Summary: When Harry made up his mind to do anything to destroy Voldemort, he had no idea it would include werewolves, elves, the Veil, the Chamber of Secrets, wandless magic, Azkaban, unimaginable power, his own army, and… a secret identity?
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I'd be in a mansion with my own laptop writing something I could actually get money for.
"Dad!"
"Oh thank Merlin I got through to you, I was beginning to worry that the chance of someone answering me was as slim as the chance that Snape and Moldy-Shorts will decide to go metro-sexual on us…"
Chapter 6: The Unexpected Arrivals
Everyone could do nothing but widen their eyes in shock. A creeping silence filled the room as all eyes turned to Harry and the mirror. Seconds that seemed like hours passed by until, surprisingly, the two most unlikely people cut into the subdued atmosphere.
For one, Lupin started chanting repetitively "It can't, it can't be," as if his sanity depended on it and Harry… started laughing? He didn't know why, but he did. Laughter filled him and he didn't know if he could stop. It was all rather creepy actually.
"I'm…" more laughter, "sorry…," he just managed to choke out, "but I think I may be suffering from a severe case of insanity."
"Don't suffer from insanity," the voice from the mirror came again, "I enjoy it."
Lupin's eyes widened rapidly and his repetitive chanting was cut short as he let out a slightly startled, slightly awed, "It is!" and in one swift motion, leaped over the table to stand behind Harry.
"Hey Moony," James said happily, sounding as if his birthday had come early, "so did I come in the middle of an Order meeting or what?"
"Um… this is an Order meeting…" Harry felt exceedingly strange, but fought to keep his cool, "I hope I don't sound rude or anything, but… er… aren't you dead? And… am I really talking to you or have I finally cracked?"
But instead of a response from his father, a women's voice came from the mirror, "James! If you can't talk to Harry without making him believe he's sane, give the mirror to me and let me explain!" James obviously had no chance to do anything, much less give her the mirror, before it was grabbed from him and the face of Lily Evans Potter appeared, "Hello Harry. Don't worry; we're just in an alternate dimensional element linking two individual realms of reality: the corporal, or mortal, realm and the spirit realm."
"No offense Lil," it was Lupin who spoke this time, like Harry, keeping his wildly scattered emotions in check, "but that information doesn't seem particularly reassuring. And, well, why are you there anyway? What's going on?"
"And what is with that mirror," Dumbledore added, "It nearly forced Harry to walk through some veil in the Department of Mysteries that leads who-knows-where?"
Lily paled immediately and James gave a startled, "WHAT!"
"Er… Mum… Dad…," Merlin, it felt weird saying that, "it's OK, I…"
"No, it's not OK," James answered fiercely, "You've had enough near death experiences to last lifetimes!"
"And speaking of lifetimes," Lily added, "when your lifetime is up, you are so grounded. And that had better not be for a while! The mirror has been going haywire, being stuck in a different dimension and all, I have no idea what happened."
"No time to ponder on it now," James's face had replaced Lily's in the mirror, "the reason we need to talk to you is of the utmost importance. The 'veil', as you call it, is actually a portal to this dimension, a dimension dividing the mortal and the spirit world. And Sirius is stuck in it."
The amount of stress in his voice spoke volumes.
"Stuck? What do you mean stuck? S… Sirius is dead… he… Wh… I'm confused."
"So were we," James said. "Mortals are not supposed to be in this thing, and if they wander into it, their soul either pulls them toward the light," James made a motion to the right," or further down into darkness," he motioned to the left. "It depends on the person really."
"Then why didn't Sirius, well… do that?" Harry's brain felt as if it had been put into a blender and put on the setting: 'liquefy'.
"Because Sirius was trying to get out, his want to get back to you must have been so powerful he refused to give in to fate. Sirius's soul wanted to get back to Earth and it overpowered it's instincts to sink into the Spirit world. I think that, combined with the fact that it was not his time is the reason his soul hasn't led him anywhere. That it's not his time is also the reason why we were allowed to get ourselves into this situation in the first place. Not to mention Sirius has just collapsed; soul and all. If someone doesn't get him out of this mess, he may remain unconscious for eternity!"
"Which is why you were sent to retrieve him and bring him towards the light, weren't you Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore stated more then asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well… yeah… but see, when we found the mirror we realized that there might be a chance to save him yet. We've been watching you guys, and, well, Harry needs him."
"But how do we get him back? How? We can't just walk into that veil and hope nobody dies!" Lupin asked skeptically, his steady voice cracking slightly.
"Well I can…" Harry started to butt in before James interrupted.
"Harry whatever you were just going to say, I don't want to here it. Remus is right. You can't just walk into this place. You have to be prepared. You see, the only way to be able to protect yourself from being sucked into death and find your way out of this hellhole is by using this certain rope."
"Rope?"
"Rope, Elvin rope. But not just that. To be able to get in and out, you must have enchanted Elvin rope, the kind made from the wood of the magic trees, Mananaconal. The ones grown in the hands of nymphs. Don't ask. The stuff can somehow resist the atmosphere here and stop the veil-thing from keeping you in."
"And where," asked Professor McGonagall stiffly, "are we going to get that?"
"I have some," Dumbledore announced indifferently as though stating he liked a good spot of tea. "I left it in the hands of my brother Aberforth for safe keeping. I must pay him a visit."
McGonagall blended in perfectly with the other shocked faces in the room, but she was, as Harry was about to discover, shocked for a whole other reason, "Aberforth! You gave rare Elvin rope to Aberforth!"
"Elves actually exist? And I thought Albus was joking about that…"
"That's not the point Kingsley! The point is that once again Albus has put important matters into the hands of…" Dumbledore's look cut her off, but she continued mumbling something incomprehensible to most about stones, waterfalls, and flying motorcycles.
"Well," James cleared his throat, "that's basically it then. Only you have to meet us down here, we've got Sirius with us now. We'd like to meet you at the entrance; it'd make things so much easier. But once past a certain point, souls that have already passed on can only go so far. And that's what we are, souls, just souls in the form of what we once were. It's so much easier," he continued, "being dead then it is being alive, so don't anybody start worrying about us. It's just hard sometimes, to see those who suffer down on earth and know you can't do anything about it. I'm not permitted to tell you anymore about death than that."
It took a while for what James had said to sink in. Harry just sat there, letting his father's words wash over him like waves onto a shore. But however calming the waves of his voice, which was probably the only reason he wasn't freaking out and screaming his head off right now, Harry was sure of one thing: these waves were pulling him closer and closer to deep water, and he was willing to ride them there and back again to make things right. He just hoped he wasn't going to let himself get caught up in the undertow. He vaguely contemplated how Dumbledore had acquired merchandise from a group of people not even high-ranking Ministry officials knew existed. But then again, he was Dumbledore, and he was also infuriatingly calm and mysterious. Furthermore, he gave off such an aura of knowing more then he let on that Harry had to work very hard to keep himself completely placid. Harry didn't want to explode in case the man said something that wouldn't agree with him at all when he opened his to ask the question that had been tugging at his mind since he had found out Sirius was alive. He just had to be calm… cool… collected…
"So… can I go?"
"No."
"WHY IN THE BLOODY HELL NOT?"
Well, so much for being calm, cool, and collected. Why couldn't he just control his bloody temper?
"Harry, calm down," James said, making Harry go a bit red. "And Albus, I disagree with you," Harry's eyes widened. Was his father saying what he thought he was? "I remember myself at fifteen. I would snap at random people in the hall sometimes for no particular reason," he gave a short smile that didn't quite meet his eyes, "Normal adolescence stuff. And if I'm guessing correctly, Harry is going through something much bigger then puberty, maybe bigger than us all... I'll explain later.
"But my point, Albus, is that you're playing with fire here. We've been watching him, Lily and I, and I know enough to safely say that if you ban him from doing this, he will go anyway, Elvin rope or no. At this point, trying to protect him will only endanger him more; you above all should know that. Fate may eventually set things straight, but even fate can be twisted and shaped into something entirely different. Like Sirius, for instance, it wasn't his time, and look where one wrong move got him."
James directed the mirror at Sirius. He was as sickly and pale as he'd been the first time Harry had seen him. And Merlin he was thin! Seeing Sirius again, laying like that on what appeared to be nothing but… well… nothingness, brought gasps to the Order, and a fresh surge of guilt to Harry's mind. He surveyed the place a little more. It did seem to be made of nothing, everything was black, yet you could see all three people sharp as ever. There seemed to be some floor though. His eyes fell back on his godfather and his heart lurched painfully in his chest.
"Perhaps Mr. Potter, you are right," Dumbledore sighed, once again straightening his glasses, "I will permit Harry to accompany a group on this little… excursion."
"That's the conclusion I came to as well." It was Lily again, "After a heated discussion with a certain someone about endangering my child," she turned to glare at the person in question, "I did eventually come to see that letting Harry go is the best possible thing to do." Lily smiled up at her son, who was, at the moment feeling as self-conscious as the time Ginny had sent him that ridiculous Valentine poem via cupid, "But did you say group, Albus? It better not be a large one. There are things in here who's attention should not be attracted… three people is probably the most you should risk. And they should be people who know Sirius well, another reason Harry should go."
"Then perhaps I should go as well," Remus responded looking pale and slightly resolute. Yet he had an anxious air about him that insinuated that he was ready to head straight to the Department of Mysteries and battle a hundred Aurors with his bare hands before doing a swan dive through the veil, "I'd love a second chance to get Sirius back. And quoting Harry, 'there's less chance of that than there is the chance of Hell freezing over' then the chance of me allowing the kid," he actually ruffled Harry's hair, "to rush off into some dangerous adventure without proper guidance."
James took back the mirror, and this time, the grin that adorned his face definitely met his eyes, "Way to go Moony! I haven't heard you curse like that since that incident the night Harry was born and Lily started going into labor in the middle of…"
"Hardy-har-har Prong's, but I if I can recall correctly, my few vile words of distress were practically drowned out by your torrent of rage."
"Do men ever mature?" Lily asked no one in particular.
"Of course we don't," Dumbledore answered promptly, "And no matter how hard some of us try to hide our immaturity, it always comes back to us eventually and profoundly annoys women."
McGonagall gave a small snort and rolled her eyes. Then… something happened. The mirror started blinking out.
"Damn it!" James cursed as the mirror flickered back on, "Harry… need to tell you… explain about the stuff you're going through…" The mirror was glowing and fading out and going completely nuts, "…don't have all the details… you're… bloody... you need… how to find us… follow your… follow your… hearts…we love you kid… I think you're…"
And then he was gone.
"Dad… dad!" Harry called into the mirror, "James Potter! Prongs! Somebody!"
Remus put a hand on his shoulder, his grip was gentle but tense, "It's all right Harry. I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of any of them. Not yet."
"We must, however," Dumbledore interrupted, "take care of the matters at hand and first things first. Since you are going to be with us for quite a while Harry, I suggest you contact your relatives. The phone is in the kitchen."
"Do I have to?" Harry asked, wondering exactly how Vernon was going to threaten him.
If the Order found out how crappy of a guardian Vernon was, they would go over and bug the Dursley's, Vernon would tell them, in a outburst of animosity, that he was doing illegal magic in his bedroom. Harry didn't even want to envision what would happen next.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"So that they can be sure you're safe…"
"They'd prefer I was in grave danger."
"…that you are in good hands…"
"Like, they'll care."
"…and that you will return to them as soon as possible."
"Damn."
"Watch your language. And you do realize that I really don't believe most of your claims?"
"So."
"So go call them," Dumbledore ordered, pointing in the direction of the kitchen.
Harry sighed and marched over to the kitchen. Dumbledore was so oblivious. Every word he'd said was true, but the Professor had merely put them aside as a grumbling teenager's excuses. Which, in fact, they were, and Harry had intentionally made it sound that way. He picked up the phone and dialed the Dursley's number slowly as possible until deciding to get it over with and picked up his pace. The phone rang once, then twice, then three times, four… until it was picked up and answered by an all too proverbial voice.
"This is the Dursley residence, Dudley Dursley speaking. What'd you want?"
"This is Harry."
"So, what'd you want?"
"I want to sell you self-spelling wands!" Harry answered his voice dripping with sarcasm, "Duh, what'd think I want? Just give the phone to Vernon."
"What if I chose not to?"
"Then you've solved my problem! I'm only doing this 'cause I have to. Bye!"
"Don't you hang up on me Potter," this was followed up with a loud yell that was heard even by the Order members in the other room, "DAD! IT'S POTTER ON THE PHONE CALLING FROM SOME FREAK PLACE! HE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!"
There was some scuffling sounds on the other line before the phone was handed to Vernon, for what was going to be, inevitably, more yelling.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING JUST…"
"I'M SORRY UNCLE VERNON, I SHOULDN'T HAVE WORRIED YOU."
There was nothing but silence on the other end of the line before Vernon answered incredulously, "What?"
Harry brought his voice down so that only Vernon had a chance of hearing him, "Would you cut it with the screaming please! My friends might hear! I'm only trying to cover for you, OK. For once can you just insult me quietly?"
"Fine you little…" Vernon responded with a string of whispered verbal abuse and foul language, all of it tremendously inappropriate.
Harry just put on a very fake smile and nodded his head to evade suspicion from the prying eyes of the Order.
"Well now that that's cleared up I guess I should tell you that I've got to stay here for awhile until I can save my godfather from never-ending unconsciousness in a portal between the mortal and spirit world," Harry interrupted after awhile with a raised voice so those in the next room could hear it.
"I'm not even going to ask, boy."
"Do the world a favor and stay true to that promise. I'll be coming back after everything is cleared up," Harry was now not even bothering to speak quietly; the Order couldn't hear Vernon and that was all that mattered.
"Shit."
"Exactly my thoughts on the matter, well I'm sure you're really busy right now so I'll just hang up."
"Yes I am. You interrupted me in the middle of watching ESPN on the telly. I hope you die in that portal thing. It'd make my life so much easier."
"I love you too, Uncle Vernon, bye!"
Harry trudged back into the room trying his best not to explode at the rather satisfied look on Dumbledore's face.
"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" Dumbledore asked. But the way he said it made it sound more like a statement then a question. "I knew you all cared for each other a bit."
"I just don't fit in with their family," Harry muttered, "It's like I don't belong there."
He sighed. It was the truth really, but not the whole truth. Harry had no idea how anyone would react if they knew he was treated like a human House Elf, Lucius Malfoy's House Elf.
"Well what are we waiting for? We gotta save Sirius! So Dumbledore, what do we do first?"
"First, Mr. Potter, we have to find a way to convince Fudge to let us into the Department of Mysteries to get into the veil. We also need to retrieve my Elvin rope from Aberforth. I believe I shall pay him a visit tonight…"
"Excuse me Professor," Tonk's cut in, "But if you think Fudge is just going to let us gain use of the Department to go on what may end up being a suicide mission just to save who he supposes is Public Enemy #1, you're as stupid as that Umbridge cow."
"Now, now Tonk's," Remus laughed, "That's no way to address a woman of her stature. Dorklores Umbitch is much more suitable."
It took a split second for the pun to sink in, but soon everyone was shaking uncontrollably with much needed laughter. It felt so good to laugh, after everything that had just happened.
Elaina grinned, obviously impressed at Lupin's sense of humor, "Ah, Dorklores Jane Umbitch. Perhaps even that is not enough for her person; Dorklores Pain Umbitch would be much better, or Dorklores Jerk Umbitch. Which do you prefer?"
"I think 'Pain' would suit her just fine," answered Harry, looking down for a brief second at his hand. It still had the thin scars stating 'I will not tell lies' on it. He'd put a charm on it so it wouldn't show, but he hadn't made it strong enough and it had worn off a bit.
It was definitely a mistake to look down, Harry realized. Nobody saw the brief glance but Lupin, but one person was all it took.
"What's that Harry?" the ex-professor asked sharply.
"Nothing, just agreeing that the former was the best choice," Harry tried to change the subject.
"I mean this," Remus grabbed Harry's hand and examined it, "'I will not tell lies'?"
"You mean it still hasn't come off?" Ron asked, "Geez, you've had those bloody scars since when, October?"
"If I didn't know any better," Elaina said, looking over at Harry's hand, "I'd say that's the work of a Blood Quill."
"That's impossible!" Mr. Weasley exclaimed, "Those things were banned early in the seventeenth century! I covered a case in which a wizard gave a Muggle one for a joke. I can assure you the fiend who did that got ten years in Azkaban. It's torture to write with one!"
"I knew that quill Umbridge made you use was illegal Harry!" Hermione exclaimed as well, making everyone drop there jaws in surprise, "But would you listen? No…"
"Give it a rest Hermione, nobody could have done a thing about it then," Harry replied.
Dumbledore furrowed his brows, "So it was a Blood Quill. Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"I already said why, no one could have done anything about it! Umbridge and Fudge had way too much power and everyone I could have told was under close surveillance. Besides, I did tell somebody. Ron and Hermione knew, I just asked them not to tell anyone. It was my information to disclose. It's not like it was the bloody Cruciatus Curse or anything!" Harry answered with an exasperated wave of his hands.
"You shouldn't even know what the Cruciatus Curse feels like Harry," Lupin shot back with just as much exasperation. "I can't stand to think of how painful that detention you had to do that in must have been!"
"Says the person who's been turning into a werewolf every month since he was four…"
"Not just one detention," Ron replied, "lots of them! Umbridge gave him loads throughout the year!"
Molly Weasley literally started crying about the injustices of the world and Remus started raving about how he should have suspected something was wrong. He seemed to think the entire happening was his fault for some reason; Harry hoped that Sirius would never find out about the incident if he survived.
"It hurts to transform into a werewolf?" Elaina questioned, "Nobody's ever mentioned to me that it might hurt…"
Lupin sighed, "Well when your bones break, splinter, and completely reshape themselves, your muscles rip apart, and then reform, and hair rips apart your skin to grow… well… it is rather painful. Not to mention if you don't have the Wolfsbane Potion, the wolf will literally tear itself apart for the taste of blood if there's nothing else to bite. A very nasty taste to wake up to in the mornings I must say… I mentioned it to James and Sirius once, and they started bringing me some of that Muggle mouth wash directly after the full moon. Stuff works quite well that Listerine… or was it Scope?"
He had said it all so matter-of-factly, that most just stared in shock (people seemed to be doing a lot of that lately). Elaina had gone very, very pale, and if she hadn't have felt the need to remain strong, she probably would have cried. Harry sighed and looked at his hand. He'd figured as much. Then an idea stuck him…
"Hey guys, I think I know how to get Fudge to let us into the Department of Mysteries…"
His mischievous grin reminded Remus way too much of James Potter.
Next Chapter Includes:
Elaina's POV
Snape's POV
Dumbledore's POV
Harry's plan
What happened the night Harry was born (Prepare for tales from the Marauder Era)
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