Chapter 4

Hey all hope you enjoy new chapter. after this one there will be some time skips and world building with some new charters I've thought up. comments are a writers life blood so don't be shy :)

The Present -

3hrs after the death of Voldemort

His clothes were in ruins barely holding together in several places. Covered in blood, dirt and several other substances that he didn't want to think about, he really should get cleaned up at least he mused, but he couldn't seem to find the energy to move, from the rock he was sitting on.

He had won, the fight but it hadn't been easy. But he had managed it. Once he had won, the Death Eaters had quickly realised the gig was up and tried to run, scattering like rats before Voldemorts body had even finished turning to dust. With the wards around the castle badly damaged many had been able to apparate out of the grounds. A lot of the smarter dark creatures had made a run for the dark forest too. But the Dementors had, had to be driven off. And all the Werewolves were killed, even though he tried to stop everyone so they could wait till they changed back so the guilty could be sorted from those forced to be there. But the blood of the light side was up and no one listened. He noted several naked teenagers body's while he was walking through the castle. And had to fight not to weep over their bodies. Finally, they were all driven off or captured. He then went to help the handful of healers, that were here as best he could. That had been even worse than the fighting. All those people screaming in pain. No amount of magic could fix that. After a couple of hours, the most critical cases had been dealt with and everyone seemed too tired or afraid to leave the castle grounds. He had managed to slip away and try and find a quiet spot where people weren't looking at him for a bit

so he found himself outside in the courtyard, just sitting there letting the rain fall on him trying not to think about anything for a few moments more. After several minutes he let out a sigh looking up from his hand. Easy part done now he thought to himself now comes the hard part he thought a chuckle. Looking around the courtyard at all the death and destruction the last couple of hours had wrought, and a little fearful of what he would have to do in the future. Unsurprisingly none of the books, movies or training had prepared him for this. The smell of blood was everywhere, the people screaming in pain as they were blown to pieces, ripped apart, turned inside out or any of a hundred other horrible ways that he had seen people killed by magic in the last few hours. Neither side had held back on what they were doing, everyone knew this was going to be the deciding battle, and the so called Light side had been just as vicious as the Dark in the end. The phrase "War is Hell" never felt more true.

He really should move back inside but he couldn't seem to find the energy, so many people were dead and everyone looking at him as if he was the second coming of Merlin. He didn't like it, but he knew he would need to use that fame later but at the moment he felt like such a fraud.

Sighing to himself, he needed to get the first couple of steps started now while everyone was still in shock and not thinking straight. Calling out, to the empty night air.

"Kreacher."

Kreacher popped in. Directly in front of him still holding his rather large bloody meat clever, that looked more like a sword in his hand than something used in a kitchen. His dirty pillow case covered in blood and gore, Harry dreaded to think about what he had been up to during the fight. Giving him a quick once over he noted that it looked like someone had managed to clip one of his ears with a spell of some sort. The left one was almost completely gone, though not bleeding so he had, at least got someone to look at it. The small house elf had more than a mad gleam in his eye as he looked around the courtyard. With small hops, both hands on his meat cleaver, like a baseball bat. Looking for something to give a good swing at.

"Hey Kreacher, thanks for coming. Are you in a lot of pain, would you like me to try and heal your ear?"

Kreacher took a moment to answer as he looked carefully around the courtyard making sure there wasn't anything hiding under the rubble that might be dangerous.

Satisfied that they were both safe, he looked up at his young master.

"Thank you but no sir. This is a badge of honour, that I got in service of House Black. Not as good as getting my head on the wall but very honourable, young master."

Harry sighed but nodded, as he knew there was no point in arguing with him at the moment.

"Okay, perhaps later you'll let me look at it and make sure everything is alright. I need you fit and healthy if you're to serve house Potter/Black properly, going forward. I have several things I'll need help with tonight, first up can you find Winky for me and bring her here please."

The old elf looked like he might have a stroke when Harry mentioned checking his health. With a quick salute, he popped away. Less than a minute later they were both back in front of him. Standing at attention. Harry couldn't help smiling at them both.

"Hello, Winky thank you for coming. I hope you're alright?"

The younger house elf looked up at him, nodding making her large ears flap around a bit. He noted that she looked a lot better than the last time he had seen her in Harry's memories. Noting that her pillowcase was spotlessly clean, it looked like she had managed to get over her depression he was glad to see.

"So I wanted to talk to you and ask if you would like to join House Potter/Bla..."

He didn't even get to finish the question before she had her arms wrapped around his leg bawling how she would be honoured to serve a family again. Kreacher looked on, with a sneer on his face at the over overly emotional elf. Patting the elf on the back for a minute Harry conjured a handkerchief and passed it over. Knowing this would take several minutes till she pulled herself together. A few minutes later and several handkerchiefs. Harry put his still bloody hand on the young elf's head.

"I Harry James Potter/Black welcome you into my home. You will always find safety and protection at my hearth."

A soft golden glow flowed between the two of them for a moment before fading away. A small light formed in his mind, it was the only way to describe it, to himself. He could feel Winky's general physical state and where she was, in relation to him. The light settled next to another dimmer light, more grey than gold that he hadn't noticed before, which he figured must be Kreacher he would definitely have to get Kreacher to a hospital soon. Not sure if the dimmer light was because of his age or perhaps because he was living with part of Voldemort's soul for more than a decade. Mentally shaking his head. Later he promised.

"Welcome to the family Winky. Okay, a few rules for you both first. You are not to harm yourself for any reason, if you think you should be punished come and talk to me and I'll sort it. Okay?"

Both elves looked up at him with more than a little awe. Smiling at them both he couldn't help but wonder why anyone would want to harm such innocent beings, before chalking it up to Wizard's stupidity and arrogance.

"Okay the first job I have for you both, I need you both to go looking for any homeless elves, a lot of pure bloods died tonight so I'm sure there will be some, offer them service with house Potter/Black. Come and find me once you've found as many as you think are around. Though only appear if I'm alone okay."

They both answered with a chorus, yes sir. Before they both popped away. Still smiling down at where the two elves had just been, they had both managed to lift his spirits a little from the memories that had been replaying in his mind. Noting that the first step of his plans was in motion, even though he knew he had several more things he had to get done this evening before he could rest.

A piece of rubble behind him was nudged slightly causing a small cascade knocking several smaller stones lose as it fell. Without a thought he rolled to the side from his seat wand at the ready, his magic rolling wanting to be released, words on the tip of his tongue. Instead of the expected Death Eater or some other dark creature trying to sneak up on him looking for a late night snack, there was only a young woman with white blond hair and a surprisingly serious look on her face. His memory's quickly filled in who this was.

He tried to keep the look of shock of his face as he took in her face.

Something must have blinded her she had a black cloth wrapped around her eyes as she calmly made her way toward him.

Absently he thought it must have been some pretty dark magic for the healers not to be able to remove all the damage straight away. Standing up from his crouch he lowered his wand, but still alert from the adrenaline pumping through his body.

"Hey, Luna. I'm sorry about your eyes. Will the healers be able to fix them?"

"Hello not Harry, thank you for the thought. But no. Nott hit me in the face with some dark spell that the healers have never seen before. My eyes were completely destroyed. But I can still see in mind, though it is taking some getting used to."

She replied with a sad smile. Sighing. He had been afraid of this. Curious during his training he had asked Nimue about Luna. There had been so many theory's/storys about her over the years, he had always been curious which if any of them were true. Nimue had explained that there were several different types of seers in this world, most were smart and kept their abilities to themselves which is why so many thought the gift so rare, not wanting to be used and abused for their abilities. Luna was classed as a True Seer. This meant that she was constantly aware of future time lines as they were born and destroyed by the actions of those around them, though she was only aware of this on a subconscious level, since she was so young she was unable to bring such a powerful ability to the forefront of her mind. This was how she always seemed to know more than she should since in some other time line she had been there for events.

Sybill Trelawney he had been told was an Oracle, someone who is used by Fate to speak true prophecy. An ability that had been crippled by Dumbledore's interference when he tried to force her to speak prophecy for him. Over the years he tried Several different rituals to try and force her to speak prophecy again for him. But all he had done was damage her gift to the point, it was almost destroyed. Hence the heavy drinking, since, even if she couldn't remember, she knew she was broken some how.

Harry knew it would be almost impossible to hide what had happened to him from her but he had hoped for more time. Motioning for her to come sit with him, he watched as she walked around several large stones as if she could see them. They both sat down on the pile of rubble, looking off into the dark. After sitting there for a minute he couldn't take the silence anymore.

"I'm sorry about your friend being gone."

"I know."

She replied sadly.

"Do you know why I had to come and take his place?"

A minute passed without reply. I absently noted the bandage wrapped around her eyes, trying not to stare at it.

In Harrys memory's I could see she had always had such beautiful silvery eyes. I found myself with a strong urge to go and find whichever Nott had done this to her, and tear their eyes out. Luna gave a small smile as she seemingly followed my train of my thought.

"Don't worry Harry, Mr Nott is no longer with us. He thought if, I was blind then he could do whatever he liked to me. I proved him wrong. I knew that if this didn't happen I wouldn't have survived the battle. It was a small price to pay for such vision that I have now."

He could only guess that meant her powers had come to the fore, during the battle for some reason perhaps something to do with Nimue or fate trying to help me in her own way. Turning to face me I tried not to flinch at her bandaged covered gaze, failing, he looked away.

I could feel that perhaps she had changed almost as much as I had in the last few hours perhaps more. Reaching up with her hands to my cheeks she gently but firmly turned my face towards hers, till our gazes locked.

"Yes, I know bits and pieces, some things I can tell you, some I can't. But I know I am to help you and the others you'll gather in time."

"Thank you. I thought you would hate me for taking his place. I know none of his other friends will understand what has happened, and I have no desire to end up locked away by the Unspeakables as a brain in a jar or whatever they do to people like me there. So I hope we can keep this between just the two of us, and become friends in time?"

Still keeping my gaze Luna smiled sadly.

"Nimue allowed me to see what happened in that place between worlds with Harry, and now that my powers have fully awoken. What I vaguely knew before. Is crystal clear now. I understand a lot more now, about what has been happening around here for the last several years since Harry started coming here. Allot of the manipulations he was forced into, while he was here and what others did to try and control him. He was a good friend to me, and I think I could have loved him if he had stayed. How could I be angry at you, for him finding happiness finally? It's not your fault what has happened here. And yes in time I know we will be very good friends."

Letting out a relieved sigh, Harry smiled.

"Thanks, Luna, you don't know what that means to me. I was afraid I would be totally alone here. I'm glad we'll be friends."

Luna Pov

Luna looked across at the young man sitting beside her, noting the differences, between who Harry used to be and who he was now. She knew ##### was from much further away than the Muggle world, and could only imagine what he must be going through with the loss of all he knew, and the pressure he must be under. To save not just the whole world but all worlds. Such a duty was not something to be taken up lightly.

As much, as she loved old Harry. His duty had been thrust upon him with little choice, between fate and Dumbledore's manipulations he'd never really had, a choice in his life till the very end.

New Harry knew what he was getting into and still had agreed to stand up and do what he must. No one would ever really know what he had given up to help this world she thought sadly.

Many paths flowed from this moment into the future in many of them she died, in many of them, everyone died. She had stopped looking at those moments since she could never see what led to her death in those time lines. She knew most of the future paths would be bloody with few chances of success. Many wouldn't like what New Harry would have to do to save everyone. She knew, so much and yet knew so little at the same time. New Harry was a Nexus of sorts, future paths were constantly shifting and changing, with every breath he took.

She knew lying was bad, but New Harry had too much on his mind at the moment to be focusing on her pain, at the moment.

During the battle, Nott Jr had managed to catch and disarm her. Once he had done that he dragged her from the battlefield, taunting her about all the fun times he would have with her. Then gone on to using the cruciatus curse on her. For how long she didn't know, but she was close to losing her mind when he thought it would be funny to burn her eyes out with cursed fire. When that had happened she had seen so many things, the pain in her mind even blocked out the pain in her eyes.

First, she had seen what would have happened if she hadn't lost her eyes. "Raped, and then killed." Turning from that path she instinctively searched for a way to save herself. From there she saw all the ways that she could save herself in that moment, as probability's flowed into her mind and possible paths of action opened before her. Without thought she punched Nott Jr as hard as she could in the throat, forcing him to roll off her. In a mad scramble, she crawled to where she knew her wand had flown. Nott seemed to realize the danger he was in as he struggled to breathe pointing his wand trying to get a spell out, but was too slow as she franticly crawled across the floor. Her hand closed around her wand and thought became reality, with her new sight she had no need to aim as she threw all of her magic into a cutting curse. Nott sat there for a moment with his wand still raised blinking with a surprised look on his face. A second later, she could see a thin line across his neck. Then Notts head fell off his body in a spray of blood as the body fell back to the ground. Breathing hard Luna had collapsed, ignoring the sounds of the continuing battle around her as she tried to block out the pain in her eyes that was quickly getting worse.

Then everything about her seemed to freeze, as all sounds of battle stopped. Trying to force herself to sit up to try and figure out what was going on, only then did she notice that her body was still laying on the ground as she looked back down at her own burned out eyes, looking around she could see everyone from both sides seemingly frozen in time. Puzzled as she looked about at what was happening, her soul she guessed then seemed to be picked up and without even time to scream was violently thrown into the sky so fast everything blurred.

She then seemed to find herself back in her body again. Panic was the first thing that came to her as she found that she had no control of her body, then confusion about where she was. It took her a few moments to realize that she seemed to have been thrown forward many years into the future into an older version of herself. She had watched her older self who seemed to be aware of her presence in her mind but refused to talk to her apart for saying.

"Watch closely. Learn and remember young one."

Her older self looked around the hill top that she was on. Everyone looked tired and battered like they had been fighting for a long, long time. For miles around

the land had been blasted and burned from what looked like massive amounts of battle magic. The sort that she had only heard tell of in stories of long ago. Human and Demon bodies were piled up for miles on the blasted lands, while the sky was an ominous blood red. She and several others who she couldn't identify due to the helmets they were all wearing along with a strange silver armour of some type that she had never seen before. The suits were covered in Runes which were glowing with soft white light, she noted as well that each of the people standing around seemed to be heavily armed with swords and several what looked to be strange tube-like weapons mounted on their backs.

Not Harry was the only one she could identify in the group since he had his helmet clipped to his belt, she noted that his hair had been cut sort now and several scars were around his head and face, nothing too serious but large enough to be noticed, though she wondered why magic had been used to fix them. Seeing the look in his eyes as he scanned about the hill. He looked like he had been aged thirty years, from the look in his eyes. They were hard and constantly checking the area for threats. As if afraid he was going to be attacked from any direction at a moment's notice.

One of the people walked up to not Harry, a woman she thought from the shape of the breast plate. Speaking to him while pointing to the horizon. No sound came in the vision as she rode in the back of her own future mind. Not Harry looked down at the killing field. Nodding in agreement with what she was saying. Not Harry stepped forward to the lip of the hill with wand raised while the world seemed to hold it's breath, as he stood there a moment waiting for something, everyone else formed in a loose semi-circle behind him, with there wands drawn too. Less than a minute later she could see what he was waiting for as a massive horde of demons came into view from across the horizon as soon as they noted their presence the horde let loose a heart rending screech be for they charge towards the hill. They covered ground at unbelievable speed as they rushed towards the hill, she was quite surprised she could see them so well from so far away and quickly realised that the helmet was giving her enhanced vision somehow. Through the helmet, she could see the front line quite clearly as what looked to be thousands of demons closed on them. Wishing she could look away, her future self zoomed in closer as the demons closed on them. All she could see was nothing but mindless hunger as monsters of all shapes and sizes flowed over the broken land towards them.

Not Harry's face seemed to harden even more than she thought possible as he watched the incoming tide of death. Then without a word he unleashed incredible magic's into the on coming horde, lighting, fire, ice things she had no name for flowed into the on coming tide of demons. And like the tide, she could see that while he was killing hundreds at a stroke more just flowed in to fill the gaps as those behind climbed over the shattered bodies without care.

And somewhere far in the distance someone/something laughed at him.

She couldn't see any further into the future than that battle but she knew that the universe hinged on that moment. And then without notice, she was flung back out of her future body and back into her own time. By the time she had pulled herself together, Not Harry had won and they were rounding up the last of the Death Eaters who hadn't fled.

Harry broke her out of her musing as he stood up from his seat with a tired sigh, looking out into the dark. Silently he held up his wand and his other hand out. A minute later there was a small smack in his hand. Holding up the small black stone in his hand examining carefully in the low light. Before he put it away in a small mole skin pouch around his neck. A few moments later it was followed by his invisibility cloak, which flowed over his clothing before attaching itself around his neck. A moment later the cloak faded from view.

Luna tried to keep a straight face as she realised what he had just retrieved from the forbidden forest. Something powerful enough to hide from her new sight. And now she could barely see Harry's future actions. Which was interesting, she would have to give some thought to how to get around their effect on him.

Giving her a small smile he held out his hand to her helping her stand.

Bloody, bowed, but unbroken she thought to herself.

"I take it you know what the stone and cloak are?"

Luna could only nod mutely.

"Don't worry too much about them. They're not what most people think. I'll explain later when we're somewhere more secure. Come on we have far to go and miles to walk before we sleep. Everyone will be wondering where we are."

Reaching for his hand she let him lift her up with a small smile, and followed him into the darkness