The two had red faces from excitement of figuring it all out.

Hermione took the book from him and kept asking for more details. She kept looking until her face went snow white, which was rare for her since her skin was tanned.


"What's wrong?" he asked her.


"He figured out a way to come back to life when he was killed. He was warned before hand that he was going to be. So he made up a gruelling ritual. He needs blood from many Half Bloods and some strong magic to guide it. It will allow him to be 'alive' again but he won't really be alive. More like a zombie. It also says it'll only work when one half blood with darkness in him starts the ritual and one of his living family members is a Half-Blood..."

"That's why his wife and son promised never to have a half-blood in the family, so Vulcan couldn't rise again," Harry muttered. "People from the Muggle world hated him for his magic and people from the wizarding world hated him for his muggle heritage. He became cold, twisted and dark...I'm the first half blood in the Potter family since..."

"Since Vulcan," Hermione finished for him. "But it wasn't anybody's fault. This legend isn't studied very much anymore. If it was Dumbledore would have realized from the beginning what was going on."

"Wait, if Vulcan is the one capturing all these people," Harry said slowly. "Then he must already be alive again."

"I don't think he's physically 'alive' yet," Hermione said slowly. "He needs a certain amount of Half Bloods before he can do it plus a powerful wizard to help him and he needs his half blood descendent..."

"So he must be really fucking powerful as a spirit," Harry concluded after a moment of thought. "Imagine how much stronger he'll be once he does come back."

"I know," Hermione whispered.


"Does it say how come he knew what people to attack? Like who were half bloods, who was muggle born and who was pureblood?" he demanded.

"He had to enter the mind of his descendent first...and in the back of everyone's mind is a list with things like that in it. He read your list, cut that mark in your arm then went off to find the others," she finished off slowly.

Harry's eyes widened and he said, "So it all comes back to me, not Voldemort. I'm the reason all those people had to suffer. I pretty much ratted them out to the bastard! JEEBUS!"

Harry threw himself onto his bed again, chucked the book on the floor and turned so his back was facing Hermione.

"Harry..." she said and placed a small hand on his shoulder.


"Can I be alone for awhile?" he asked.


"Sure," she said and stood up. She collected her fresh cloths and said, "I've got to get changed anyway." With one last look at her best friend Hermione left the room.

End Flashback

Harry hadn't come out of his room since them. His dreams would be worse at night now that he knew the truth. Vulcan would taunt him about not realizing it before now and would say things like 'It's your fault you know. If you wouldn't have been born then this wouldn't be happening.'

He was glad Hermione brought him his homework and some food everyday. He wasn't reading to see the rest of the school known that he was the reason about ½ of the students had gone missing.

Hermione insisted it wasn't his fault but he simply ignored her to this point.

He knew he was being childish but he couldn't help it anymore. He felt like he had let his parents down somehow and was slightly ashamed that they had to help him but he was also grateful at the same time.

"Vulcan's life must have been hard..." Harry said suddenly. It made since when he thought about it. "People must have been staring at him constantly, whispering behind his back and things like that...just like what I get but for a different reason."

As the Boy Who Lived drifted off to sleep the Half Blood Prince heard his voiced thoughts and said, "Well then, I guess it's time I showed you what happened my cute little descendent..."

Dream

Harry looked around curiously. He knew he was dreaming but he didn't understand why he was in an old looking village instead of the Blood Castle.

Suddenly he heard someone say, "Oh look, here comes the filth."


"It's hard to believe he's from a noble blood line," someone else whispered.

"King Arthur will roll in his grave while watching that creature live," the first person agreed.

Harry followed this gaze and his eyes landed on Vulcan. He stared at the man and walked closer to him realizing this was probably like in a pensive or like when he was pulled into Riddle's diary.

Harry stared at Vulcan with interest. His eyes held darkness and hatred in them and his face was set into a look that matched it. He pointedly ignored the people and continued on to his house, which was fairly large.

Muttering a spell Vulcan pushed open the door and walked in, throwing off his cloak and his shoes.


"DAD!" A tiny voice yelled and a small boy appeared. He had a wide smile on his face, his black hair was messy and his purple-blue eyes looked excited.


Vulcan shedded a true smile and said, "How's my little man?"


"Great," the boy replied. "I finally know how to count all the way to 100 now! Isn't that great dad?"


Vulcan let out a bark laugh that strongly reminded Harry of Sirius and he said, "That's great. Where's your mother William?"

"In the kitchen cooking," William said and took his father's hand, leading him into the kitchen.


Harry watched as Vulcan compliment and kissed his wife (Elizabeth) and realized what this part was meant to show him. Vulcan wasn't all bad; he had loved him family so much.

Harry followed Vulcan downstairs after supper and saw simmering cauldrons all over the place.

"I fear that the end has drawn near," Vulcan said as he wrote. "Luckily I am complete the ritual that will bring me back to life. It is all explained through this journal so I see no reason for writing it out again. All I need to do is wait for a darkened Half Blood to find this journal and begin the ritual for me and I need to wait for a Half Blood descendent..."

Suddenly there was a crash and he heard his wife's scream from upstairs. Vulcan quickly cut his hand and let a little blood drop onto the book then all the writing vanished and he locked it up then ran upstairs.

He paused and watched a heavily armed knight head towards his wife and son but he wouldn't allow that. He attacked the man from behind, wounding him badly.

"This is between you all and me, leave my family out of it," Vulcan growled angrily, this time he reminded Harry strongly of himself.

A few of the knights laughed but one said, "Fine with us. Our orders were to bring you. They said it's up to us whether the woman and the child die."

The lead knight looked over at the terrified woman and said, "Let her live, she is a pureblood as is her son."

"There are many half bloods around today," Vulcan growled.


"Maybe so," one knight shot back. "But you were the first."


Harry watched a huge fight as Vulcan attempted to save himself from the king's men. In the end though he was just outnumbered and was taken away.

FLASH

Harry winced as a bright white light (lol) covered his vision and then he was surprised to find himself in the middle of the city. It appeared that everyone had come out to watch something. Many had excited looks on their faces the same as the ones on student's faces when they were going to watch Quidditch matches.

Harry noticed a platform with a tall stake on it. He was about to check it out when he heard woops, laughter and cheers from the people.

He turned around and saw the guards dragging Vulcan roughly up towards the platform.


They tied him tightly to the stake and one said, "Today we will be rid of the original evil that plagued us. But we must honour Vulcan Arthur Potter, he is brave enough to stand up to 10 knights on his own and he is brave enough to accept this fate."

A few people laughed as one knight brought up a crown made of bone with a few stains of blood on it and placed it on Vulcan's head. "The Half Blood Prince." This caused many people to laugh.


Harry stared in disgust at this and watched with growing sickness as the knights started slicing various parts of his body, but not enough to kill him, just enough to make him bleed.

He watched the thick red liquid fall to the ground and he wondered what Vulcan's wife and son must be thinking, they were in the front row staring helplessly at him.

Vulcan smiled at them then after many hours of bleeding he yelled with all his might, "YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE LAST OF ME! I WILL RETURN AND WHEN I DO ALL THE NEW HALF BLOODS WILL BECOME MY SLAVES! THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE WILL RETURN IN THE TIME WHEN MY DESCENDENT IS A HALF BLOOD!" With that Vulcan took in his last breath of life and slumped dead.

Elizabeth Potter sobbed and whispered to William, "We must pass on through generation after generation that the Potters must stay pureblood. I loved your father so but I cannot let him harm so many children."

"William?" Another small male voice asked.

The young Potter turned around and saw four children about his age staring at him.


"Hi Godric, Salazar, Rowena, Helga," he said sadly to his friends.

"I'm sorry about your dad," Godric said. "Well make it up to you somehow...by...I don't know...making a school that accepts everyone."

The other three nodded along with him.

"Godric Gryffindor...we must leave," one woman said. Godric waved goodbye to William and he left. One by one each of the other children were called, revealing their surnames as "Slytherin", "Ravenclaw", and "Hufflepuff".

"Well I'll be damned," Harry muttered.


Suddenly the scene changed and he was back in the blood castle.


"That's right Harry you are damned," Vulcan said. He looked like himself now, older and a little more 'pointier' then Harry was.

"Why didn't you save yourself?" Harry asked.

"They would have killed my family Potter. Unlike Riddle I am not completely evil. He killed his family...I died to save mine. I am like him in many ways yet you and I are similar as well."

Vulcan's eyes looked to the Gryffindor crest on Harry's robes and he said, "Aww yes, the famous Gryffindor house of Hogwarts. Godric was my son's best friend you know. He didn't care if I was half blood or not, neither did his family. The Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were all nice to my family. The Slytherins were a little iffy but even the last descendent of Slytherin is half blood now."

"Why did you show me this?" Harry asked.

"You asked me to," was all Vulcan said before he pushed Harry out of the dream.

End Dream

Harry woke up and felt terribly sick but he wasn't going to throw up this time. He was disgusted at the people of Camelot (well he assumed that's where it was) for thinking the death of a great man was amusing.

"If they would have let him die on his own then he wouldn't have vowed revenge and none of this would be happening now," Harry said slowly. "I get it now. It's not my fault, it's theirs!"

He got up from his bed, and changed quickly. He was finally ready to leave his room and good back to his life. He just needed to see the light before he could.

As he walked out Hermione was walking in. He grabbed her around the waste, twirled her around then kissed her.

After they broke apart Hermione said, "You're in a good mood."

"Yeah," he said off handily. "I guess I just needed to see Vulcan from a different perspective then just books."

"So you're coming down now?" Hermione asked.

"Hell yeah, I'm starved," he said and dragged her down the stairs.

They didn't see the curtains ruffle as if a breeze had entered the room and they didn't hear someone said, "Enjoy your time with her Potter, it's going to end sooner then you'd like to think it should."

Albus Dumbledore was delighted that Harry was finally out of his room. Although he didn't know what had been wrong with the boy he had been worried.

Then why didn't he do anything? Because he knew, deep in his heart, that Harry had something he alone needed to figure out and nobody could help him.

Madam Pince had told him about Harry and Hermione looking through so many history books. Dumbledore wasn't going to pry anymore, if they told him they told him. He was going to take Harry's advice and quit while he was ahead.

It appeared that Fudge thought it best too because he had announced his retirement from the position as Minister of Magic that morning. It was the best decision but Harry had been the only one with the guts to tell him so.

"I do worry," Dumbledore said to Fawks. "Soon it will be approaching the end of the year and Mr. Potter will have to face some horror, we all know he will and I don't think I can help very much this year."

Author's Random Babbling

DONE! Who's good? Me! lol! See it depends on what I'm writing and what mood I'm in for when I'm going to update. I've been dying to write all this and I'm in a really good mood right now so I went super speed!! Whoo!

Now if there's any questions as them in your reviews and I'll answer them but I don't think I'm going to reply to them anymore unless there's a really good point in them or something. As one person pointed out my chapters get shorter and the review reply gets longer so I've decided that the story is more important to me and I don't want it deleted of ff.n or anything...

But I will still acknowledge you for reviewing!

Thank you all who reviewed and patiently waited that long period of time between updates (Yeah right) the next chapter won't be up for awhile because I've gotta do lots of homework plus I'm going to see The Grudge today (woot!)

Although since there's not many reviewers for this chapter since I updated so quick I'll reply to them...

Anyways thank you to:

Shawn Pickett – Nah I don't think so

Holimontski – the italics part was a dream...I dunno if that helps or not...

Gorav1 – Soon enough update for ya?

Ginny-cry – er...nice...LOL

Destined Enchantress – The teacher's reactions was shock all around and Madam Pomfrey put Snape in the hospital wing for a week for agreeing with Harry (LOL! JK!)

Hpfanchrissy1502 – Well you know who he is now

Observant Dude – I agree with you although majority of the time I try to make my chapters about 10 pages and the review thing a bout 1 or 2 on Microsoft word...I'm going to try and make sure that doesn't happen to me because the story is the reason I write...

Carn – Look at my reply to Destined Enchantress's review above for that answer

Preetoaka Raven Weasley Potter – You're going to kill me but I either won't be updating it for ALONG time or I won't be updating it at all...my interest level with that fic went down to nothing

Thank you to those who reviewed and please people, give me your opinions but be nice!

Krystal Lily Potter