Alright all,
Here is another chapter that took me forever to write. I just want to say that this one took forever because I kept re-writing it and it may verywell it rewritten again if I get bad reviews which I am expecting. In this chapter I have introduced a character that is not from the books at all, he is actually froma series of books; Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, and Magic's Price by MercedesLackey. I know this makes it sort of a cross over but trust me he wont have that large of a part other than what is described in the plot. Please read and review!
Diary of Harry Potter
Why does time seem to drag on? Though it's not as if I am waiting for anything…or maybe I am ..maybe I am waiting for the day that all of this will really be over. For the day that I will stand before Voldemort and my destiny will be full filled and then I can move on. If I survive that is. I'm still here at Grimmuald place with the Weasley's. Hermione arrived two days ago and has been helping Mrs. Weasley with things around the house, she and Ron are also busy planning the next D.A meeting that they are planning to hold here. They asked me if I minded but there are very few things that I mind now a days. Dumbledore has given us permission to hold the meeting her in a few weeks and he, McGonagall, Tonks, Lupin, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are going to be the chaperons. I am just wondering how on earth we are going to get all of these students transported here without any death eaters finding out, but Dumbledore said to let him worry about it.
Ever since coming here I have been lost in a world of my deepest darkest thoughts and very stubbornly unwilling to return to a normal life, I just could not seem to pull my self together. My senses were so raw I could sense anyone in the house's auras at all times and I was totally unable to control it. Ginny even told me that I was some how transferring my sorrow, depression and anger to everyone else so much that the whole house felt dark.
That's probably why he came to help me, or why Dumbledore asked him to help me. The day after Hermione arrived , the same night Ginny had her panic attack, which is what Moony called it much to her displeasure, I was inside my room having just finished dressing when there came a knock on my door. Bidding them to enter I was startled to see a very handsome man with tan skin and long black hair, which contrasted greatly with the brilliant white of his clothing, standing in my door way. His eyes were a strange almost purple color and I felt drawn to them as much as I was drawn to the man.
"Who are you?" I asked in a cold tone, glancing at my wand on the nightstand beside my bed.
"Don't worry, I am not here to harm you." He said raising his hands to show that he was unarmed, his voice was calm and was like silk to the air around me. Something that struck me then was the fact that I could not read him, there was absolutely no aura coming off of this person, either that or he was able to hide it extremely well.
"Who are you?" I repeated again in a calmer, cooler tone, my eyes staying trained on this strange man. His eyes were looking over me as though studying everything about me and I wondered if he was reading my aura and my senses but if he was I couldn't feel it.
"You have a very interesting soul…Mr. Potter." He said , his musical voice ringing around me and I shook my head to clear it.
"You didn't answer my question." I said though I was trying to figure out why on earth this person was here and what was he talking about my soul for.
"Ah yes, forgive me…but there are more important things to discuss first…your Headmaster Dumbledore has…well in a manner of speaking, asked me to help prepare you for your future trails." He said taking a few steps into the room and he finally broke his eyes from me and looked around my room. I turned to which ever way he was walking to keep an eye on him.
"Ahhh…I see you two have met!" came a much too cheery voice from my door way, and I blinked in surprise. How hadn't I noticed his presence in the house before he came into the room? Dumbledore stood there with a wide grin over his features before moving further into the room, that annoying twinkle in his eyes behind his half moon glasses.
"What is going on? And who is this?" I asked with a firm glare at the headmaster who's grin only seemed to widen.
"This , Harry, Is Vaynel…he is…or I should say was the last Herald-mage of Valdamar." Dumbledore said turning with a grin to the white clad man before sitting in the small chair beside my desk.
I shook my head , I couldn't have heard him right. "A Herald?"
"Mage, Harry…" the white clad man said with a knowing smile, "It's what Wizards were considered long before this country was ever even founded."
"Then how are you---?" I started , none of this was making any sense.
"Come, have a seat Harry we have a lot of things to discuss." Dumbledore said continuing to grin widely at his friend and myself.
"No thanks…." I said crossing my arms over my chest, I didn't like this, there were too many things about this guy that I didn't know and too many questions were already starting to form in my mind.
Vaynel sighed beside the bed and shook his head with a small smile as though he was remembering something slightly and privately amusing. "Alright then…Valdamar was what England was called before there was any real recorded history…before B.C and before wizards used wands…" he began in his musical voice as he leaned against the wall behind him. "Now to those to search through the oldest and thickest books will see it mentioned as a legend…wizards who had companions…did not use wands for their spells…"
"Are you saying that you are from there?" I asked with wide eyes looking between the two as if they were both crazy.
"Yes…in a manner of speaking…I died a very long time ago , my spirit along with the sprit of my life-bond have guarded the forest since our bodies left his world."
"W..what forest?" I asked blinkingly.
"The forbidden forest, Harry." Dumbledore said, who was examining his fingernails for the moment. "I am sure you are aware of a presence every time you enter the forest…something inside your mind suggesting that you should not be there…."
Vaynel chuckled a bit , "Not every time, Albus….there are a number of occasions that this one has entered my forest under certain intentions." He said with a smirk at the headmaster.
"What?" I was now totally lost, how could someone's spirit be inside a forest? How could he have been there all along? How could he be here now?
"I told you there are many things that we must explain to you…perhaps it would be best to do so over dinner, yes?" Dumbledore suggested as he stood and headed out the door, "I do believe I smell Molly's famous meatballs." He said with a comical sniff of the air before moving out of the room, Vaynel shrugged and followed after him, leaving me staring after them dumbfounded.
"NO WAY!" Hermione exclaimed and nearly jumped from the table as Vaynel explained his story. All of us at the table turned to look at her in surprise including Vaynel.
"Are you saying that you have heard of me, then?"
"Mental…" Fred and George both said with raised eyebrows at Hermione who was now blushing lightly.
"Well…yes…actually …but…Valdamar wasn't suppose to have ever really existed….I mean…it was just a myth…or at least that's what I've always been told. I mean at least the part about the talking horses couldn't have been true."
"Companions….and they only mind spoke to their chosen…not to everyone around them." Vaynel corrected with the air of someone who had said that many times in his life time.
"So it was true…then…what about the Heralds…the Bards? Was there really a school for them here?" Hermione asked with an excited voice and wide eyes watching Vaynel with extreme interest as Ron glared at her and him.
"I still want to know where you came from." Ron said in a cold tone that made Hermione a jump a bit and I watched her with interest for a moment.
"Well…as I told Mr. Potter here, my spirit was been guarding the forest on the grounds of Hogwarts for many hundreds of years---"
"But that still doesn't explain how you got here." I said with a raised eyebrow at him and I saw from the corner of my eye that Dumbledore smiled.
"We use to have a saying in Valdmar that when needed the gods would provide." He said with an airy tone as if he was thinking of something from his past.
"So you got you're body back because the "gods" thought you were needed." Ron asked with a skeptical voice and gave me an expression asking if I thought they were as crazy as he did.
"Well I do believe it is time to get something to eat, yes?" Dumbledore asked quickly and stood for a moment. Mrs. Weasley looked as though she was about to say something , probably about having not started cooking dinner yet, when the headmaster waved his wand and a large amount and varieties of food appeared on the table. This seemed to appease my always hungry best friend who instantly went eyes wide and dove into the food. Hermione only watched him with a disgusted and partly amused expression.
With a sigh I figured I wouldn't be getting anymore answers out of Vaynel at this moment so I turned to go back to my room, now very confused and not the slightest bit hungry. Ginny was standing out in the hall waiting for me.
"Are you alright?" she asked with a timid voice, looking down at her shoes.
"Yeah I think so…it's just strange…why would he bring him here now? I mean does he really think I need that much more training? Hasn't everything I have done in the past five years just been Dumbledore's way of training me?" I asked in a harsh tone shaking my head.
"I meant about …" she broke off, upset with herself for mentioning it.
"Oh….I…I don't know…" I said honestly looking down myself, "I…I just feel numb….like I'll never be whole again." I said with a small shake of my head and she nodded beside me.
"I know…" she whispered and I looked up at her as I felt a wave of her troubled emotions and depressed thoughts but before I could say anything else she had moved past me into the kitchen with the rest of her family, it was then that I noticed Vaynel was studying me from the far corner of the room. He just sat there with his white clad arms crossed over his chest as the rest of the people in the room ate and talked around him. I felt a chill run down my spine at the expression in his bizarre eyes.
I felt for sure then that there was some other reason that he was here, weather it was a part of Dumbledore's plans or not, I didn't know.
In a world of utter darkness nothing could be seen around me except the images of the pitch black waters that I fought with sore arms and legs to stay afloat. There was nothing around me, or at least nothing that could be seen. How I had gotten to this vast black ocean I didn't know, but fear began to eat away at my senses. The water was moving, and gaining speed in it's unkind waves of darkness. I struggled as voices in my head began at a whisper beckoning me to give in, to quite fighting, to just let it all go. I continued to fight to keep my head above the waves , arms sprawling out madly in my attempt at survival, but I wondered how long I could hold on, how long before I grew tired and weak. As that question crossed my mind a roaring in my ears caused me to turn just as a massive black wave crushed down over my head. Icy water filled my lungs as I gasped for air. Dazed in the thickness of the water I had no direction. I tried to swim my way back to the surface but all strength was fading from me and the voices begging me to surrender to the waters grew louder and more insistent. Struggling I felt something soft bump against my shoulder behind me and I slowly turned to see Pansy's lifeless face before my eyes, pale and hovering like a doll in the water. Startling me so I moved back , but when her eyes snapped open I attempted to yell in alarm , water flooding my mouth and lungs further as she reached for me with gray dead hands. Her mouth moved but she made no sound and I knew one of the voices in my head belonged to her. My horror grew as another figure came into view behind her and I choked on the pain the new deathly pale face caused inside my body. Sirius looked at me with hallow, cold eyes, blue lips moving to the words in my mind. Give up, fail…surrender. I tried to tell my self it wasn't real and closed my eyes tightly against the images of their faces but I was compelled to reopen them and as I did I saw with dread that two more figures had joined those of Pansy and my Godfather. I screamed my denial as my parents reached for me, faces locked in horror filled expressions and mouths moving to their voices inside my mind. I knew what they wanted…me…they wanted me to join them because their deaths were my fault. I fought helpless against the water to get away from my dead family and friend as their hands came closer and their voices grew louder. As Sirius's ice like fingers wrapped around my wrist I felt his message the clearest. I needed to die….because they had died for me….I should give up because there was nothing left to fight for and I felt my self giving into those words, into his dead eyes.
Pansy's arms wrapped around behind me and my parents faces came closer. Why would they want this ? Why would they want me to die? Didn't they know that I didn't want this? I tried to reason with my self but the depression of the past came swelling back and I was sinking faster in to a dark pit of despair that I knew I would never wake from. I began to welcome it, the silence, the end of it all….what it would be like to be dead? To not have to feel pain anymore? So that no one else would die because of me….I wanted them to take me then and I breathed in the water willingly.
"No……don't you dare!" a voice cried , distant , faded beneath the voices of my family. "They wouldn't have wanted this! They understood the risk! This isn't real!" the voice said growing a bit louder, but I didn't want to listen now. I wanted it to end…to let it be over.
"EVERYONE WILL DIE WITHOUT YOU!" the voice screamed somewhere inside my thoughts and I jerked a bit away from the hands holding me. My mother's ghost moved closer to me and wrapped her cold arms around me and held me like a lover whispering how she wanted me with her, not to leave her again, how she sacrificed herself for me.
"No….she wouldn't have wanted you to just give up! It's just a trick! It's a dream Harry wake up!" The new strong voice called now with a hint of desperation. "It's only a dream! They aren't your parents…FIGHT THEM!" I heard the voice but there was no strength left in me to fight them.
"What is there left to fight for?" I asked the voice and the figures around me whispered their agreement.
"Justice…." The voice said and I know felt something inside me at that word but I didn't know what it was until I had time to write this down. I felt the desire for exactly that, to give the people who had harmed innocents what they deserved…bring them to justice…avenge the people I and everyone else had lost. This desire burned inside me and I felt it grow in the hallow part of my soul, felt it reach out to the demons around me and they screamed their anger.
I choked on the icy water still the same, and their faces pulled me down and down. There was no way out and I knew I was going to die even if I no longer wanted to. I fought them , closing my eyes against their faces.
"YOU ARE OURS!" the four voices of the dead around me rang inside my head.
"No….he belong to me…" Silver piercing eyes met mine as I turned to the voice that I knew was only inside my head, those eyes were all I saw, they were my whole world in that moment and golden light flooded from me in waves the deathly pale hands releasing me. I reached to him but he wasn't there.
"No…NO!" I screamed trying in vain to get to him. "DRACO!" my voice sounded loudly through my room as I woke covered in sweat and shaking uncontrollably before falling onto the floor with a loud thud.
Gasping for breath I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest and let the tears that had already been streaming hotly down my face to continue. The images of my family's faces still burned into my vision though I tried to rid them of my thoughts.
Pulling my head into my hands I finally gathered my breath, fighting to stop my body's tremors. After calming a good bit I pulled this book out and began to write down the whole thing and now re-reading it still makes no sense. Was this some extravagant cruel trick my mind was playing on me? Or could this have been something that Voldemort had organized? If so how is he able to get into my mind again? And what about Draco? Why would he have been trying to help me if it was just a trick ? I have no idea what the devil is going on but my head is spinning at the thought that somehow …Draco was trying to help me…but why would he? He's a death eater now…he's truly my enemy he said so himself…I saw it and felt it in his entire being the last I saw him. Perhaps….there is something inside him that is still good? Or is that what Voldemort is trying to get me to believe? I am so confused….what am I suppose to believe?