EDIT: ok so I read Mare na Var's post and realized I'd forgotten some
explaining. So I typed it up that weekend. Then I started studying for my
AP tests (one is finally over) but only just now realized that I hadn't
updated the chapter. I'm sorry. Also I forgot to tell you that the reason I
got discouraged from writing for a while was because fanfiction.net sent me
an email saying I had posted an 'illegitimate' posting (my chapter when I
said was typing just confused. It was about December or something anyway)
so they took my posting abilities away for a while (they didn't specify) I
wrote them an email. Well enjoy the end for all those who read this.
OK so I finally got around to finding the bit of book, reading it, rewriting it, typing it (this took the longest), and still trying to finish it. Enjoy grin
Eos - looks at dead body on ground damnit why do people always end up dead on my clean carpet? grumbles oh well, kicks Eos WAKE UP you lazy bum..... watches her FINE but I won't update if you can't help me by reading this.....
TuxedoMac - glares that sucks, it would have been cool if you could... I learnt most of it by reading books on Wicca, but you can get it off the internet if you look in the right places. Now I'm not the one to ask about that, but Serpent and Mare na Var are good. Thanks, but I'm not changing it now, I have a really good plan for those teachers grin. sighs well have fun sleeping then.
Serpent – I thought I did tell you your last names..... Go back and read the chapter again on when Dumbledore meets us. Yeah finals were a bitch. Well now that they are over we get to look forward to the next set of tests. The SAT 9's or the STAR 6's or whatever the bleep they are. And I get to take the ACT, SAT I, and SAT II. sarcastically JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED TO DO! Anyhoo, talk to you laters.
Mare na Var – lol cackles manically you shall find out when school starts in this story. Which will be in a few chapters or less (I'm hoping). grin
Thank you everyone else who has been reviewing/reading my story I'm very grateful. I hope to get some more out this week, but I have to study for the ACT grumbles which is on Saturday. So if not you just have to wait an exceedingly long amount of time, cause after my AP exams I'll probably have time. Which by the way is the first week of May. Again enjoy. grin
Chapter 13 – An Unexpected Explanation
"Er... Oops," Harry said sheepishly while rubbing the back of his neck. Dumbledore and McGonagall stood up, both with shock on their faces. Professor Trelawney's eyes looked like they would pop out of her head. She stood up; mouth gulping like a fish but no words came out, and then dropped in a dead faint. None of the other teachers really paid much attention to her, they continued to stare.
"Maybe I should put these away," Harry whispered to the girls, they nodded 'yes'. Harry closed his eyes and relaxed. Distantly the door banged open, but Harry was lost in his world as he thought of what he had to do. 'Make them blow away,' Harry thought.
His feathers began to be released from him. He thought about the feathers coming off one at a time. Finally he thought of the whole lot of them. He rebalanced himself and opened his eyes after nearly falling on his face again.
Feathers billowed around Harry like a pillow had burst in the wind. When it settled he brushed off the feathers on his person and pulled his shirt back on. Harry turned around Lupin and Sirius, in dog form, were standing in the doorway gaping like fish.
Harry had to laugh at the gaping dog, 'That is something you don't see everyday,' he thought but the girls giggled; he had forgotten about the mind link. The door smacking the wall had pulled the teachers from their trance like state.
Dumbledore finally spoke up. "Harry, ladies, to my office please we shall have lunch there," he spoke while walking towards the door, McGonagall following closely behind. Lupin and Sirius joined the group as they exited the Great Hall and walked quickly to Dumbledore's office. The walk was silent and fast paced. When they arrived they sat down. The teenagers waited for the adults to talk. Sirius had de-transformed and was looking at Harry with awe.
Finally as if he had only been collecting his thoughts Dumbledore spoke, "Harry, why not tell us about your dream." Dumbledore steepled his hands in front of his face and watched Harry with an all knowing eye. Harry's stomach growled in response. "How could I be so forgetful? Is turkey sandwiches alright with everyone?" No one disagreed, so with a swish and flick of his wand sandwiches appeared on the table.
When none of the adults made a move to get the food the girls and Harry grabbed a sandwich – by sandwich I mean a sub to those not in America, so not something tiny got it? Good. Don't ask me why I thought this needed to be clarified... anyway. – Harry noted that just like in his second year the plate refilled itself. – If you don't know what I'm talking about then you need to stop reading this and go back and read the second book, and then the rest of the books all the way to the 5th one. I really didn't exactly enjoy the 5th one. Just wasn't what I was expecting but I guess I'll have to wait for the 6th to make sense out of it. – The five all had two sandwiches; the adults appeared to be in deep thought still and hadn't touched the plate. Once they had all finished eating, they looked at Dumbledore, who had been watching them eat silently.
Harry looked sheepish for a moment then began, "Well it starts after I had the first dream with the two lovely young ladies," at this the girls snickered for no apparent reason.
Diana blushed lightly but only Anna noticed; as usual. He caught a whisper through his mind, something about Kurama twitching and spurting randomly – I'll explain at the end. – Harry gave them a questioning look but continued, "I was doing my..." the sound of the spiral staircase moving notified them of a new visitor. Professor Snape walked in a second later.
"Ah yes, Professor do take a seat, Harry continue."
Harry cleared his throat, "I was doing the chores my Aunt had listed off for the day. I got to the ninth thing..." 'Oh no!' Harry thought he had let slip something he hadn't wanted to.
"NINTH?!" Sirius and Remus interrupted.
"OF ALL THE NERVE, AND HOW MUCH DID THAT OAF OF A COUSIN DO?!" Sirius continued to yell.
"BLACK, LUPIN!" Snape exclaimed surprising the men. "Let the boy continue," he said calmly.
"I got to the ninth thing, when I needed a ladder. I went to the shed and found Serpent," he pointed at Juliana. "After I'd finished my chores we talked for a bit before Skye ...appeared in the window," he grinned and pointed at Maria," and then Luna," he pointed at Isabella.
"I ate dinner and then we talked some more. They were all in their animal forms and I was confused, because they wouldn't tell me anything about themselves. They said they were still waiting for Pheonix," he pointed at Diana," but she hadn't shown up yet. So the three were about to tell me about themselves when I fell into a vision." Harry paused for a moment, shuddered, and then scrunched his face trying to remember what had happened.
Everyone was silent waiting for him to continue. He realized they were waiting, "I was... I was at Azkaban. Voldemort was surrounded by twenty or so dementors. Voldemort is a lot stronger; I could feel it rolling off him in dark waves. He was about to say something, when I collapsed in pain; then suddenly it was gone. I opened my eyes and looked around to find I was in a room similar to the Gryffindor Common Room. My scar was bleeding. I turned around at a sound," he choked, "my parents were there." Remus and Sirius' mouths dropped. "But what really surprised me was the fact that my father had a set of ten foot wings." He looked at Sirius and Remus their shocked faces changed to reminiscence. "When were you going to tell me?" Harry asked them angrily.
"James told us we would never need to and we were not allowed to even if we did," Remus said quietly after a while.
"He said that you would find out about it, when you were ready," Sirius continued in a low grumble.
"What are you talking about?" Snape snapped.
"My ancestors are all Atlantian. That is why I have wings," Harry pulled the necklace out, "from generation to generation this staff has been passed down through the royalty. It changes to accommodate the user." Everyone could see the wolf on the chain. Harry thought the runes to bring his staff out. It glowed and then the wolf elongated into his staff.
"Hey watch were you point that thing!" Izzy exclaimed. The pointed end had nearly poked her eye out but Anna and Maria hadn't moved her.
"Oh sorry," Harry said as he placed the staff on the table for everyone to see. The professors all leaned forward including Remus, Sirius contented himself by looking into the orb at the end.
"You are the ebony wolf," Sirius said quietly.
"What was that Black?" Snape said from across the table.
"He's the ebony wolf." Sirius said again as though that explained it all. Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall slumped in their chairs.
"What does that mean? How is that important?" Snape asked Dumbledore.
Dumbledore sighed, "I have always known it would be you Harry, I knew the minute after I found out you had defeated Voldemort for the first time that you had great things to do in your life. I was just hoping it would not be like this. I was hoping that it would be something that kept you safe. But after your first year I knew that it was you that the prophecy was talking about."
"Wh... What Prophecy?" Harry asked uncertainly. 'Maybe I don't want to know' Harry thought.
'But you need to know.' Diana thought quietly to him. She took his hand under the table and squeezed it. Harry felt somehow better. The room went silent even Fawkes sat completely still on his perch.
"It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me – to do whatever you like – when I have finished. I will not stop you."
Harry said nothing, but waited nervously for the news. "Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well – not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years." He paused.
Harry said nothing. "You might ask – and with good reason – why it had to be so. Why could some Wizarding family not have taken you in? Many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honored and delighted to raise you as a son.
"My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters – and many of them are almost as terrible as he – were still at large, angry, desperate, and violent. And I had to make my decision too with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone forever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty, or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure too, knowing him as I have, that he would not rest until he killed you.
"I knew too where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated – to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that you mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in you veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."
"She doesn't love me," said Harry at once. "She doesn't give a damn -"
"But she took you," Dumbledore cut across him. "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you."
"I still don't -"
"While you can still call home the place where you mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years."
Harry's anger finally broke its seal, "If you think being beaten by your cousin, and uncle, yelled at for doing things you didn't know you did, expected to do things in a house like a house elf is where I call home you are sadly mistaken," Harry said in a cold yet angry voice. He didn't say it loud; but in the utter silence of the room that followed you would have thought he had bellowed.
Dumbledore looked at him with pain in his eyes; Sirius and Remus stood up, walked over to him and hugged him. Diana squeezed his hand harder to let him know she was still there. Harry was grateful for it. But what he didn't expect was the look in Snape's eyes. The look both shocked him and made him realize that Snape was truly sorry for the pain and torture he had put him through. McGonagall sat speechless. The other girls were looking at each other and Harry.
'We're here for you now Harry, so are Hermione and Ron. We wish we hadn't been this late in arriving. We wish we had been there earlier for you. Wish we had lived in the same neighborhood, so we could grow up together laughing at Dudley and helping you,' the four girls voices echoed in Harry's head. Sirius and Remus finally released Harry. When they did they looked so forlorn and sorrowful Harry had to say,
"It wasn't anyone's fault." But they continued to berate themselves from the inside.
"I am truly sorry Harry I did not know that it had gone that far," Dumbledore said in an odd voice that made him sound his age, instead of his happy self. "Please let me finish, I want you to know what needs to be known." Harry nodded.
"Five years ago, then," continued Dumbledore, "you arrived at Hogwarts alive and healthy. Thus far, my plan was working well. And then... well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner – much sooner – then I had anticipated, you -found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was... prouder of you then I can say.
"Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine," said Dumbledore. "An obvious flaw that I knew, even then might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent it, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort."
"I don't understand what you're saying," said Harry.
"Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?" Harry nodded. "Ought I to have told you then?" Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing. "You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No... perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.
"I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I didn't not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day.... You were too young, much too young.
"And so we entered your second year at Hogwarts. And once again you met challengers even grown wizards have never faced. Once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark upon you. We discussed your scar, oh yes.... We came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?
"Well, it seemed to me that twelve was, after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph...."
"Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."
"You cared about him," Anna said quite simply, as though she had known it all along. – AN actually the person I based this off of probably would have... anyway – Harry looked at Anna and Dumbledore with slight shock on his face. Everyone remained silent. Diana squeezed his hand in reassurance again.
"I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for you life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act." Harry was watching the desk as he said this.
'I don't want to know what it is that would make him want me to be happy rather than tell me the truth,' Harry thought during a pause. He went to stand, so he could leave the room, but three minds forced him to stay. 'No I don't want to hear it,' he told them.
'Harry you have to hear it. If you don't, then when will you hear it? This is the thing you've wanted to know for four years. To know why Voldemort killed your parents, tried to kill you. This will answer that question,' Diana and Anna said coaxing him into staying. It appeared to be working, because he resisted the urge to stand and leave.
Dumbledore continued, "Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have – and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined – not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands."
"We entered your third year. I watched from afar as you struggled to repel dementors, as you found Sirius," Harry, Remus, and Sirius smiled, "learned what he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when you had triumphantly snatched your godfather from the jaws of the Ministry? But now, at the age of thirteen, my excuses were running out. Young you might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Harry. I knew the time must come soon...."
"But you came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die, having escaped death so narrowly yourself... and I did not tell you, though I knew, now Voldemort had returned, I must do it soon. And now, today, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long. My only defense is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school, and I could not bring myself to add another – the greatest one of all."
"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear the prophecy in its entirety. This is a weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you."
"Now there is a record of the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly."
"Who heard it?" asked Harry, though he thought he knew the answer already.
"I did," said Dumbledore. "On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave." Dumbledore went through the 'door' into his office, and came out a minute later with the pensive. Once Dumbledore sat down again, he prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sibyl Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before.
THE EBONY WOLF WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES... BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES... AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT... AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES... THE ROAD OF THE WOLF WILL HAVE SUFFERING. BUT ONLY HE WHO IS CHOSEN CAN ACHIEVE THIS DANGEROUS FATE... THOSE HE HOLDS DEARLY WILL AID HIM THROUGH HIS GOAL... ONE MORE THAN THE REST... THE EBONY WOLF WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES... BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES...
Harry watched as Trelawney revolved and then disappeared into Dumbledore's pensive. He looked back to Dumbledore and unconsciously squeezed Diana's hand. Dumbledore looked suddenly very old; everyone noticed it. Nobody spoke as though afraid to break glass if they did. Harry watched Dumbledore and Dumbledore watched Harry.
-OK I'm sorry I took soo long to get this out, but to do it I had to read a bit of Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix and I've been really busy with school grumblesstupid AP classesgrumbles anyway hopefully no one will kill me. I'm hoping to write some more over spring break if I have time. I probably won't be writing normally until about mid May.
-whoops I forgot to tell you about the thing Harry heard that he didn't understand as Mare na Var reminded me.
"He caught a whisper through his mind, something about Kurama twitching and spurting randomly."
Ok if anyone likes Yuu Yuu Hakusho then you'll enjoy this. Me and my friends were reading through a magazine on anime when we came across a picture that said and I quote "Two lovely young ladies" now that was fine, except that it was a picture of Kurama and Youko Kurama who both happen to be MALE. Later, we were watching an episode of Yuu Yuu Hakusho when they are at the other realm tournament. In this Kurama is fighting the one of the evil guys and has been hit pretty bad. He's lying on the floor covered in blood (obviously not the American version) and is twitching. Now every now and then his wrists spurt blood like the vessels are still working. So one day we came up with 'Two lovely young ladies randomly twitching and spurting ferociously.' That is what I was talking about. If that made no sense please tell me and I'll try again or just ignore my friends and my weirdness.
OK so I finally got around to finding the bit of book, reading it, rewriting it, typing it (this took the longest), and still trying to finish it. Enjoy grin
Eos - looks at dead body on ground damnit why do people always end up dead on my clean carpet? grumbles oh well, kicks Eos WAKE UP you lazy bum..... watches her FINE but I won't update if you can't help me by reading this.....
TuxedoMac - glares that sucks, it would have been cool if you could... I learnt most of it by reading books on Wicca, but you can get it off the internet if you look in the right places. Now I'm not the one to ask about that, but Serpent and Mare na Var are good. Thanks, but I'm not changing it now, I have a really good plan for those teachers grin. sighs well have fun sleeping then.
Serpent – I thought I did tell you your last names..... Go back and read the chapter again on when Dumbledore meets us. Yeah finals were a bitch. Well now that they are over we get to look forward to the next set of tests. The SAT 9's or the STAR 6's or whatever the bleep they are. And I get to take the ACT, SAT I, and SAT II. sarcastically JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED TO DO! Anyhoo, talk to you laters.
Mare na Var – lol cackles manically you shall find out when school starts in this story. Which will be in a few chapters or less (I'm hoping). grin
Thank you everyone else who has been reviewing/reading my story I'm very grateful. I hope to get some more out this week, but I have to study for the ACT grumbles which is on Saturday. So if not you just have to wait an exceedingly long amount of time, cause after my AP exams I'll probably have time. Which by the way is the first week of May. Again enjoy. grin
Chapter 13 – An Unexpected Explanation
"Er... Oops," Harry said sheepishly while rubbing the back of his neck. Dumbledore and McGonagall stood up, both with shock on their faces. Professor Trelawney's eyes looked like they would pop out of her head. She stood up; mouth gulping like a fish but no words came out, and then dropped in a dead faint. None of the other teachers really paid much attention to her, they continued to stare.
"Maybe I should put these away," Harry whispered to the girls, they nodded 'yes'. Harry closed his eyes and relaxed. Distantly the door banged open, but Harry was lost in his world as he thought of what he had to do. 'Make them blow away,' Harry thought.
His feathers began to be released from him. He thought about the feathers coming off one at a time. Finally he thought of the whole lot of them. He rebalanced himself and opened his eyes after nearly falling on his face again.
Feathers billowed around Harry like a pillow had burst in the wind. When it settled he brushed off the feathers on his person and pulled his shirt back on. Harry turned around Lupin and Sirius, in dog form, were standing in the doorway gaping like fish.
Harry had to laugh at the gaping dog, 'That is something you don't see everyday,' he thought but the girls giggled; he had forgotten about the mind link. The door smacking the wall had pulled the teachers from their trance like state.
Dumbledore finally spoke up. "Harry, ladies, to my office please we shall have lunch there," he spoke while walking towards the door, McGonagall following closely behind. Lupin and Sirius joined the group as they exited the Great Hall and walked quickly to Dumbledore's office. The walk was silent and fast paced. When they arrived they sat down. The teenagers waited for the adults to talk. Sirius had de-transformed and was looking at Harry with awe.
Finally as if he had only been collecting his thoughts Dumbledore spoke, "Harry, why not tell us about your dream." Dumbledore steepled his hands in front of his face and watched Harry with an all knowing eye. Harry's stomach growled in response. "How could I be so forgetful? Is turkey sandwiches alright with everyone?" No one disagreed, so with a swish and flick of his wand sandwiches appeared on the table.
When none of the adults made a move to get the food the girls and Harry grabbed a sandwich – by sandwich I mean a sub to those not in America, so not something tiny got it? Good. Don't ask me why I thought this needed to be clarified... anyway. – Harry noted that just like in his second year the plate refilled itself. – If you don't know what I'm talking about then you need to stop reading this and go back and read the second book, and then the rest of the books all the way to the 5th one. I really didn't exactly enjoy the 5th one. Just wasn't what I was expecting but I guess I'll have to wait for the 6th to make sense out of it. – The five all had two sandwiches; the adults appeared to be in deep thought still and hadn't touched the plate. Once they had all finished eating, they looked at Dumbledore, who had been watching them eat silently.
Harry looked sheepish for a moment then began, "Well it starts after I had the first dream with the two lovely young ladies," at this the girls snickered for no apparent reason.
Diana blushed lightly but only Anna noticed; as usual. He caught a whisper through his mind, something about Kurama twitching and spurting randomly – I'll explain at the end. – Harry gave them a questioning look but continued, "I was doing my..." the sound of the spiral staircase moving notified them of a new visitor. Professor Snape walked in a second later.
"Ah yes, Professor do take a seat, Harry continue."
Harry cleared his throat, "I was doing the chores my Aunt had listed off for the day. I got to the ninth thing..." 'Oh no!' Harry thought he had let slip something he hadn't wanted to.
"NINTH?!" Sirius and Remus interrupted.
"OF ALL THE NERVE, AND HOW MUCH DID THAT OAF OF A COUSIN DO?!" Sirius continued to yell.
"BLACK, LUPIN!" Snape exclaimed surprising the men. "Let the boy continue," he said calmly.
"I got to the ninth thing, when I needed a ladder. I went to the shed and found Serpent," he pointed at Juliana. "After I'd finished my chores we talked for a bit before Skye ...appeared in the window," he grinned and pointed at Maria," and then Luna," he pointed at Isabella.
"I ate dinner and then we talked some more. They were all in their animal forms and I was confused, because they wouldn't tell me anything about themselves. They said they were still waiting for Pheonix," he pointed at Diana," but she hadn't shown up yet. So the three were about to tell me about themselves when I fell into a vision." Harry paused for a moment, shuddered, and then scrunched his face trying to remember what had happened.
Everyone was silent waiting for him to continue. He realized they were waiting, "I was... I was at Azkaban. Voldemort was surrounded by twenty or so dementors. Voldemort is a lot stronger; I could feel it rolling off him in dark waves. He was about to say something, when I collapsed in pain; then suddenly it was gone. I opened my eyes and looked around to find I was in a room similar to the Gryffindor Common Room. My scar was bleeding. I turned around at a sound," he choked, "my parents were there." Remus and Sirius' mouths dropped. "But what really surprised me was the fact that my father had a set of ten foot wings." He looked at Sirius and Remus their shocked faces changed to reminiscence. "When were you going to tell me?" Harry asked them angrily.
"James told us we would never need to and we were not allowed to even if we did," Remus said quietly after a while.
"He said that you would find out about it, when you were ready," Sirius continued in a low grumble.
"What are you talking about?" Snape snapped.
"My ancestors are all Atlantian. That is why I have wings," Harry pulled the necklace out, "from generation to generation this staff has been passed down through the royalty. It changes to accommodate the user." Everyone could see the wolf on the chain. Harry thought the runes to bring his staff out. It glowed and then the wolf elongated into his staff.
"Hey watch were you point that thing!" Izzy exclaimed. The pointed end had nearly poked her eye out but Anna and Maria hadn't moved her.
"Oh sorry," Harry said as he placed the staff on the table for everyone to see. The professors all leaned forward including Remus, Sirius contented himself by looking into the orb at the end.
"You are the ebony wolf," Sirius said quietly.
"What was that Black?" Snape said from across the table.
"He's the ebony wolf." Sirius said again as though that explained it all. Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall slumped in their chairs.
"What does that mean? How is that important?" Snape asked Dumbledore.
Dumbledore sighed, "I have always known it would be you Harry, I knew the minute after I found out you had defeated Voldemort for the first time that you had great things to do in your life. I was just hoping it would not be like this. I was hoping that it would be something that kept you safe. But after your first year I knew that it was you that the prophecy was talking about."
"Wh... What Prophecy?" Harry asked uncertainly. 'Maybe I don't want to know' Harry thought.
'But you need to know.' Diana thought quietly to him. She took his hand under the table and squeezed it. Harry felt somehow better. The room went silent even Fawkes sat completely still on his perch.
"It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you five years ago, Harry. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me – to do whatever you like – when I have finished. I will not stop you."
Harry said nothing, but waited nervously for the news. "Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well – not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years." He paused.
Harry said nothing. "You might ask – and with good reason – why it had to be so. Why could some Wizarding family not have taken you in? Many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honored and delighted to raise you as a son.
"My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters – and many of them are almost as terrible as he – were still at large, angry, desperate, and violent. And I had to make my decision too with regard to the years ahead. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone forever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty, or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure too, knowing him as I have, that he would not rest until he killed you.
"I knew too where Voldemort was weak. And so I made my decision. You would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated – to his cost. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that you mother died to save you. She gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in you veins to this day. I put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. I delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."
"She doesn't love me," said Harry at once. "She doesn't give a damn -"
"But she took you," Dumbledore cut across him. "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you."
"I still don't -"
"While you can still call home the place where you mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years."
Harry's anger finally broke its seal, "If you think being beaten by your cousin, and uncle, yelled at for doing things you didn't know you did, expected to do things in a house like a house elf is where I call home you are sadly mistaken," Harry said in a cold yet angry voice. He didn't say it loud; but in the utter silence of the room that followed you would have thought he had bellowed.
Dumbledore looked at him with pain in his eyes; Sirius and Remus stood up, walked over to him and hugged him. Diana squeezed his hand harder to let him know she was still there. Harry was grateful for it. But what he didn't expect was the look in Snape's eyes. The look both shocked him and made him realize that Snape was truly sorry for the pain and torture he had put him through. McGonagall sat speechless. The other girls were looking at each other and Harry.
'We're here for you now Harry, so are Hermione and Ron. We wish we hadn't been this late in arriving. We wish we had been there earlier for you. Wish we had lived in the same neighborhood, so we could grow up together laughing at Dudley and helping you,' the four girls voices echoed in Harry's head. Sirius and Remus finally released Harry. When they did they looked so forlorn and sorrowful Harry had to say,
"It wasn't anyone's fault." But they continued to berate themselves from the inside.
"I am truly sorry Harry I did not know that it had gone that far," Dumbledore said in an odd voice that made him sound his age, instead of his happy self. "Please let me finish, I want you to know what needs to be known." Harry nodded.
"Five years ago, then," continued Dumbledore, "you arrived at Hogwarts alive and healthy. Thus far, my plan was working well. And then... well, you will remember the events of your first year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I do. You rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner – much sooner – then I had anticipated, you -found yourself face-to-face with Voldemort. You survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was... prouder of you then I can say.
"Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine," said Dumbledore. "An obvious flaw that I knew, even then might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent it, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort."
"I don't understand what you're saying," said Harry.
"Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?" Harry nodded. "Ought I to have told you then?" Harry stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but his heart was racing. "You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No... perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Eleven, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.
"I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I didn't not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day.... You were too young, much too young.
"And so we entered your second year at Hogwarts. And once again you met challengers even grown wizards have never faced. Once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams. You did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had left that mark upon you. We discussed your scar, oh yes.... We came very, very close to the subject. Why did I not tell you everything?
"Well, it seemed to me that twelve was, after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph...."
"Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."
"You cared about him," Anna said quite simply, as though she had known it all along. – AN actually the person I based this off of probably would have... anyway – Harry looked at Anna and Dumbledore with slight shock on his face. Everyone remained silent. Diana squeezed his hand in reassurance again.
"I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for you life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act." Harry was watching the desk as he said this.
'I don't want to know what it is that would make him want me to be happy rather than tell me the truth,' Harry thought during a pause. He went to stand, so he could leave the room, but three minds forced him to stay. 'No I don't want to hear it,' he told them.
'Harry you have to hear it. If you don't, then when will you hear it? This is the thing you've wanted to know for four years. To know why Voldemort killed your parents, tried to kill you. This will answer that question,' Diana and Anna said coaxing him into staying. It appeared to be working, because he resisted the urge to stand and leave.
Dumbledore continued, "Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have – and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined – not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands."
"We entered your third year. I watched from afar as you struggled to repel dementors, as you found Sirius," Harry, Remus, and Sirius smiled, "learned what he was and rescued him. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when you had triumphantly snatched your godfather from the jaws of the Ministry? But now, at the age of thirteen, my excuses were running out. Young you might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Harry. I knew the time must come soon...."
"But you came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die, having escaped death so narrowly yourself... and I did not tell you, though I knew, now Voldemort had returned, I must do it soon. And now, today, I know you have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long. My only defense is this: I have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school, and I could not bring myself to add another – the greatest one of all."
"Voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear the prophecy in its entirety. This is a weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you."
"Now there is a record of the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly."
"Who heard it?" asked Harry, though he thought he knew the answer already.
"I did," said Dumbledore. "On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head Inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer, and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave." Dumbledore went through the 'door' into his office, and came out a minute later with the pensive. Once Dumbledore sat down again, he prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. But when Sibyl Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Harry had heard her use once before.
THE EBONY WOLF WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES... BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES... AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT... AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES... THE ROAD OF THE WOLF WILL HAVE SUFFERING. BUT ONLY HE WHO IS CHOSEN CAN ACHIEVE THIS DANGEROUS FATE... THOSE HE HOLDS DEARLY WILL AID HIM THROUGH HIS GOAL... ONE MORE THAN THE REST... THE EBONY WOLF WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES... BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES...
Harry watched as Trelawney revolved and then disappeared into Dumbledore's pensive. He looked back to Dumbledore and unconsciously squeezed Diana's hand. Dumbledore looked suddenly very old; everyone noticed it. Nobody spoke as though afraid to break glass if they did. Harry watched Dumbledore and Dumbledore watched Harry.
-OK I'm sorry I took soo long to get this out, but to do it I had to read a bit of Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix and I've been really busy with school grumblesstupid AP classesgrumbles anyway hopefully no one will kill me. I'm hoping to write some more over spring break if I have time. I probably won't be writing normally until about mid May.
-whoops I forgot to tell you about the thing Harry heard that he didn't understand as Mare na Var reminded me.
"He caught a whisper through his mind, something about Kurama twitching and spurting randomly."
Ok if anyone likes Yuu Yuu Hakusho then you'll enjoy this. Me and my friends were reading through a magazine on anime when we came across a picture that said and I quote "Two lovely young ladies" now that was fine, except that it was a picture of Kurama and Youko Kurama who both happen to be MALE. Later, we were watching an episode of Yuu Yuu Hakusho when they are at the other realm tournament. In this Kurama is fighting the one of the evil guys and has been hit pretty bad. He's lying on the floor covered in blood (obviously not the American version) and is twitching. Now every now and then his wrists spurt blood like the vessels are still working. So one day we came up with 'Two lovely young ladies randomly twitching and spurting ferociously.' That is what I was talking about. If that made no sense please tell me and I'll try again or just ignore my friends and my weirdness.