Title: Harry Potter and the Summer's Secret
Author: Japhu
Pairing: HPSS
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter and his world and don't make any money with it.
Summary: For one week in summer Harry disappears without trace. When he comes back he claims to have no memory. But something happened and it changed him. It remains to be seen if for the better or the worse. (will be HPSS)
Category: action/adventure/angst
Feedback: highly appreciated
Chapter 16 – Unforeseen Welcome
The castle of Hogwarts was one of the achievements of the mankind that deserved to be called an ancient treasure. Built at a time when the training of children had lain mostly in their parents' responsibility, and when a knife plunged into the back was a common death, it had been witness to the rise and fall of nations behind and in front of its walls. It had been refuge to wizards of all kinds in times of war and freedom alike, and it gave their descendants a better sense of life, if they had enough awareness to listen to its whispering.
Unfortunately, or perhaps luckily, there never had been many open-minded people with an awake enough mind to see that Hogwarts was more than a building of stone, because even the smallest grain of sand that had found its use in the process of erecting this masterpiece of architecture for future generations was filled with interwoven magic to serve a cause not even legends told of anymore.
The castle was by no means a living creature as humankind and every other intelligent species would define it, but it had, one could say, personality – always aware who and what crossed its halls, always watching, always waiting for the time to come to use its powers again. Functioning exclusively on a guttural, almost instinctive level of magic, Hogwarts did not recognize faces or voices. It was not aware things like humans even existed, because either something had magic and the castle knew it, or it had not and was of no importance for its existence. The castle did ot distinguish between one magical core and another, though, it recognized separate persons and their intentions like letters on a page as it could read magic like an open book.
The castle's world consisted of magic, solely of magic. Humans and animals alike were nothing more than moving center points of clusters of magic, kept apart through their pure strength and small, regularly recurring waves of energy or, less often, short outbursts of tremendous strength – a less analyzing human mind would call those emotions, although only strong one's could cause outbursts powerful enough to hold the castle's attention.
It did not know the difference between children and adults, but it knew that with time some of the uncountable magical cores gathered more and wilder energy to built up a much stronger core than others, and of those it never let go completely – always kept watching, waiting if they would come back, waiting to see what they would do, if they realized its powers.
Some of those coming back had tried to use Hogwarts against their enemies, and sometimes the castle had helped them to amuse itself when their intentions were true enough. Some others had fled, coming face to face with its powers and their own weaknesses, and a few had perished, because they had been to dangerous to let them go elsewhere. They had died agonizingly slow in the dungeons or in an unused part of the castle for lack of water and food. They had died never knowing they did, because their life's force – or inner core as it was called now – was sucked out as fast as a fire devoured a piece of paper. (This way Hogwarts had made its own ghost, a haggard lady in her mid forties, long since banished from the grounds and now plaguing an old forest were none would set their feet ever.) Once or twice some crazy minded fool had come across its walls, feeling pure bliss while slowly loosing identity and life to the castle they sought to own and use for their own needs, never once asking what the builders might have aimed at with such an breathtaking piece of human creativity. A few of them simply vanished into the walls and were never seen again.
It sounded ruthless and maybe it was in human eyes, but Hogwarts did not have a conscience of good and bad, though, even if its builders had left their legacy to the humankind with a conscience, it still would have said that a dozen or twenty deaths in more than a thousand years were not too much to hold safe what it was made to do. Everything had been justified by its builders and the castle did not ask why or what – it just did, and it did well. Hogwarts had never failed when it came to know what was good for it. It knew how to preserve itself. Every threat for the castle's future had to be eliminated.
The stones did not count years or centuries. Time had no meaning for the castle, because it never stopped what it was doing as long as magic existed in this world and only one stone of its walls was pulsing with the Earth's magical core itself. The castle always knew what was going on around its walls, though, throughout the centuries most of its presence had been asleep like a dragon of stone, only to be awaken when a glimmer of magic warmed its lids and a scent of danger brushed its nostrils.
A part of Hogwarts – an important part – that was not needed to keep the enormous flow of magic circulating, was continuously set to search for what its builders had wanted to find desperately, even beyond the limits of time when they themselves would long be nothing more than dust in the wind and only the castle would be left to hold true for what most of them had given their lives trying to achieve. Hogwarts was searching for only One to fulfill its builders needs, to take over their task with its assistance – if wanted or not. The castle did not know of compromises to find through times gone and times to come what would take its task to the next stage.
For a long time, longer than a man's descendants would remember his name, Hogwarts had been asleep when something as incredibly old as the castle itself – and older still – touched its grounds and called out to it unknowingly, thus awakening the whole of Hogwarts Castle, which had not happened for years. With a low grumble and a barely noticeable shuddering of stone the castle took all its attention to the one who had called.
It was a call Harry knew nothing about when he stepped into the whirlpool of magic that made his teeth ache. All he was aware of was the fact that he had to master the magic of this place. He breathed deeply. Something about the castle's magic was as foreign as a humming bird in Alaska. It seemed richer of essence, of awareness. It was the castle's own magic that nearly overloaded him with energy and left him dizzy with never known happiness; but it was the castle's magic too, that made the boy's heart racing and left him barely able to keep his legs steady. His breath shallow, Harry managed in the last possible moment to numbly stumble to the nearest wall to prevent a sudden fall, completely clueless of a certain school's history and foremost task.
Long ago the castle had begun to search for old magic, and now that it had come and listened to the castle's whispering. Hogwarts was vibrating with piled up energy. It was a possibility opened up again for the castle to fulfill one of the most important tasks it had to follow from the magic that was woven into its stones. What had set foot through its gate was strong, pure and the only one to recognize Hogwarts for something greater.
Slowly assessing the incredible strong but mostly wild cluster of magic, the castle knew that it had found what it had been built to search for; but in all its existence it never had come across someone, whose intentions it could not read. It was ready to meet certain requirements before starting on its true task, nevertheless, as the One stepped through its doors and both came to an abrupt halt – as if time stood still – when a hand came into direct contact with Hogwarts' walls and the castle could finally read what was driving the astounding bit of energy together.
When Harry touched the stones for the first time after he stepped through the doors it was as if a bulldozer of magic was rolling over him and turning his insides out. Harry's hand seemed like glued to the wall. The sensation felt like poking his fingers into a socket and instead of a few hundred volts he got thousands of it. It was a nasty shock and his corporate proximity to the castle only multiplied to everything.
The magic Harry had tried so much to control all the way nearly slipped his mind and abilities and left him gasping and panting for breath. He was unable to do anything. It took all he had to just hold on and endure whatever it was the castle was doing. He hoped that it would stop rather sooner than later. Harry pressed his eyes together tightly and an unconscious yell worked its way up his throat and escaped in a painfully suppressed moan. The quiet presence of Tom was frantically running against the barriers Harry had built with utmost care to prevent him breaking through. His half-hearted attempt to prevent the unfamiliar probing was brushed off with easiness.
Hogwarts took its time to analyze what had taken it – not by surprise but curiosity. It was a new riddle that deserved its whole concentration. Hidden behind a layer of magic as strong as little else the castle had observed it found deceit and hate, mixed with complete bewilderment that rapidly changed into fear. Just as suddenly all of that was gone again and only a vague impression of awed wondering stayed amidst something that only could be described as amusement and the castle had not had much of that directed at itself.
However, more important was Hogwarts' recognition of something else. Despite of anger at something or other deep within this different magical core and an uncertainty about the rightness of its doing, it went on gathering magic to follow its chosen path with determination, and if not for all the right reasons its intentions were true and came form the depth of its life force. It would be the one force Hogwarts was built to bond, but there still was deceit and hate. There was only one possiblity a core could be devided and that was when actually two magical cores were interwoven with each other for only a small but decisive part. The castle could not bond itself to something like that – mostly right, but sometimes as bad as it could get.
Hogwarts did not let itself be disturbed by anything while it further analyzed what sought to live under its towers. Nearly of the same strength, the cores' real powers lay in different areas and only one of them was able to use the old magic. Hogwarts did not have to read much to know that an continuous fight for dominance was going on, a fight Hogwarts had no right to decide for its own needs, because until now the cluster had not done a thing to warrant the castle's intervention, but all of that complicated things.
How could two magical cores exist this way without devouring each other and merging to something greater, more dangerous? Magic had its own way to work and such things had happened in the past more than once. It was unknown that a process of merging had started without being finished. Magic tried constantly to pull itself together. There was a reason that one magical core was never far away from another. Hogwarts urged its magic forward until it found the darker core squirming under its watchful gaze, nearly breaking the barriers that held the hidden core back so much that even Hogwarts had not realized its existence until the One had touched the stone of the castle itself. Hogwarts had no premises to interfere, but it did not want the one hidden to take over, and it did not want the magical, albeit natural process of merging to complete itself with time passing and to taint what was its own to take.
The castle was searching for something in his magic. Harry felt its probing and prodding, dozens of millipedes crawled their way like magical fingers over his body to find a way inside, where they started hammering against his mind's walls as if wanting to break him.
Harry had reckoned with Tom. If one thing was sure it was Tom's habit to claim his attention when Harry had to maintain his concentration elsewhere. Harry had reckoned with the castle and its magic as well, but nothing could have him prepared for that. Bracing himself on his knees, it took all his might to concentrate on the castle and survive its assault with all parts functioning. Harry would have lain unconscious long since if he had not had at least an inkling of what was going on, but perhaps, if he had been completely unaware, the castle would have left him on his own.
Drops of perspiration stood on his forehead when Harry tried to get the disquieting feeling of not really harmless magic washing over and through him to retreat. It was not pleasant or friendly – it was demanding and uncompromising. Then there was a slight easing of the pain justwhen Harry thought his head would burst into pieces. He did not imagine Hogwarts' magic to be less forceful than just moments ago, did he? Harry blinked and looked around wide eyed, still caught in a dream, as he could hear his friends and all of the other students as though they stood only inches away. For an instant he was aware of everything that went on behind Hogwarts' walls and he saw people from the castle's point of view like some colorful balls of energy.
"See, you are still on time. They've just begun with 'B'. Run!" Harry could feel Hermione giving the frightened girl a gentle push in the right direction when she urged the little one forward. He practically watched the child looking back once in uncertainty before it run through the great hall, red with embarrassment when she finally reached her future classmates. Had they just run into the hall? Had not more time passed than a few moments?
Harry knew exactly were every living being in Hogwarts was. He felt their heartbeats and their magic. He knew their fears and hopes. The life pulsing through their veins was like a softly humming song; but all of that was drowned by the castle itself. It probed, searched, watched and it was so filled with magic that it forced tears of joy into his eyes, because Hogwarts was brimming with life of its own. It was simple and true and warm and unbelievably powerful, and only the last one was what brought the pain.
Amidst the wonders he experienced Harry nearly forgot the splitting headache and the burning of his whole body until he thought about it. He knew that Hogwarts was intently observing everything what he did – and thought? With all the force he could manage Harry pulled his hand away from the stone. Strands of magic followed his hand, wavering lazily in a slight breeze of something Harry could not feel. The impressions he had gotten through Hogwarts' magic shut down abruptly. Harry stumbled, trying to catch himself with his arms stretched out, and found his upper arm gripped tightly. He knew without looking, whom the hand belonged to, because even as tired as he was now he could still recognize an aura he had seen before and he had gotten a good look with Hogwarts' magic.
"Thanks." Harry pressed out and frowned. "Shouldn't you be at the sorting?" He blinked and ignored the other one's probing look. Harry freed his arm and tried to hold enough attention on the other boy when he shook his head animatedly and made his face swimming in a bright orange-pink halo.
"Oh. I'm the last one to get sorted," he explained brightly. "Professor McGonagall let me go to the loo." The DADA teacher's son, now wearing a simple black robe, grinned sheepishly. "I was just on my way back when I saw you. Is everything alright with you?" Junas looked actually worried, but Harry was far from trusting. His thoughts were occupied with a castle that was much more aggressive than he had thought. So Harry just shook his head with a noncommittal wink and gathered his wits.
"I just… tripped over the border." Harry's voice sounded faint even in his own ears. He could not do one step, but straightened himself, nevertheless. Merlin! It had been overpowering, the castle's presence still was, but Harry had not thought of the possibility that its magic would be that… aggressive. It had by no means stopped to send its magic out. It had just let off enough for Harry to be able to give his surroundings enough attention as to not come across like some drugged duffer. Well, that and the pain, which was lessening more and more every second to an almost bearable level. Harry still felt like his feet would lose its ground every moment. If he had had a warning Harry would have come more prepared – if that was even possible. Not once had he heard that someone mentioned Hogwarts'… identity.
The magic now surged through his body until every cell that vibrated with it was more reserved than before. However, everything seemed to be behind a haze of color. The castle's magic swirled around almost lazily, but the strongest Harry had ever seen. Of course, now that the castle – for whatever reasons – had taken its own raw magical power a few levels down, the color was possibly an addition of Harry's own magic. Only in an afterthought Harry caught on to the straying thought that the castle had had a lot of time to gather magic in its walls and around – it was ancient – but why did it come on him like that? Could it be Tom? The former dark lord had been aghast before becoming frantic. Now Harry found nothing of him, though he knew Tom still had to be there, because the barriers were not broken. Harry breathed deeply.
The door to the Great Hall was not that far away and he told himself that he could make it alright. He would figure out what had occurred here when he was more awake and capable to draw the right conclusions. He just had to come through the sorting and he could drop into bed.
Giving one last glance into the direction of Junas Bradarowicz, Harry winked at him to go on his way and made, without another word, step after step, pleased to know that he was doing alright, counting the fact that two pairs of eyes were following his every move, and the magic of Hogwarts was still surging through his body.