a/n
Faery Ears, haha, I feel the same way, I've always felt more inclined to review to people when they respond if someone asks a question or gives a suggestion. Along with what wolfzmasterz said about Harry being dark… I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but I've always loved stories with Harry being dark, and since this is an AU, I guess I could do that if it fell into place. We'll just have to see!
Thanks as well to: Linwe Amandil, Anime Monster, druccillamalfoyrox, neostar, Sneere, Knot hole, Manny2003, and Lone Angel.
Like I said people, just review to say you read it, or give me suggestions or criticism! Anything!
Chapter Three:
Harry's dreams passed by hazily. Sometimes he dreamt of people waving those sticks—no, wands around. Other times he dreamt of his friends and the fights that they've been in.
One dream stood out from the rest, it was night in the dream, and a family was sitting by a fire looking agitated, but happy to be together. It was an odd combination of emotions. The man was tall, wore wire-framed glasses, and had messy hair. Had Harry been in a better state of mind he would have realized that this man looked a lot like himself. The woman had long dark red hair and startling green eyes. The woman was cradling a peaceful looking baby with the same messy hair as the man.
They sat in silence; the man had his arm around the woman and was occasionally stroking the baby's cheek.
Without warning, the fire died and everything got darker. The man, with a look of sadness and determination, whispered to his wife to take the baby upstairs and get away, he would hold him off.
'Him?' Harry thought blearily, not quite understanding this dream.
The man stood stoically in front of the stairs and didn't so much as wince when the door was smashed open.
"Voldemort," was his greeting.
Through the remnants of the door walked a man.
'Was it a man?' Harry tried to think, but his mind was moving too slowly.
The man was wearing a black cloak and looked to be the very essence of evil.
"James Potter," he hissed.
"What did you do to Peter?" The father, James? asked.
"Do to him?" The evil man cackled. "Why, I rewarded him for his excellent service."
"You bloody bastard, you're lying," James replied through clenched teeth.
"Lying? Oh dear no," Voldemort seemed to be enjoying himself. "Pettigrew has been my servant for quite some time. The sniveling wreck practically threw himself at my feet."
"No!" James shouted.
"Enough of this idle chitchat, I have people to kill, prophecies to prevent."
James shook his head, not understanding, "Prevent? You're only doing what it expected!"
Voldemort didn't respond, instead he threw a curse at James.
James was wheezing in pain, but didn't move from his guarding spot. Without his wand nearby, James could do nothing; he only prayed that somehow Lily and Harry had gotten out alright. In a flash of sickening green light, James fell to the floor, dead.
Harry's ghostlike form followed Voldemort up the stairs. Voldemort seemed to know where he was going and opened the second door on the right.
"Foolish girl," Voldemort sighed looking at the woman holding her wand in front her, guarding the baby in the crib behind her.
"You needn't die, just move aside."
'What is this, chivalry?' Harry thought. 'He killed the man and enjoyed it, but he's willing to spare the woman?'
"No! Please! Not Harry!" The woman cried. "Take me instead!"
Fed up, Voldemort sent the green light at the woman; granting her the same fate as her husband. Finally, he looked upon the child and without looking into its eyes he sent the light at it too.
Instead of dying, like his parents, somehow a light surrounded the child and the curse was flung back to the now leaving Voldemort. Harry watched in amazement as the evil man fell to the ground and disintegrated. As soon as the man disappeared, a shadow flew towards the child and settled inside of it.
'How confusing,' Harry thought, before returning to his dreamless sleep.
Harry woke to a blinding light. He blinked his eyes a few times to adjust, and noticed sitting in a chair near him was Alphard.
"Gave me quite a fright, you did, lad," the man said upon noticing that Harry had awoken.
"Sorry," Harry responded sheepishly.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes, the silence only being penetrated by the beeping of the hospital equipment.
"I had an odd dream," Harry finally told him.
"Hmm?"
"Well, it was—oh, I guess it was my family. I could see everything. I watched my parents die and I saw him try to kill me… there was a weird shadow thing after he died…" Harry tried to explain.
"Shadow?" Alphard snapped to attention.
"Yes," Harry slowly let out. "After Voldemort died, or, well, kinda disappeared, some shadow came out of his robe and flew into me, er, the baby me."
"Hmm, odd," Alphard pondered. "Maybe…"
"Maybe what?" Harry snapped.
"Well, maybe his powers were transferred to you, somehow." Alphard tried to explain. "But it would be kind of hard to tell."
Harry looked down, confused.
"Aha!" Alphard exclaimed. "I know just the spell."
Alphard muttered something, pointing his wand at Harry. All of a sudden, Harry's eyes rolled back into his head and he started seeing memories that weren't his. He felt emotions that he couldn't explain. To say he was confused would be an extreme understatement.
Harry watched a young beaten looking boy in an orphanage get a letter from Hogwarts. He saw the boy looking excited and innocent. He watched the boy grow into a man. He watched the innocence die with the knowledge that the boy craved and yearned for. He watched the boy delve into dark things. He learned everything the boy learned. He saw the boy become dark, doing evil things. A man named Hagrid… He saw the man do rituals that changed him, made him even more evil than before.
Then he passed out.
Waking yet again to the blinding whiteness of the hospital room, Harry tried to gather his thoughts.
"Ah," Alphard sounded sheepish. "I didn't know that would happen."
"What—what did you do?" Harry asked, still trying to regain his senses.
"Well, it was just a spell," Alphard tried to explain. "A dark spell, I suppose… I meant for it to break any memory blocks you may have had on you, but I didn't know that would happen. What did happen, by the way?"
"I saw, I guess it was Voldemort, his life, his experiences… his knowledge." Harry told Alphard various spells and rituals, along with bitter memories that came with it.
"How curious," Alphard sounded flabbergasted. "Voldemort isn't dead, but somehow you have taken in what seems to be part of his soul; if you could say he had one."
"His soul…" Harry sounded faint. "This magic stuff, it's confusing."
"Ah, yes, it's hard to believe that you grew up so far away from the world that adores you so."
Harry didn't reply, he seemed to still be trying to accept the fact that he had part of the soul of the man who killed his family. The reason he had to live with the Dursleys for those years.
"Well, I suppose you can leave this disgusting hospital," Alphard said.
"Hospital?" Harry was confused yet again. "Who took me to the hospital? I was in the middle of London, they… they got a cheap move in."
"Your friends brought you here, I believe," Alphard replied. "Don't know how they found you. Personally, I used a tracking charm when you didn't show up to get your wand."
"I was bleeding… they had stabbed me in the stomach," Harry began to remember why he was here. "How did I survive?"
"You were in critical condition when I got here, lad," Alphard responded. "They were amazed you had survived as long as you had, and were about to do some dreadful muggle things before I showed up and claimed to be your guardian."
"I just tidied you up with magic," Alphard finished, seeing that Harry didn't understand.
Harry nodded.
"So lad, we need to get you a wand," Alphard sounded chipper once again. "I must see what you can do now that you've, er, learned some things."
After a few memory charms, Harry and Alphard made their way out of the hospital.
"Lad, I'm going to apparate us into Diagon Alley," Alphard told him. "I don't feel like walking all the way there."
"Apparate?" Harry asked, but didn't get a chance for an answer, because Alphard grabbed his hand and Harry felt the world slip around him.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he was amidst the bustle of Diagon Alley. Alphard was looking at him with an amused look in his blue eyes.
"You'll get used to it lad," Alphard told him whilst he regained his footing. "After all, I'm sure if you sort through your new memories you'll find you know how to do it too."
Harry was surprised to find that he was right. Although the memories had passed in a haze, he could think back and find the experience Alphard was explaining. Eager to try something new, Harry apparated himself a few feet away. He had a look of intense joy on his face.
"This is amazing," Harry gasped.
"Let's go get you that wand, eh?" Alphard laughed.
Alphard led Harry down the dirty Knockturn Alley; Harry was beginning to get familiar with the place.
Alphard stopped in front of the store named Borgin and Burkes and stepped inside. A bell tinkled faintly as they walked into the musty store. There were items scattered all around, each looking quite ominous.
"May I help you?" Asked an oily voice from behind the counter.
Borgin—or Burkes, Harry didn't know which, was a middle aged man with slicked back dark hair. He was short and had a bit of a potbelly.
"I'd like to see a fellow about wands," Alphard told the man tersely. "Now."
The shopkeeper's eyes flashed with annoyance and he simply pointed to a door to his right.
Harry and Alphard quickly walked out of the door into a dilapidated back alley. It was lined by a few garbage cans, but was very narrow. At the end of the alley was a door into another building. They knocked on the door and waited for some kind of response.
The door was cautiously opened by a tall thin man with thinning hair.
"May I help you?" He asked in a raspy voice.
"Moyora, I presume," Alphard greeted in his overconfident tone.
"Aye, aye," The man looked back and forth between the two. "And what can I do for ye?"
"This lad needs a wand," Alphard answered.
"Ah," Moyora landed his piercing gaze on Harry, his eyes looking between the scars and the bedraggled appearance. "A challenge."
"Come in, come in," he waved them in and opened the door wider.
Harry and Alphard stepped inside what looked to be an average workshop. The only things that set it apart were the odd tools and even odder items that were scattered all over the place in no organized fashion.
"Well, well," Moyora looked excited. "The savior of the wizarding world is here for an illegal wand."
"More or less," Alphard responded, being elusive and giving Harry a glare that meant not to open his mouth like he had been about to do.
"Well, I'll see what I can find for the boy," Moyora began to walk around to various items and either nodded or shook his head and discarded it back to the floor.
"Come here, boy," Moyora finally said.
Harry walked up to the man, being careful not to step on any of the assorted things that were scattered everywhere. He kept a few feet between himself and the strange man.
"Hold out your right hand, palm down," Moyora ordered.
Harry did so, and quick as a flash, Moyora made a cut on Harry's palm collecting the blood that dripped from it. Harry was about to make a move, but Alphard placed his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Aye," Moyora seemed to be talking to himself. "Yes, maybe this should do…"
He stepped over to a workbench and gathered up a few sticks of oddly colored wood. He mumbled something with his own wand and the woods combined into one. Moyora then dipped his finger in Harry's blood and spread it on the wood.
"No one else can use it now," he smiled evilly.
He then chose some odd looking ingredients and said a choice few words and the things disappeared, apparently going inside the wand.
"Hmmm," Moyora was thinking out loud. "Basilisk venom will react with the acromantula web remnants, but perhaps… yes, yes, that should do just fine. I'll just add a bit of banshee hair, and ooohh, mayhap a bit of demiguise hair as well, hard to find, that… then I'll finish it off with the feather of a griffin!"
Moyora seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, no longer paying attention to the people watching him. He began to carve at the wand, giving it the hand grip. He also added some runes. Harry seemed to recognize them from Voldemort's memories for meaning protection, and the other, it seemed to block the expelliarmus spell. Harry watched, intrigued as the man finished putting spells on the new wand.
"Alright boy, come here and try it out," Moyora finally insisted.
Harry took a hold of the wand and felt a whoosh of power that no ordinary wand could give.
Moyora clapped giddily, "It's perfect!"
"How much?" Alphard asked, looking keenly at the wand.
"Ah, erm," Moyora seemed to think to himself. "Thirty galleons, I suppose. There are no tracking charms on it, the boy can use it whenever, no ministry officials will show up."
Alphard nodded, took out a bag of coins, and handed them to the man.
"Good day," he said, grabbing Harry's arm and leading him out.
"Aye," Moyora answered. "Come back anytime."
After leading Harry back through Borgin and Burkes, Alphard explained that he needed to go open his shop and that Harry should come back another day to work on his training. Although Harry had the memories, he mainly knew theory, spells required practice. Harry tucked his wand into a deep coat pocket and left the magical alley for his home at the factory.
He made it through London with no trouble, the other gang apparently not out looking for a fight tonight. As soon as he stepped inside the factory he was greeted by shouts from his friends.
"Harry, mate, 'ow did it 'appen?" Jon finally got everyone else to shut up.
Harry realized that they were talking about the fight from the other day.
"There were about seven of them…" Harry told the entire sordid tale to the group.
They nodded, accepting the story of the fight, although they were all looking at Harry oddly. Harry told everyone he was tired and went to lie on his cot.
Molls came up to him before he could shut his eyes for some sleep.
"'Arry, I don't know what's going on, but that was a creepy stunt you pulled the other day."
"What stunt?" Harry asked, unsure.
"You just… appeared!" She burst out. "A big flash of light, and there you were, lyin' there bleedin' to death."
Harry furrowed his eyebrows, "I don't know…" was all he said.
Molls shook her head and left him to sleep. Sleep now proved elusive, though he was tired, because he needed to sort out his thoughts.
Harry spent much of the night awake, sorting through memories, trying to figure out what was going on. The main question he asked himself was "why me?"
