Harry Potter & The True Power
Chapter 2 : The Backwash
Phoenixes are amazing birds, if such a creature may be called mere birds. They had a link with their familiars and as soon as Fawkes felt albie (as he thought of him) faint, it instantly came to old wizard. He saw the magic around his familiar and saw some broken strands and some unknown energy. He knew it could be dangerous for Albus to remain so.
Looking thru Hogwarts wards, his connection with Albus gave him an indirect link thru the wards, he saw Minnie (Minerva McGonagall), and the transfiguration professor was in her apartment, relaxing on an rocking chair, reading some book. Fawkes fire-traveled to her, sat on her shoulders and before Minerva could blink an eye, transported both of them back to Dumbledore's office.
"Oh Merlin!", Minerva was shocked to see Albus passed out and bent down took out her wand to check Albus. Seeing he was not responding, she ran to the floo and fire called poppy, the nurse in the hospital wing. "Poppy! Come to Albus's office at once. He has fainted.", Minerva screamed as soon as she saw poppy who was cataloguing her potions to know the stock. Crack, broke the vial which was in poppy's hands as she too was taken aback, then picking up her bag, she started to move towards the floo, taking a handful of floo powder off the banister, in her hands.
Fawkes in the mean-time followed the magical thread thru the sub-space where only very few magical creatures can go thru. Seeing the thread, leading to Harry's house was a surprise to him. In less than a blink, he flashed to Harry's room and saw golden mist enveloping Harry. With the ageless knowledge possessed by the phoenixes, he knew exactly what was happening. He sang a beautiful song to Harry and in a moment went back to Hogwarts.
It was 12:03 am.
At the very same moment, Harry was being enveloped by a strange light inside. Everywhere else was dark. He saw several flickers of light dancing out of several different colored balls in front of himself. All these balls were moving towards themselves, merging with each other. One of such flicker of light was enveloping him at the moment. As soon as he started to accept this, to get out of the deep pit of emotional agony he had put himself in, he started to feel a relaxing energy starting to flow thru him. He felt it go thru him like a wave, it felt like pure bliss. He could feel things changing in him, he felt stronger, more agile, faster, fluider; probably like a gymnast or a ballad dancer.
Then there was a final blast and he saw that all the balls in front of him had merged and had formed a golden ball which burnt as bright as the sun and was so bright that it should have hurt his eyes. Yet it didn't. It felt as if a part of him was coming back to him after a long-long time.
At long last, he felt whole.
He didn't know it, but no time had passed at all.
At Hogwarts, Minerva was pacing the hall, looking worried as poppy went about her business. She had already fire-called Severus and Filius, who were now standing beside her. Every-body was waiting expectantly for poppy to let them know what ever was wrong. Poppy's face was screwed up in intense concentration. She could not believe what she was seeing. It transcended all imagination, it simply couldn't be true, she thought. "We have to get him to St. Mungo's", she said without turning.
Without waiting for why and where-fores, Minerva was about to put the mobilicorpus charm when Albus moved a bit. Slowly shaking his head, he looked up and saw worried faces of his colleagues and friends looking at him, and Minerva with a wand in her hand looking as if about to cast a spell.
"What happened poppy?", he asked.
"It was most unusual", said poppy. "It looked as if you had suffered a huge magical backwash which totally overwhelmed your magical core. The backwash was so strong that your body had to shut down and so that it may survive the scare. I can't even imagine such a powerful magic, considering that it was probably not from around here except if", she paused and looked accusingly at Dumbledore said," You weren't messing around with enchanted objects, were you?"
" No Poppy. I wasn't" he started to get up and moved to his chair.
"But that isn't the last thing." Everybody had a what now pasted over there faces. What can be more than this. Having an unknown source of magic so powerful that it could knock off Dumbledore was bad enough. What else was there.
" I just scanned your magical output to see if your core was alright. You normally have a rating of 180000-185000. Now you have a magical output of nearly 250000 units. I can't explain it" , she finished.
Albus closed his eyes and searched his core within him. Not many people could do it, but he was one of the few who had very close affinity to his magic. He felt that less energy was drawn from him. As a matter of fact, his link to Harry's house had totally broken and had it not been for the backwash, warning bells would have been stirring his core. He was probably numb from this event, whatever it was.
His eyes snapped open, and he started to stand up but couldn't. His body wasn't as young as it was and at the moment his magic was still in its shell, trying to contain whatever was wrong. He hadn't felt this week ever. He looked at Minerva and Severus and said, "Go to Mr. Potter's at once and see if everything is fine. My connection to his wards has been broken". Minerva looked worried and Severus was about to start a caustic remark when he saw that warning look in professor Dumbledore's eyes. They both started to move towards the floo. " Call mad-eye before you leave. I will be there in a moment".
Both of them nodded and went away one-by-one in a flash of green fire.
It was a castle, on an island. It was a small island, circularish, maybe 4 odd kilometers in radius. Everywhere, you could see plants and trees. There were some animals but the feeling the forest gave out was that of a dead one. It was not a happy place. At one of its peak, was a huge manor. Out in the open, on a golden throne with his followers standing in front of him with their heads bowed down, waiting for there master to command.
They had been summoned five minutes ago and everybody was here now, except Severus. Lord Voldemort had not moved an inch, nor said a word. He just sat there unmoving. Many of them were in Azkaban, the wizarding prison. Of the remaining only Belliatrix had the audacity to interrupt their master. She, head bowed down stepped forward, said" Master", Everybody, including she herself expecting a crucio, flinched but nothing happened.
Belliatrix Lestrange, now really worried, moved forward towards their master and touched the arm of the dark lord. The dark lord, whose name everybody feared even saying, slumped to the side.
Everybody there could hear the high pitched shriek that left the throat of Belliatrix.
Harry didn't know how long had it been since he was feeling the light filling the last fiber of his being. It felt good. In sometime he opened his eyes and saw a white halo in front of him. It looked like a very beautiful woman, dressed in pure white with red hair, beautiful smile and sparkling green eyes was looking at him with all the love of a mother, at him.
She smiled as she saw his jaw nearly breaking the floor, figuratively at least.
"Hello Harry, she said and would have heard a big thump as the image of Harry fell down, for in less than 10 minutes, Harry had fainted twice. A new record, even for him.