Harry Potter and the Scars of Time
By: Krystal Lily Potter
Chapter Sixteen: When Mysteries Grow
Rating: AA (which means, around here, 14 and up)
Couples: HP/HG, KB/RW/LL, NL/GW/DM, GW/DM/EM
Summary: Harry's last year at Hogwarts has finally come but that doesn't mean things will be any easier for him. After last year's horrifying events the school things that nothing worse could happen. They were all wrong. The prophecy resurfaces and is dangling in front of Harry, held up by the pain from the past, quite literally. As the world is slowly being morphed outside of the safety of Hogwarts the people inside it are finding out that they cannot hide for much longer and that time is as much their best friend now as it is their worst enemy. What is a person supposed to do when they know they have to face the most evil wizard in history and if they're killed then the rest of the world, magic and muggle is doomed?
Warning: More violence then last time. There are mentions of suicide, murder, rape, and sex (I don't go into details with that). There will also be fighting, cursing (and I don't mean spells) and gory stuff. For now the rating stays AA/PG-13 but later, towards the end, it might go up to R.

Heed this warning if you don't like death: there will be A LOT more deaths of characters you recognise from JKRs books and some original ones. If you thought I was cruel and brutal in the prequel to this then I don't know what you're going to think of me after reading this story.

Sequel to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

"Being alive after we were supposed to die caused an outward ripple. A rift in death's design."

-Clear Rivers, Final Destination 2

(There's not point once or ever to this quote…I just think her name is cool)

For the next couple of weeks Harry distanced himself a little bit from his Defence teacher. He would study her from a distance but still, he had no connection to who she could be. The only clue he could feel was the fact that he knew he had seen her somewhere before.

Hermione had gotten fairly annoyed with his far away looks and the fact that he wasn't really paying attention to his studies nor her. His eyes were starting to become darker lately and he seemed to be distancing himself from everyone. He would constantly disappear after supper and came back looking exhausted.

Hermione was starting to have doubts in him. She didn't want to have doubts about him, and she knew he didn't deserve it but they were still forming inside of her.

One night, when he was gone, she went and found Ron with Kaylee outside. It wasn't quite curfew so they were allowed to be out, besides, seventh years were allowed out much longer then any of the other years and the different schools had different rules.

"Hi guys," she said dejectedly as she sat down by them.

"What's wrong Hermione?" Kaylee asked her, noticing the sad look on the girl's face.

"It's Harry," Hermione replied.

"What about him?" Ron questioned.

"He's been disappearing lately, he's constantly exhausted and he's distancing himself from all of us," she explained.

Kaylee got a thoughtful look on her pretty face then she said slowly, "I've noticed that too."

"We could follow him," Ron said suddenly, "His invisibility cloak is in my dormitory, he let me use it a couple of times this year."

"He what?" Hermione shot back.

"Never mind," Ron said quickly, "But what do you think? Want to follow him."

Hermione bit her lip and said, "I don't know…"

"Just for some answers," Kaylee insisted.

Hermione looked from the pleading looks in Ron's bright blue eyes and Kaylee's mischievous grey eyes. She groaned and said, "Who taught who that look?"

They both grinned and Kaylee yanked Hermione inside and up towards the Gryffindor dormitories.

Harry fell to his knees and panted heavily. Nickleson looked at him with worried eyes but didn't go near him. She knew building up the energy to creating the killing curse took a lot of effort, let alone casting the curse itself.

"How did Wormtail do this?" Harry growled angrily, thinking back to the triwizard tournament.

"I don't know, from what Dumbledore and everyone else told me he always seemed weak," Nickleson said, "But remember this; he too was a Gryffindor, just like you. He had great friends, like you do as well. Having great friends can make a person do extraordinary things."

Harry stared at her for a few minutes before saying, "Did you read that off a fortune cookie or something?"

She snorted with laughter and said, "No! That was something my mother told me."

"You always talk of your parents, where are they?" Harry asked.

"Oh, well, my mom died," she said sadly, "She died much too young too. I was only five when she passed, my brothers and sister younger then I. My father has struggled to get through life without her and made it this far."

"No need to say that I miss my parents too, I never knew them," he said sadly.

"My youngest brother never knew mum either," she replied sadly, then straightened out her robes and said, "You know, its best not to be talking about sad things, it'll make a person depressed, besides, the walls have ears, you never know who could be listening."

Harry raised an eyebrow and said, "Someone I know said that once."

"Mad-eye?" she questioned.

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Met him and he said the same thing to me," she explained coolly, "Doesn't seem to trust anyone that guy."

"He has good reasons though," Harry replied sharply. He really did look up to Mad-Eye and there was just something about the tone of voice she had used. It was sharp and quick as if she thought it insane to act as paranoid as Moody did.

She sighed and said, "That's enough private talk now. Try to harness your inner energy; this is a lot more helpful then just trying to use the killing curse."

"What else can your inner energy do?" Harry questioned as he started building up his slowly.

"Well it's your inner energy that controls Occumancy. Unlike now though we want to calm it and keep it in your mind while you practice that. Now what we're trying to do is push that energy to your wand."

"This is raw magic we're using, isn't it?" he said with sudden realization. He had read about that in a book of his mother's, her book on raw magic actually. It explained how people could harness it to make spells but no one was able to use the actual magic part of it.

"Yes it is, why?" she questioned, watching the tip of his wand as slowly a green dot of light started to appear.

"My mother has a book on raw magic, there's some things I can't understand though," he said.

"Why don't you bring it in?" Nickleson suggested.

His eyes narrowed and he said, "I'd rather not…"

"You're still suspicious of me? Good, you're learning not to trust too easily," she said, "Which is a good thing because you never know who your real friends are."

"What?" Harry asked.

"We're through for tonight Harry and I'm not feeling that well so we'll continue sometime next week," she said as she looked away from him, "There is something I need to do for Dumbledore now." She took out her bright green potion and drank it down.

"What does it taste like?" he asked her curiously.

"Oh it's much better then polyjuice," she said with a wink before saying, "Good evening Mr. Potter." With that she started walking out of the hall but not before saying, "About not understanding what's in the book. It's no doubt either is code or another language." She reached into her pocket, brought out a piece of paper and wrote on it. She then passed it to him and said, "This book is in the restricted section, it's full of language charms. You have my permission to get it out. I'd suggest sharing some of this with Hermione too, I've seen the looks she gives you in class and it's obvious to her that you're hiding something." With that she walked out of the hall.

Harry was still standing in the same spot with his mouth open. The piece of paper was clutched tightly in his hand and he muttered to himself, "What the hell was that?"

He looked at the piece of paper, shrugged and headed off towards the library, not realizing that he'd give Ron, Hermione and Kaylee a shock when he walked out of the hidden room. One minute his dot wasn't on the Marauder's map, the next it was.

"Where's he going?" Kaylee asked, scanning her eyes over the map.

"I think the real question is where did he come from?" Ron said.

"He's going to the library," Hermione said, "I'll go since it won't be odd seeing me there. Thanks guys." Before Ron or Kaylee could say anything Hermione quickly ducked out from under the cloak and ran down the halls.

"She's scary," Kaylee said while watching the brown haired girl run away, "Brilliant, but scary."

"That's exactly what I said about her in first year," Ron informed her.

Hermione had been closer to the library and made it there before Harry had gotten there. She had grabbed a book (Hogwarts: A History actually) and sat down at a table where she had clear view of the door, Madam Pince's desk and several of the stacks.

As Harry walked in he looked around uncomfortably and walked over to Madam Pince. He passed her a note and said something to her quietly. The woman raised the note into the air, expecting if it was real. It passed her test and she got up and walked into the restricted section.

He waited by the desk patiently until she came in. She said something to him and he nodded. He took the book and was about to leave when Hermione crumpled up a spare sheet of parchment and threw it at him. With a well cast spell to make it move where she wanted it to go it smacked him in the head.

Harry whirled around and looked at the parchment with confusion then he looked up and saw Hermione staring at him. A light smile appeared on his face as he walked over to her and said, "Hey beautiful."

Her cheeks turned a rosy pink and she said, "Where were you?"

"Yeah we have to talk about that," he said then looked around but said, "But not here. Let's go back to our dormitory."

She stared at him for a moment before nodded. She took his hand and the two left. A few minutes later a very angry Madam Pomfrey picked up the book Hermione had left behind, muttering something about messy teenagers.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" Hermione asked curiously.

"It's about what I've been doing when I disappear," Harry said, "I know it's not fair for me to keep things away from you but you have to understand, sometimes it's for the best."

She studied him for a minute and said, "Alright, I trust you."

Harry smiled then said, "I've been getting personal training from Professor Nickleson. She taught me how to cast Imperius, Cruciatus and she's teaching me how to cast Avada Kedavra. Dumbledore said I needed to know them and she seems to be an expert on them."

Hermione's mouth fell open and she stared at him with wide eyes. After taking a few deep breaths she said, "Alright, well it actually does make sense and…I think it's best. What does that have to do with that book though?"

"This is actually a book of language charms. I told Professor Nickleson that I couldn't read part of a book and she said to try language charms," he explained to her honestly.

Hermione's eyes, which had darkened at the thought of him learning how to kill, lit up and an excited look, "Madam Pince actually let you have it?"

"Only with a note from Nickleson. She told me that all the teachers and staff were sticking closely together since Umbridge is back. They're not going to let her take control like last time," Harry explained.

"But poor Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said with a sniff.

"I agree, don't worry though she's still in the castle and I know for a fact that most of the student population goes to her when they're feeling sick, unlike Barney," he said.

Hermione giggled and said, "Barnaby."

"Whatever, she scares me just like that TV show used to," Harry replied with a shudder.

"Same here. Anyways back to the Language charms. I'll help you learn them if you want! I've always been interested in them myself," Hermione said excitedly.

"What exactly do language charms do?" he questioned curiously.

"They allow you to read, write and speak in another language," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"How the hell do you know that?"

"I just do…"

"Well I suppose you wouldn't be you if you didn't know everything," he replied sarcastically.

She smacked him lightly then said, "Yes anyways, the reason these aren't used very often is because they are really painful. It'll also knock a person unconscious for a day. Sometimes people were even killed by these charms so I think they should be more or less curses instead of charms."

Harry got a suspicious look on his face and he said, "Why would Nickleson tell me to try and cast charms on myself that could kill me?"

"That's a really good question," Hermione said, "A really good one."

Harry looked at the ceiling and said, "There's something not right about any of this. Not right at all."

"I agree but what do you suggest we do to make it right?" she asked.

Harry looked at her for a minute before nodding to himself and saying, "It's been too quite. I know Voldemort's up to something and I'm almost positive there's someone working for him inside the school. Who, I don't know, but I intend on finding out."

"What are we going to do in the meantime?" Hermione asked.

"Start the ULD again, train as many as we can, and hope to god that when the final battle comes that majority of students will survive."

She nodded and moved over beside him. Putting her head on his shoulder she said, "I'll help in any way I can and I know that Ron, Kaylee, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Lavender, Parvati and many other people will too."

He smiled at her and slung an arm around her shoulder before saying, "We're going to need information on all the schools."

"Why?"

"I want them involved too. I want to find out how to contact Australia as well. Any school that leaves I want a contact in it," he explained.

"What about the Headboy of Sunspot?" Hermione asked, "he seemed nice enough."

Harry nodded and said, "What was his name?"

"Ethan Dole I think," she said after a minute.

"Alright then, I'm going to Owl Ethan and see if he's in, then I'll find contacts at other schools."

"You've got Kaylee for Salem," Hermione said, "and that girl, Beth from Maple Merlin's, I spoke to her, she seems really nice."

"Alright then, let's get this going," he said with a smile.

News spread throughout the ULD members that there was another meeting coming up soon. Whispers went around the halls that night and notes were sent to representatives from each school. Harry had gotten a reply from all of them saying that they were in. He sent them back replies saying to meet him at the entrance to the third for corridor.

"Third floor corridor?" Hermione asked later that night as they walked there.

"Umbridge knows about the Room of Requirement so we can't risk it," Harry explained. When they got there everyone else from the schools were already there.

"Alright, go in this room here," he said, pointing to the room where the mirrors were, "I'll wait out here as people come. They're bringing new recruits this year so I have to make sure they're ok."

"Alright," one of them said as they entered the room.

Slowly as people started trickling in Harry caught the newcomers easily. He was proud to see that more Slytherins were showing up and that they seemed trustworthy. All of the prefects had showed up, which showed loyalty to him and he liked it. Once he was sure no one else was coming he walked into the room and closed the door.

"Everyone follow me!" he yelled at them and walked over to the mirror of Raef. He opened the secret passage into the other room and walked in. Everyone else followed him.

"This is amazing," Ebony moon said with awe, "How'd you find it?"

"Nickleson showed me," he replied, "OK, I think we should go over a little history with this first. Two years ago when Umbridge was our Defence teacher she wasn't teaching us squat so Hermione got the idea for me to teach the class. I didn't really like the idea but agreed to it, believe me I was shocked when 25 other people showed up." There were a couple laughs at that. "Last year I started this again not because our teacher wasn't teaching us but because we needed to know how to fight, we need to be ready. In fifth year we called ourselves the DA, which stood for Defence Association or Dumbledore's Army. Last year, because of a rift between the Headmaster and me, we changed it to ULD, United Light Defence. We're keeping the name but I want to spread this back to all the schools. The people I've asked to meet here are the people I think should start leading in their schools. Alright our representative from Durmstrang is Tyson Vermeer. From Beauxbaton it's Jaclyn Damour. From Doragon Manako it's Taichi Yokomato. From Subida Esperanza we have Miguel Lopez. From Pharaohs Valley is Sheen Taylor. From Goudster is Lelani Theron. From Maple Merlin's is Beth Anderson. From Salem is Kaylee Black. From Athena's is Helen Menelaus (he had chuckled lightly at that name and so did she) and from Romulus Augustus is Alex Sulla. Also I've got a mirror here that will allow us to communicate with Ethan Dole from Sunspot. Ethan you there?"

His face appeared in the mirror and he said, "Yeah."

"As you can see, including this mirror, there are 11 mirrors, one for each school when you go back. Someone is in charge of choosing a room when you get up to put in your mirrors. We're going to unite all the schools world wide," Harry said confidently.

"That's a good idea," Leah Watt, the sixth year, female, Slytherin prefect said honestly.

"Right…erm…" he looked at Hermione for help.

His girlfriend chuckled and she said, "See these pendants we have? These are how we communicate. Harry had the primary one and when we have a meeting it will warm up and words will appear on them. We have one for each of you. Ethan we sent a primary one to you, did you get it?"

"Yeah," he replied and held it up with a smile, "So I get to start recruiting soon?"

"Yup," Hermione replied.

"Now here's something you have to keep in mind," Harry said, eyeing the younger students, "The first, second and third years won't be in the front lines of the fight. Although I've seen strong people from all those grades you don't know as much magic as the rest of us do. You can learn and you can help though. You'll all be trained more in healing and stealth then anything else."

"Well," Rose Knight, one of Nicola's old friend spoke up, "I suppose that makes sense."

"Listen to me and listen to me carefully, things will be getting worse," Harry said seriously, "This is no longer just a little class. It's serious. We are, without a doubt, an army this time around. We will need to stick together through all of this."

Everyone was silent, it didn't seem like anyone had anything to say, including Harry. He twittled his thumbs for a minute before looking pointedly at his friends.

"Alright, come get a pendant if you don't have one," Hermione called out. While people moved forewards to get one Ron moved over beside Harry.

"We can't have these practices every night bud, our first Qudditch match is coming up soon and we've been working really hard. It's going to be hard without you," Ron said.

"I know but you'll win, you're a good captain and the team in general is good," Harry replied with a smile.

"Nothing compared to the old one. You know you, Wood, Angelina, Alicia, Katie, Fred and George. That was the best team in years."

Harry smiled lightly at his friend until Hermione nudged him and said, "Well…"

"Alright, I know many of us have worked on this before but we're going to start with disarming, then move to stunning and things like that then we're doing the Patronus Charm and so on. The people that have been doing this for along time now are going to work on harder charms and curses. This is going to be the hardest thing you ever have to do. Keep that in mind," Harry said.

People split off into groups by years and what they already knew. Harry sat back and stared at everyone for a minute before muttering, "I have no clue what I'm doing." Suddenly an alarm went off.

"Shit, someone's coming down the third floor corridor," he said and jumped up. Looking around quickly he said, "Blaise, come with me. We're going to pretend we're looking for people out of their beds."

Blaise Zabini got up and followed him out of the secret room, out of Fluffy's old room and into the corridor. They got there moments before Umbridge did. She shot them a suspicious look and said, "What are you doing here?"

"Patrolling the halls ma'am," Blaise said.

She eyed their badges before she said, "Alright but if I hear of anything illegal happening here…"

"You won't," Harry assured her. That much was true, she wouldn't hear anything of what they were doing.

"Good, good," she said, not finding his hidden message before she walked away.

"She has to be the stupidest person I know," Harry muttered.

"No kidden," Blaise agreed before they returned to the meeting.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Harry lay on his bed that night thinking about the meeting. It had gone nearly as smoothly as he would have hoped but he had run out of words to say. He knew what he wanted to tell them but it seemed impossible. He didn't comprehend it himself.

Growling angrily he moved into a sitting position. He sighed and looked around for a minute. His eyes landed on a book on his desk. It was one from his mother's trunk, a book on raw magic. He threw his covers off and walked over to it. He flipped it open and looked at the writing he didn't understand; the only things he could read were his mother's notes at the back of the book.

Sighing to himself he took it over to his bed and set it down then grabbed the book on language charms and started to compare them. He flipped through the charm book, looking for the type of writing it was.

Finally he found it and looked at it compared to the book. He raised an eyebrow and said, "Ancient Greek. Well I suppose it does make sense, these people were more of the thinkers then anything else in their point of time. Let's see, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omikron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega. Glad mom took the time to figure that out and wrote it in the book because it would have taken me forever." As he looked at his mother's notes though he knew she had never figured out what everything meant. He remembered Hermione telling him that his mother wrote in her diary about finding stuff out about Greece.

Hermione had been given the chance to know Lily Potter through her diary. When the wills had been read (or rather they spoke to the wills) Lily had told Hermione she was to have her diary because there were just some things men should not read.

Harry couldn't take it though, he had to know, and he didn't have his mother's patients to learn the language on his own. His lack of bring able to wait very long came from his father, which was one of the things that made them seem very similar (aside from looks and Quidditch).

He looked at the book and said, "Alright, Hermione's going to kill me, well either that or this charm but that's not the point."

He followed the instructions carefully and pointed his wand at himself. He memorized the words then stared at the tip of his wand and said, "Subvenio is ea id vita ostendo mores procul loquor Ancient Greek."

His wand shot a blue beam of light at him. It hit him in the head and he felt like someone was crushing his head with a hot metal spike. His eyes watered and he let out a gasp. He wanted to yell out so bad but he couldn't.

Harry's eyes closed and he fell backwards onto his bed, his wand falling limply beside him and the books tumbled lightly to the side. Harry felt his blood rush and he muttered, "What the hell did I just do?" He fell unconscious just after saying that.

Author's Note

Alright well…that sucked…that sucked really bad. I had something really big, exciting thing planned for this chapter and BAM! I forgot what it was. It was really good too. Damn I hate when that happens!

I think this note is more exciting then the rest of the chapter (LOL, I'm serious).

Now I've gotten a couple, interesting theories about E—Nickleson and there seems to be a really popular one about her being Harry's daughter from the future. When I saw how many people thought that I nearly died laughing. Not making fun of you of course but just…laughing. It's a funny concept but I can see how many of you jumped to that conclusion.

Well I've got to go, the replies are below like always!

EmeraldRaindrop – LMAO that's an interesting thought but a little far fetched, don't you think?

Watashi no tenshi - Where is everyone getting that from? Your not the first one that's said that.

Lunatic Pandoral – No there's more to his hearing people's thoughts then I let on. Its sort of a sign that there's something…different about him being released…

PruePotter – Why the hell is everyone saying that? I think I might have gave someone the wrong idea…think about it, would I make something I wanted to keep hidden until the end so obvious to figure out?

Shawn Pickett – I will admit, there is more to Nickleson then meets the eye but I'm not exactly sure what everyone is going on about…

Holimontski – LMAO! That sound fun…sounds more like my English class…and Umbridge is a bitch!

Zirconium – Well it's true, people do look older when they're tired, and yes actually that potion is for her arm.

Jada1010 – Yes he knew where the mirrors were (he went there in HBP) but he didn't know there was a room behind one of them. No that potion was not polyjuice.

Ultra-violet-catastrophy – I know, I wish it was going to be H/Hr too but you never know…to be honest I think if Hermione went with Ron in the real series Harry wouldn't freak but then again I think he's going to die too sooo…

Prongs – It's not polyjuice…you might be getting somewhere with this, you might not be. I tried writing a Marauder's one but I decided to wait and do this one and the one I've got planned for after it. LOL thanks for the title but I don't deserve it.

Carn – Professor Nickleson was…designed…to be mysterious and unpredictable, but one thing I can tell you right now is that she hates Umbridge, and there is a reason for it.

CoolWeirdo – I said I didn't bring back any of Harry's relatives, that includes poor Marky. I'm really annoying aren't I? You think you've got it solved them BOOM it turns out you're completely wrong.

SilverDagger – You're, I believe, the fourth or fifth person that said this, everything I said about Nickleson does have a purpose, but do you really think I would make it THAT obvious?

Imran 1 – Excuse me did you just call me (and I quote) "you little bitch", I find that insulting, I'm a big bitch and I admit it, but what does that quote have to do with anything? You gave it to me but didn't give me a point…

Loup3402 – LOL I agree! Donkey does rule!

Beth5527 – Thanks!

Great Merciful Goddess – They're with Hagrid, he's teaching the younger years about them. Yes that really is an arm healing potion as you saw in this chapter. As of now I do not have a sequel planned for this and you'll see why in the end.

Idiot with reason – Resmeble? That's an interesting…word (coughs). LOL Harry does have a girlfriend, her name's Hermione. I love H/Hr and I intend on keeping it that. I can promise you this will not be R/Hr but…well…

CastusAlbusCor – What clue? I can't remember what I said about Hermione…oh wait nothing…ok never mind I'm just thinking to myself, you know why I do that I have a habit of writing what I'm thinking so that's the best way to make my slip up and say something I don't want anyone to know…

Atrus Valentein – LOL! Well…see you just said all Ravenclaw's were insane so that just proved my point that you're mental. No he didn't bring back Cedric and that's an interesting theory you got going on about the title.

Ryan – Marie's father, well he's not really relevant, that was made to show that she wasn't harsh and (as of now) she doesn't seem evil.

QueenWeasel – You're not the only one that thinks that, but of course that statement doesn't include me. No that wasn't polyjuice, that potion was honestly for her arm. She has brown eyes, not green (or is it hazel, I can't remember…). Do you think you're right based on what I've said so far?

UltimateHPFreak – Nah no birthday party. LOL I'm naturally weird too so don't feel bad. You think its Evelyn? Interesting. And her…hi Jimmy…

Colorguardbaby23 – I agree and THIS story, as well as any I write will be H/Hr. They were really cute in movie three…but you know JKR is the only one who really knows…

LuvaboyDanHesmyman – LOL you like an injured Harry? That's different. I reply to all reviews! Yes Umbridge is a bitch…

WIZ1 – After Harry masters Avada Kedavra Nickleson doesn't need to teach him in private training sessions anymore.

Wildkatt1987 – lol thank you.

Lady Nicole Potter – LOL those are all good theories. Yeah my computer is a piece of crap too…and my imagination scares me sometimes…LMAO you got suspended haha. Well part of that was that he knew he had to quit Quidditch but there's more to it then that. LOL thanks but I think he was calling me a bitch because I said I might kill Hermione later on, he's been threatening me since the beginning about killing people. LMAO thanks for that but that's mean…

Imran12 – How does Nickleson know about the map, that's a good question, but not one I'm going to explain.

NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE BETTER! PROMISE! I'll even give you the title of it (I'm 90 sure it will stay the title)

Chapter 17: Lions and Snakes

See ya!

Krystal Lily Potter