A/N: I am very grateful for your reviews. I'm rather surprised that some of you thought that this whole prophecy is about Voldie-Moldy. I will answer some of the questions on the bottom of this chapter and I will add another question.
I don't think it will take more than two weeks until I update, but be merciful 'coz I'm deeply in my schoolwork again. Is anybody out there to explain Physics or Maths or Chemistry to me?
Lady Nicole Malfoy-Potter: Thanks for that.
ickle yoda: Nice answers, indeed!
red rose: I did, as you see!
wwwendy: I hope you will enjoy this. But not the whole prophecy refers to Voldie-Moldy.
PreciousLily: I'm not sure about the fact whether Harry made the prophecy or not. But I'm happy you like it!
Geloalto: Ich mache ja weiter... es dauert nur vll. etwas!
loony lovegood: Alright, I continue! ;)
ShadowedHand: Thanks, I hope you will read on.
Lord Localfreak: Nice answers, but not quite.
Chapter 2 – How to deal with a ill teacher
News got around the school within almost no time, especially when they were connected to the sudden disappearance of McGonagall from her Transfigurations class in the afternoon.
But there were some things only few knew about. Only five people, six if you would count Dumbledore, knew about the prophecy and its origin.
It was out of question that the prophecy was made by Harry. But the prophecy already existed. This first one had been made a long time ago and it had been seen in a quite different context.
Still, there was something that about this prophecy annoyed Harry.
Harry stood up and ran his hand through his hair. His hair had grown over the summer and it still was growing. It was already beyond his ears and hung in wild strands. And the rest of Harry had started to grow as well.
Harry finally had started growing up.
Hermione and Ron had told him not only once, but over and over again. Harry didn't believe it. He was sixteen, and people didn't suddenly start to grow up when they became sixteen.
On the other hand Harry couldn't deny he was happy about this changes, though he believed that those changes had started before his birthday that was only little more than one month ago.
"Come on, handsome!" Ron shouted.
"I'll be right there, Ron!" He changed into his school uniform and his robes and fetched his schoolbag.
"There you are. I almost thought we might need to send a search party."
Harry hit Ron with his elbow in the side.
"Let's get going. Or do the two of you want to skip breakfast?" asked Hermione and they left for the Great Hall with some other Gryffindors.
"So Harry, tell us what Dumbledore said about the prophecy." Even Hermione was interested in this prophecy since she knew that Harry wouldn't have faked that.
"Nothing. He just mentioned that the prophecy was made a long time ago... fifty years or something. After the fall of Grindelwald everybody thought it had been about him, but now... it's of course Voldemort, isn't it?"
"Well... the nameless could refer to... you know?" Hermione suspected.
"Very well... no one would have figured that one out, would they?" answered Ron sarcastically. "I'm interested in the meaning of the rest!"
"Well, we know what that prophecy's obviously about and that is enough, isn't it?" Harry asked.
"I wonder... it talks about him being defeated. Burned or something?"
"Right Ron. If you wouldn't mind and talk a little bit louder even Professor Snape at the far side of the hall would be able to overhear you!" Hermione hissed at the redhead.
"Sorry. But the boy that will be a man... that's about Harry, isn't it? He changed a lot and still is changing."
"Don't be silly! This prophecy might seem to fit perfect to this situation. But what would you say if there was someone whose name isn't known by anybody? He or she would be nameless, too." Harry complained.
"Harry, mate! Disguised ones, nameless, that's all referring to him!"
"Harry, he is right!" Hermione threw in.
"But what's that stuff about a lost son? The guilty world cannot be freed by the innocent young. If this prophecy is referring to me it says that I cannot free the world. I would need help. This other prophecy said that I am the only one capable of defeating Voldemort. At least I am the one who would withstand him more than just seconds. And... have any of you heard about someone making prophecies about themselves? Guess not."
"Harry's got a point. Even I couldn't figure out about this lost son. Besides that story from the bible, there is nothing, and that's not going to help us in any way."
"Let's stop complaining and head off for Herbology! Or Professor Sprout will decapitate us." Harry finished his toast and the two other Gryffindors starred at him.
"I do not believe that she would treat us that harsh. Remember, she is the Herbology teacher, not Professor You-Know-Who!" Harry rolled his eyes. He and Hermione had made Ron to refer to Voldemort as 'him' but only to find themselves in situations when Ron often was referring to Snape as 'You-Know-Who'.
"Get moving, moron!" Harry growled and left the Great Hall with the piercing feeling of a certain professor's gaze in his back.
---
With his seven inches of additional height Harry now was above the average height and could look over the heads of the crowd. Harry Potter wasn't the little cute child anymore - he rather was the tall, dark, handsome young man. And sometimes a stranger.
"So, please listen! These lilies aren't any different from the average lilies when you look at them now. But during the full moon they will become a great source of strength. But be careful. ONE single bit is able to kill you, no matter in which state they are. After a full moon and the milking they won't be as poisonous but still are a threat to the lives of the small and frail ones among you. Put on your gloves and each one takes care of one lily."
Harry was looking around while putting his gloves on. Everyone was heading for one of those lilies, which already seemed to be have been taken care of, but Harry spotted a rather small lily in the edge. He fetched the pot and settled himself in a less crowed place in the greenhouse.
"How are you doing?" he muttered to the plant.
"Hey, look, Potter's talking to a plant! First snakes, now a plant. What will come next?"
"Be careful, Malfoy! I could try and talk to you?!" Malfoy didn't know what to reply and so left.
"Good work, mate! But be careful!"
"I know. I won't let myself getting bite by this little plant." Harry responded while watering his lily.
"I'm not talking 'bout those. I'm talking about Malfoy and his lackeys."
"Ron, how stupid do you think I am? I'm not going to provoke Malfoy, nor his lackeys. I'm just giving proper answers to his questions."
"Mate, I don't like the way you are talking lately. Where is my mate with the humour and so on? You got colder!" The young redhead searched for answers in Harry's eyes.
"Ron, I cannot stay a child forever. One day I have to be a man and I will have to shoulder an even greater burden than now."
"That's silly, mate! Just try and get a long well as long as you still can!"
"Ron, I have changed! And I do like it. I'm much more aware of everything right now!"
"Harry! I don't want to loose you friendship!"
"I don't want to loose yours either. I'm just... changing. I feel different and I don't feel like I have to hide my attitude towards Malfoy any longer."
"You never did that, did you?" Ron looked at his friend with surprise.
"Sometimes I did. But I'm not afraid of him any longer. Don't know why, I just... let's drop that. I think we have some job to do, don't we?"
Ron nodded and turned his own lily. "You don't expect me to talk to my plant, do you?"
---
Every student in the dungeon was quiet. The sever potions master stood in front of the blackboard and from time to time a cough escaped his throat.
"It's important to let the potion cool down for five minutes before you add the crunched Dragon Horn."
His voice was not much more than a hoarse whisper and it sounded rather funny, but no one dared to say something or to even laugh.
"As you see..." Severus coughed hard and everyone wondered why he hadn't mixed a potion against this cold. "The potion should have a bright... auburn colour. If it has a darker or a red colour, you just stay back and... just stay back."
A terrible headache made it hard for Snape to concentrate. His throat was sore and ached, his head was dull and ached, there was a draught in his stomach and – guess what – it ached terribly. In short: His entire body ached.
As a consequence he dismissed the class without giving them homework. He just couldn't bear to correct essays written by students with no idea of grammar and spelling.
And three days had passed since the start of the school year and he hadn't given detentions once. He just needed the evenings to get early into bed and sleeping until some house elf would come and telling him that he was almost late for breakfast.
"Ow... to hell with them. Why me? Why had I to run around the woods for weeks without any proper meal or sleeping accommodation? I've got the flu and all those brats are flooding the school with their germs. No wonder that I am seriously ill!" he muttered under his breath. "I hope the weekend will come soon!"
Usually Snape was anything but yielding, but the circumstances would have broken any great man. And so there was nothing left for Snape, but to take a potion vial with some painkiller from the shelf and counting the minutes until the weekend.
---
Harry looked forward to Friday afternoon. There were no lessons on Friday afternoon and so he could walk off to see Hagrid or he could sit in the dormitory, the common room or somewhere on the grounds. And Quidditch practise took place Friday afternoon before dinner. His lifetime bane was lifted after Umbridge had left the school and so he would be Gryffindors' seeker again.
Still, he wondered where his Firebolt was. Thank goodness, even this mystery was solved without any effort. On Thursday he went up to the dormitory after dinner and a long parcel had been place on his bed. The paper was torn apart soon and Harry gazed at his Firebolt. A simple note was attached.
I'm sure you can and will use it. In the memory of your godfather.
"No signature?" Harry starred at the plain, lean and somehow familiar letters. It wasn't Dumbledore's handwriting and the note was too short to be written by McGonagall. Let alone she would have given the broom to him personally.
"Something wrong up there?"
"No, Ron, I'm fine." Harry heard the footsteps on the stair and Ron stopped in front of the door.
"You said you would be down in the common room in no time!"
Harry starred on the note again. Who had given the broom to him?
"Harry? No matter if you are naked or anything else, I'm coming in!"
Ron stepped in the room and after some seconds he realised what was lying on Harry's bed.
"Wow! Who gave it back to you?" Ron touched the broom with his fingertips and starred at Harry.
"No idea. Here, the note says that I should use it and that... I should use it in the memory of... Sirius." Ron starred at the note with the same confusion Harry felt.
"That's not from Dumbledore."
"Right. And McGonagall would have given it to me personally with the order to win the Quidditch Cup."
"No doubts about that. Let's take it to Hermione. Perhaps she knows the handwriting?"
"It's worth a try, isn't it?"
But even Hermione had to pass. "Put this aside and start with your homework!"
Harry and Ron nodded and looked down at their rather short list of homework.
They had been dismissed from Divination early and Snape gave no homework.
"Have you realised that we had no Defence against the Dark Arts, yet?"
"Of course we have, Harry!" Hermione answered without looking at him. "I guess that's due to the fact that there hasn't any teacher showed up until now."
"That doesn't mean that Snape will get the job, will he?" Ron asked with fear.
"No, he's already hardly capable to 'teach' potions right now. He clearly cannot teach DADA within the next month or even longer." Harry tried to calm his friend and the essay for History of Magic lay finished in front of him. "Would the two of you excuse me? I need to catch some sleep, I feel weary."
"Good night, mate!"
"Night, Harry." Hermione answered automatically, still deep within her runes book.
"Night Ron, Hermione."
Harry walked up to the still empty dormitory, cleaned up the mess on his bed, changed into his Pyjamas and laid down to sleep.
"The numb hands can only feel the cold skin of his bony hands."
Harry gazed at the back of the young man standing in the middle of the room who just had ended the prophecy.
"Who are you?" Harry asked in a hoarse voice.
The young man turned with a smile on his lips and Harry felt like the room began spinning around him. He knew that he ought to look in his own face but this was someone different.
"I am Harry Potter, nice to meet you!"
Harry stumbled backwards. Somehow this was scaring him.
"No, you cannot be Harry Potter! I am Harry Potter, you are not me!"
"Let's put it around, perhaps you are not me?" Harry starred at this man – Harry guessed he was in his early twenties - with dismay.
He claimed to be Harry Potter, they both did. But who was right?
"Who am I? I mean, if I'm not Harry Potter...?" Harry asked.
"I don't know. But perhaps you are Harry Potter and I am Harry Potter? Would it make any difference?"
"Who are you? I don't mean your name! I just want to know who you are!"
"I am myself."
Harry snorted at this answer.
"I am myself, too. But... you cannot be me, can you?"
"I don't know who you are. I'm just myself. And you are yourself."
Harry woke with his heart beating like he had run for miles. This could not be true. Was this Voldemort's new strategy? But Harry's scar didn't hurt.
"Hey mate, anything wrong?" Ron sat up and looked over to Harry's bed.
"Ah, just a nightmare, don't worry."
"The last nightmares of yours I had to worry about!"
Harry blamed himself for his inaccurately answer.
"Shut up, Ron. Go to sleep again!"
But Ron didn't. He stood up and walked over to Harry.
"Mate, you really need to talk! We can keep this or I'll go and wake McGonagall or even Hermione!"
"Great Mr. Blackmail, let's get down to the common room. I don't want to wake the others."
-
"So... you dreamed you where in this room in your mind again. Did you read the prophecy once again?"
"I told you that there was someone else. But he claimed to be me. Well, he claimed to be Harry Potter."
Ron looked confused at Harry. "You don't understand, do you? It's just that I don't understand anything!"
"You are sure it wasn't the one how had made the prophecy in the first?"
"Ron, he claimed to be me!" Harry stood up and paced through the room.
"You already mentioned that."
"But you just don't seem to get it, though! This wasn't anyone from a past time. Besides that the prophecy was made by a woman."
"Well, than it was made by a woman, who cares? You saw some stranger and that's all. Let's go to sleep again!"
"Who had this silly idea to talk about things in the first? Wasn't me!" Harry just dropped in one of the armchairs. "Go to bed, Ron. I will stay a little bit and stare into the flames."
"Whatever mate. But don't blame me in the end. Good night."
"Sleep well." Harry gazed at the orange flames and fell asleep soon.
---
"Are you sure that he told you he was Harry Potter?"
"Yes Hermione! He introduced himself as Harry Potter BEFORE I even had the chance to introduce myself."
"Alright, we finally got that!" Ron answered.
"It took you some hours, didn't it?"
Harry had a look around. Still, he was in the bright Gryffindor common room, only short after lunch. Only few students were in Gryffindor tower and some only to fetch books or potion ingredients or may be some piece of homework. A fire burned in the fireplace but a charm prevented it from radiating too much heat. Basically Gryffindor tower was a bright place, a place of joy, a place to call home. Basically...
Harry missed something about it. He could not name it, he wasn't even fully aware of this feeling. He just felt slightly uneasy from time to time.
"Harry? Harry! What's wrong with you?"
"I miss it," he answered.
"Mate? What do you miss?" Ron looked at his best friend with worry.
Harry looked at them with surprise. Their faces showed surprise, wonder and discomfort.
"I... don't know, just something or even nothing. Let's drop this topic."
"Yeah, we should! You know, it is double Potions right now in ten minutes!"
"I beg you pardon?" Harry starred at Ron with horror. He was still asleep, this was just another nightmare.
"We have double potions this afternoon, Harry!" Hermione smiled at him in order to comfort him a little bit. No students truly liked potions, since everyone hated the potions master and vice-versa. But Snape didn't hate Harry. Snape loathed him with every fibre of his body.
"But... today is Friday, Hermione! We ought to have Friday afternoon off!"
"Sorry Harry. But it's just an exception."
Harry wasn't comfortable with that. He wanted to wander around the grounds, to just be from time to time and now he had to spend half of his afternoon in the dungeons.
"Great! I'm going to kill the one responsible for this!"
-
"I'm going to kill Dumbledore! Why me? I deserve to have a peaceful Friday afternoon and now? Those brats... and Potter!"
Severus gathered some ingredients from a shelf and placed them on this desk. He had decided that each of the students should fetch one ingredient and mix a potion with this one. There would be only five minutes until his dungeons would be overrun by noisy students with nothing but nonsense on their minds.
"Quite!" he shouted as loud as a hoarse man could manage. "Everyone of you will come to my desk and fetch a vial with some ingredient. You ought to mix a potion with this ingredient!"
It would have taken almost an hour for the hardly twenty students to select one vial so Snape decided to hand out the vials by himself. He did not care who got what ingredient, he just wanted to sit down again and to wait until lesson ended by itself.
-
Harry starred at his vial.
"Dried stonelouse," he read out.
"Is it petrified or what?" Ron asked, a vial of dried and grinded mandrake root in his hand.
"No Ron, that's its name! Stonelouse. Although I never read anything else about it."
"It's eating stones. I don't know how that's supposed to work but it lives on stones. I saw some potion in the book, let's go to work!"
Harry had opened his book and read out the recipe of the potion. Soon he was deep in his work, walked over to the ingredient shelves and took everything he needed.
Everyone was already cleaning up when Harry still was working on his potion.
"Potter! Finish that, I need a weekend to recover from you and my weekend is about to start in five minutes from now! And I still want you to test your potion."
Harry looked at the instructions with horror.
"Sir. The potion isn't finished by now... it will take four weeks until one can use it!"
"Four weeks? Potter what...? Veritasvidi?" Snape starred at the recipe.
"Sir, it was the only one which required dried stonelouse!"
"Pray tell, stonelouse?" Snape looked dazed and he clearly had fever.
"You didn't... intend to give it to me? I thought wanted me to make a fool of myself?"
"Bottle it up and we will test it in four weeks then!"
Harry nodded and left with a faint smile on his lips. Snape was more bearable to Harry while he was ill.
-
"Veritasvidi? What the hell is that?" Ron looked stunned at Harry while they were marching to the Quidditch pitch.
"It makes you see behind glamouries or anything similar to that."
"Damn it, you've really read the POTIONS book? What OWL did you have in potions again?"
Harry stopped. OWLs. He completely had forgotten about the OWLs! He had been to busy with his self-pity during the summer to think of his OWLs and now he suddenly recognized that he was completely clueless about his OWLs.
"I don't know! I never received any letter or something similar?"
"The letter is sent to your guardian. You are underage and they cannot send this official letters to you, you know?"
"The DURSLEYS have my OWLs letter? Went everyone the ministry completely insane? Sorry, I don't mean your father!"
"Calm down mate! As far as I know they will send it to your magical guardian which... well, I guess Dumbledore is your magical guardian."
"But why hasn't he...? Ron, please tell me something..." Harry looked very concerned.
"Sure, I'll try..." Ron answered wiry.
"Do you think I could be that bad that they didn't even bother to send a letter?"
Ron laughed hard. "Oh Harry!"
"Well, I don't see anything funny with this!"
After some minutes when Ron had calmed down as much as possible (the corners of his mouth were still twitching) and was able to answer his best friend's question.
"Harry, not even Neville could be THAT bad, no one could be THAT bad that they would not have passed in any subject!"
"But I have not received any letter, not from Dumbledore and certainly not from the ministry."
"Don't worry, mate! Perhaps he just forgot about it. There is much to do for a headmaster. Don't worry, mate!" Harry nodded and continued his way to the Quidditch pitch.
-
Everyone was exhausted after two hours of training and so was Harry but he also was merrily happy about almost everything. The sun set in the west and illuminated the scenery with its red glow. Harry had been very excited by sunsets all his life but this one was nearly incredible perfect. While the others walked towards the castle, Harry hurried up to one of the stands and took a closer view over the scenery.
Suddenly he remembered that he held a broom in his hands and with some 'I'm-an-unimaginable-idiot' smile on his lips he took off.
To fly was just an incredible feeling. And to fly without any purpose was just even better.
He flew over the pitch and over the grounds, chasing birds, enjoying the cool wind.
Suddenly he saw a black figure heading from Hagrid's hut to the castle again.
What did Snape do outside when he was ill?
Harry couldn't hear anything from the professor but the git made his orders damn clear with his gestures. So Harry decided that he would have to obey and landed on the meadow. Snape was really upset and almost ran over to the boy.
"What are you doing?" he cried as loud as his voice allowed. It seemed like he already had to scream to cover the ten foot distance between them. "Why are you flying around?"
"Quidditch practice sir. I just thought I would have to practice a little bit with my broom."
"But you are not supposed to fly around the grounds! I didn't give that to you so you could risk your life again!" Snape snatched the broom from Harry's hands with a sudden movement and glared at the boy as impressible as he could with a reddened nose and bloodshot eyes.
"You? You gave the broom back to me?"
"Of course I did! Didn't you recognize my handwriting?"
"Perhaps I did... but the thing you wrote about... um... Sirius."
"He was a moron, indeed. But at least that didn't rub off on you too much, did it? Get back to the castle."
Harry followed the potions master to the castle, got some points subtracted and without a word Snape handed the broom back to Harry.
-
"I don't understand that, do any of you do?"
"Harry, he isn't feeling well!" Hermione tried to explain the potions master uncommon behaviour.
"Normally he would have expelled me for this. But he just subtracted ten points and even gave my broom back to me! Something's utterly wrong, or is this just me?"
"Possibly," Ron answered and Hermione grinned widely.
1."...the unspeakable will burn in the fire of freedom..."
Well, seems like I could not get that past you, could I? Of course 'unspeakable' refers to You-Know-Who. Another thing is, that he will be... aw... I'm not going to reveal this by now! smirk
2. "...once there was silence among the disguised ones, but one voice will cry out..."
No answer to that so far... only one thing, disguised means the Death Eaters, yes.
3. "...silenced he will fall to the ground..."
Silenced could mean stunned, or perhaps even dead? You will find out later.
4. "...the blind eyes can only see the shadow..."
Not Voldie-Moldy.
5. "...the numb hands can only feel the cold skin of his bony hands..."
Not Voldie-Moldy either.
The new question:
What do you think 'the tale of the lost son' (the one from the prophecy) is about? I only will accept answers with an idea in it. Not only: "Snapey is Harry's father. End of the story." ;)