Author: scap3goat
Summary: The cover-version of a prophecy makes everyone a little bit jumpy. The original prophecy was made a long time ago. But are prophecies always true? And do they lose their truth during the 'centuries'? (th year story, serveritus challenge)
Rating: Ow, there is some blood in here, but no heavy stuff. Will PG-13 do it?
A/N: The lost son. Yeah, this is what you think it is. Let's rather say, this actually was intended to be what you think it is. But since I wrote this prophecy... well... I got carried away a little bit. So, this is no fluffy "He-is-your-son-Severus" story. The idea of such a story was condemned to die in the beginning when I intended to put in a prophecy in the story from the very first idea I had.
The tale of the lost son
Chapter 1 – When the times are going to turn...
Snape hurried down the corridor to his classroom. A loud crowd of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws would fill the usually dignified and calm dungeons.
"Quiet!" he snarled and every mouth in the dim dungeon shut. He let his gaze swept the room and his face darkened. "What is this about? I ought to teach second years Gryffindors and Ravenclaws today?"
"Sir?" asked Draco Malfoy.
"What?" Snape turned to the young man and placed in front of the nasty slim-ball.
"Sir, the timetable changed. It's sixth years Gryffindors and Slytherins this morning."
"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy." Snape walked to the blackboard and started to scribble notes on it. He definitely wasn't in a good mood.
Voldemort had kept him occupied with some silly orders all the last two weeks. The potions master felt he had caught a cold outside, and certainly the worst hadn't settled in yet.
He was grumpy. Oh, he was always grumpy, sneering, cutting and grumbling, but now he was unbearable for everyone. He even forgot to favour the Slytherins as much as usual, and he had forgotten to place the Gryffindors at disadvantage completely.
He only took points from Neville who managed to do his potion as wrong as never before.
Harry Potter couldn't say that he disliked the potions master's condition. Everyone who managed to stay silent and out of his way was clearly out of the line of fire.
"Potter!" came the silky and slightly hoarse voice from somewhere behind him.
Of course you still could get hit by a ricochet, yet.
"Yes, sir?"
"Good work. For you actually it is. Go and help Longbottom to clean this mess up."
"Of course, sir."
What a great start to the new term. He had done his potion right! He just knew it. Harry had read through every single potions book in his possession, and not only once.
"One point to Gryffindor for... kindness." Snape spat out in a low voice.
"Now I do believe he is ill!" Ron whispered to Hermione and Harry.
Hermione rolled her eyes and Harry stood up to help Neville as fast as he could. He won't lose that one point he had gotten from Snape right away.
During lunch Harry glanced up to the Head Table to see an even sallower Snape than usual. He even ate less than he usually did.
"What's wrong with him?" Harry asked in a faint voice.
"Haven't you seen him last week at... the headquarters?" asked Hermione.
"You don't have to bypass everything that could remind me of Sirius!"
Ron and Hermione suddenly found their meal very interesting.
"He came to the headquarters once. He was soaked wet by the never-ending rain and mentioned that he had been out there for more than a week and that he perhaps couldn't make it to the first day of terms."
"What is that going to tell us, 'Mione?" asked Ron, confused.
"What's that going to tell us? He surely had no time to change clothing and ran around in wet robe, and what else he's wearing, for two weeks. He caught a cold or the flu or something like that."
"By the way, I don't believe that, even if he have had the time to change, he could have changed anyway, because he seems to just have one set of robes." Harry smirked at Ron's joke but he didn't feel like laughing.
"Hey mate? What's wrong with you? You have changed, not only your looks have improved." Harry nodded slightly and starred down at his plate.
"Well, I don't know, probably. Whatever, 'm feeling fine."
Hermione looked far to concerned at Harry to make him believe that she simply believed that. Harry picked some potatoes on his fork but immediately laid it onto his plate and told them that he had to go to study before Divination.
"This year we are going to speak about the prophecies made during a state of trance. I'm only allowed to put you in a minor trance and so we are not supposed to expect great prophecies but I'm sure it will be enough!"
Harry felt like he already was in a minor trance. The hot air in the tower, the scent of the joss sticks, and the heavy musty fragrance of the loads of cushions made him dizzy.
"Oh, Harry, poor boy. Why don't we start with you? I'm pretty sure we can have at least a tiny prophecy about your future, won't we?"
Trelawney came over and set a bowl of with the glowing ashes of different herbs in front of him. He felt like breathing a thick liquid, like oil. The rich scent wrapped itself around his mind, his thoughts, like a blanket.
"Harry, dear?"
Something strange happened. Harry closed his eyes, his mind emptied and he found himself in an abandoned room. He could feel that his physical mouth opened and in that moment something was scribbled down at the blank walls of the room. He began to read it out loud.
When the times are going to turn,
When the winds of changes are blowing throughout the lands,
When the nameless evil is on its peak,
And when the boy will be a man,
The tale of the lost son will come to an end.
The spark of believe will be glowing in the dark,
Will be lighting the fire of freedom.
And the unspeakable will burn in the fire of freedom.
Once there was silence among the disguised ones.
But one voice will cry out.
Silenced he will fall to the ground.
When the times are going to turn,
When the winds of changes are blowing throughout the lands,
When the nameless evil is on its peak,
And when the boy will be a man,
The tale of the lost son will come to an end.
But the guilty world cannot be freed only by the innocent young.
The deaf ears can only follow the broken voice.
The blind eyes can only see the shadow.
The numb hands can only feel the cold skin of his bony hands.
"Harry?" He the blanket around his mind was dragged away. The walls were fading, the word written in blue ink were fading. He had read everything out loud but he felt like he had to do it again to understand what ever he had read.
"No, I have to read it again! I have to understand, it's important! It's important!"
Harry opened his eyes to the known surroundings of the Divination tower.
"Harry!" Trelawney starred at him with surprise. "Harry, you made a prophecy, a true prophecy!"
"I actually don't feel like a made a prophecy. I feel like... uhm... it feels like it was a dream and I can remember at least something I said. That was no prophecy!"
"I know it was a prophecy! Don't you believe I will recognise a prophecy when it's made right in front of my eyes?"
Harry was tempted to answer in the negative when he heard a gasp from some of the students surrounding him.
"What's now? Have I got a huge beetle on my nose?" Some warm fluid ran down his forehead and dropped into his eye. "Oh, shit." He wiped it away and realised it was blood.
"Mate, your scar is bleeding!" Ron told him.
"Get him to the Hospital Wing and I have to talk to the headmaster about that particular event. Shush! You are dismissed, children!"
Apart from some students everyone was quite happy to be dismissed so early.
"Harry, Hospital Wing's around there!" Ron demanded.
"Ron, I don't need any medical care! I need to talk to Dumbledore!"
"He will come around the Hospital Wing if he really thinks it's important to talk about that!" Since when was Ron so sensible and damn logical?
"Alright mate. But for the record, I did protest."
"Alright mate, and now move your arse down this corridor!"
Severus Snape was about to do something he hadn't done quite a long time. He was on his way to the Hospital Wing to fetch some potions against his cold. He was pretty sure he had had at least half a dozen potions vials of it down in his dungeons at the end of last term. Now every single one of it was untraceable.
"Be careful, stupid!" he sneered at the boy he ran into. "Can't you look out where are you going?" He looked up and saw Potters face. "Pray tell, how did you manage to do this to yourself? Or did Weasley do it?" Snape looked over to the redhead.
Harry looked at his teacher with surprise.
"You may not have noticed it, but the left half of your face is covered with blood."
"So bad already?" Harry pressed his hand to his scar which began to hurt.
"Hospital Wing." Snape told the boy and pulled him by the sleeve of his robes towards the Hospital Wing.
Where does he believe we were going to, anyway?
"What happened, Potter?" Snape asked again.
"We were in Divination."
"Divination? They were not trying to read your fortune out of the trickles of blood on your face, were they?" Harry smiled.
"No, we were trying to make prophecies in trance." Ron answered for Harry. "Harry managed to do it."
Snape stopped so abrupt that Harry almost ran into him.
"Potter?" The potions master searched for answers in the boys face.
"Well, everyone tells me that I made a true prophecy but I only... I do remember what happened, what I said and so on. Normally you don't remember your prophecies, do you?"
"What happened, Potter? Details!"
"I... I felt tired when Trela... Professor Trelawney put that bowl of burned herbs in front of me and when I closed my eyes I stood in a room, an empty room with four walls. Suddenly words were scribbled down on the walls by some unseen hand. I just read them out aloud." Snape looked at Harry, the older wizard's expression unreadable.
"What did you read out?" Harry found it hard to concentrate on the word while his scar began to hurt even more.
"About... the end of a tale, fire of freedom, the voice of truth falling silenced on the ground, the guilty world listening to the broken voice... such weird stuff."
Snape grasped Potters sleeve again and dragged him to the Hospital Wing.
"Snape!? What did you do to the boy?" asked Madam Pomfrey with dismay when she saw the blood-covered face of the boy.
"He didn't do nothing to me, we met outside. This bleeding happens to be some kind of... aftermath to the... trance in Divination."
"Divination? Trance? Not very likely!"
"The boy made a prophecy." Madam Pomfrey gasped with horror in her eyes.
Well, you were very unlikely to hear those words from the all too logic potions master.
"My scar hurts." Madam Pomfrey would wipe off the blood but the scar didn't stop bleeding.
"I can give you a painkiller."
"Please." The nurse handed the boy a potion vial.
"Drink it at once." Harry did as he was ordered.
Dumbledore entered the Hospital Wing, McGonagall and Trelawney following him.
"Ah, our little prophet. How are you doing Harry?"
Harry just nodded and smiled at the shocked expressions on the teachers' faces. Still blood was running down his face in faint trickles.
"Harry, I brought a Pensive. Do you believe you could just take out that memory from the moment when you made the prophecy?"
"I think I would do it, but I have no clue how to do it." Harry answered.
"Just close your eyes and concentrate on the beginning of the memory and than drag it out of your mind with your wand. When the memory ended just imagine cutting off the stream of memories."
Harry closed his eyes and tried hard. It took him several moments until he managed to extract the right memory.
"May we look into your memory?" Dumbledore asked and Harry nodded with agreement. McGonagall showed her scepticism, and Harry did that, too. He couldn't have made a prophecy. No one in his family had the gift. Or so he believed.
The teachers, the nurse and the two boys touched the surface of the fluid in the Pensive with the tips of their wands and Harry found himself among the others in the room where he had seen the words written on the walls. Luckily this room was big, really big. In the centre a young man was standing, starring at the walls. Harry began to read out the words which were once again written on the walls. The others around him gasped with surprise.
The memory ended soon and they found themselves in the hospital wing again.
"That actually was a prophecy, though... it already was made a long time ago by someone else." Dumbledore explained. "I think I owe you some explanations."
So, what do you think about this so far? I don't know if I should go on with it, just review, please!
I know, some of you might already guess to whom some of the parts of the prophecy refer to. (I just want to know how obvious all this is!)
So... let's take a poll here:
In your opinion, to whom or what do these parts of the prophecy refer to?
1."...the unspeakable will burn in the fire of freedom..."
2."... once there was silence among the disguised ones, but one voice will cry out..."
3."...silenced he will fall to the ground..."
4."...the blind eyes can only see the shadow..."
5."...the numb hands can only feel the cold skin of his bony hands..."
I'm very interested in your answers, so please review!