Pearl Eye Chapter 6, a harry potter fanfic

A/N: Ages are updated! Thanks again for letting me know :)

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Pearl Eye

Chapter 6

The Second Prophecy

Hermione's heart stopped when she turned to see Harry looming over her crouched form.

Fuck, she thought to herself. The last time she really interacted with Harry, he was drunk and angry. For months, his silence had been deafening as he pushed her further and further away.

And now, here she was in his library. She'd broken in. Found a book that divulged his entire history — some of the most painful moments in his life. And it was all to feed her mad obsession. Now, she looked feral hovering over the book, greedily devouring the mysteries she so desperately wanted to know, even if now she regretted learning it this way.

Look at you. Look at how you're behaving! Like a psycho, she repeated her earlier words to herself, mortification and shame returning to her face.

Scrambling to stand, the heavy book loosely hanging in her hand, she started, "Harry, I-I'm so sorry. I know this room is off-limits, and I'm sorry I broke in! I never should've forced my way in here. Plea—"

He cocked an eyebrow, interrupting with, "Forced?"

She snapped her mouth closed. Hmm. She didn't force her way in, did she? She cast a simple charm and had access to what was supposed to be the most private and perhaps guarded room in the entire manor. Tilting her head to the side in contemplation, she answered, "Well, I suppose I didn't force my way inside. It was quite easy for me—"

Now her gaze melted into suspicion. "Which is bizarre, that I could enter like it was nothing. Why could I get in here without a single problem?"

He didn't answer, reaching his hand out and gently grabbing the book from hers. Hermione watched as he quietly read the events of his life — likely reliving the emotions of every moment they described. The look on his face was amused as he flipped the pages, but Hermione fathomed it was a mask.

After a minute in silence, he finally closed it. "How'd you know about the fifth edition?"

She swallowed. The last thing she wanted to do was get Neville into trouble, but she couldn't lie. There was no way she just happened upon this super-specific piece of information. "A… a classmate told me about it."

Harry slowly nodded, his face turned to the ceiling as he now contemplated Merlin knows what. As she prudently watched, Hermione, as usual, found him hard to read. But it was different. Hard to read, yes, but this look was far from the mask he wore. He seemed to be somewhere in limbo between the facade and his true self, considering whether or not he should make his next move and maintain the chasm between them.

"He must be in a pureblood family. I can't imagine anyone else getting their hands on one." He sighed and leaned against a bookshelf. He stared at her amusedly — he was clearing biding time. "You know, with that relentlessness and persistence you possess, I wonder what house you'd be. Maybe Gryffindor. Maybe something else."

Her heart slightly fluttered. She'd heard about the houses — Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin — and imagined she'd likely be sorted into Ravenclaw, the way she thirsted for knowledge. But Harry may've been onto something. Her tenaciousness had brought her this far, after all, from her hunt of the school library, every bookstore in Diagon Alley, and Knockturn Alley, too. If she hadn't stumbled upon his library, she was dead set on continuing her search for however long it took.

Albeit looking a bit mad, she realized that what drove her into the room wasn't merely an intense obsession, but a desire to help him. What she wanted most for Harry was the ability to emerge from his exterior impersonation of the man others conjured him to be. All she wanted for her friend, for the man she'd grown to care deeply about, was peace.

Another silence fell between them, and this time Hermione fidgeted, shifting her weight from foot to foot to mitigate the anxiousness she felt.

"Well, it was only a matter of time before you found out," he said at last, and a ghost of a smile crossed his face. "If only I had been quicker on the draw."

Hermione bit her tongue — now wasn't the time to point out that he could've been quicker on the draw if he hadn't been so dismissive the past two months. But it felt like he was opening up, and Hermione didn't want to give him any reason to run away. She had to give him space — space to be himself.

He gestured for her to take a seat as he bent down onto the floor. They sat, Harry with his knees drawn to his chest, elbows casually resting on them while Hermione sat cross-legged across from him, the book laying between them.

Harry met her eyes. "It's an interesting story, huh? My life?"

She wasn't sure what to say. Not immediately. It was a tragic story. Epic, sure — something straight out of mythology or a fantasy novel. But "interesting" felt too cavalier a word to describe his life. And so that's what she said. "I don't know if that's how I'd describe it."

"Then how would you?"

She sighed, playing his game reluctantly. It was what she wanted, after all, to know him.

Biting her lip, she finally responded, "Exhausting."

"Was it that hard to read?" he asked with a smirk.

Hermione returned it, but it halved his. "No, not that. I mean, what you've survived? It must've been — it must be — exhausting."

He continued to meet her eyes, and that look of consideration was there again.

When she didn't break eye contact, he pursed his lips and said, "The door is charmed." Hermione furrowed her brows in confusion before realizing he was answering her earlier question. "Ginny thinks it's so I have my privacy. But it's designed to keep enemies from entering, and none of the Weasleys have been able to touch the knob."

A bitter smirk settled on his face. "Those with ill-intent? No amount of magic can knock down this fortress. But you," he pulled out his wand, "all you had to do was a quick Alohamora, and—" The door unlocked, "you had no problem entering. With the simplest spell, the first one I learned at Hogwarts, you were able to enter this fortress."

So it was effortless because she had genuine intentions. Because she held no malicious motive when she entered to learn about the man she'd grown so fond of. It put her slightly at ease as she allowed herself to take in the place that he called his fortress. It was stoic, with no character or personal effects to distinguish whose space this might be. While she loved nothing more than books, the way they lined the shelves so neatly, so pristinely, was unsettling. She wondered if, even in a room that practically no one could enter, if it mirrored Harry's persona. Always in order and poised, like a brass-bound veneer hiding the depths that existed far beyond the surface.

"The book works similarly." He had been watching her as she moved through her various thoughts. Then he continued, "It only shows itself to those who seek it, and those with no malice in their heart. I magicked it to protect me and to protect the secrets within."

Hermione didn't understand. "Secrets? But everyone seems to know this history. Everyone knows what happened, don't they?"

"Not everything. There's certain information that the public can't know."

Hermione didn't interrupt, prompting him to continue speaking.

His eyes fell to the ground. Absently picking the carpet, he began, "The book got almost everything right. Voldemort did kill my mum and dad because of a prophecy he ultimately put in motion. The Dursleys did raise me — they were deplorable until the end. When I was a baby, Voldemort did use The Killing Curse on me that backlashed." He pushed his hair up his forehead, his lightning scar glowing beneath the lantern's blaze. She assumed it was a bizarre birthmark. Deep down, though, she knew she was only rationalizing what she didn't understand.

He paused, looking at her curiously, and Hermione could only see vulnerability in his eyes. The way he picked at the carpet reminded her of a child, an abandoned child who no longer knew who to trust or if abandonment was imminent if he did trust. And yet, he continued, "The author, whoever the hell they are, couldn't know how terrible it was." His face contorted to convey his disgust. "It's all written so clinically, isn't it?"

She nodded, a listening ear as he said what perhaps he hadn't spoken in years — or ever. "They could never understand what it was like having your parents murdered in front of you — a memory I carry with me forever now. They don't know what it's like to be shoved in a cupboard all of your life, starved for simply existing in a way that challenged someone's worldview." He sighed, running his hand through hair as untameable as hers. She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, but she knew it best to let him release everything that he'd been holding inside. "They'll never know what it's like being hunted down like an animal, all the attempts on my life every year. I still haven't stopped looking over my shoulder… That author could never understand what it's like to not know who you are for years, just to be surrounded by people who seem to know your entire life's story. I was thrust into a world where I'm suddenly everyone's hero, their only means to salvation. I had to save everybody." His voice rasped at his last word — the noise shook him from a reverie that had his eyes glazed, as if transported back in time. He cleared his throat and shrugged, blinking his eyes furiously while he regained his composure. Mask perfectly in place. "Which is for the best, keeping it impersonal. I'm not interested in putting out a biography."

Hermione stopped him. "Harry, don't do that."

"Do what?"

He knew — she could see it in the way he turned his face that he knew — but she wanted him to hear her, to hear the genuineness that laced through her voice.

"Don't brush it off like it doesn't matter. It matters."

Contemplation rose again. Hermione imagined him asking himself, Should I or shouldn't I be honest?

He sided with honesty. His veneer crumbled and pain seemed permanently carved into his face. "If I sit with the pain of my childhood, think of the way I was connected to evil, having a direct line to it in my head? If I let it all hit me, how my entire life has been a constant fight? How I've fought all these years to protect myself, then eventually protect others, because the world depended on me to defeat walking evil? If I felt it all, I genuinely think I'd go mad, Hermione. I'd fall into the nothingness of Voldemort's making, the grave he'd been constructing for me since I was an infant. I don't think I'd come back to life."

He cleared his throat again, but this time he didn't wear the mask. "So I do what I can to get by. And protect those who need protecting the way I needed it."

It broke Hermione's heart to hear him say it. But it was also bittersweet, seeing some of the load he carried lifting as he spilled words he'd never spoken.

"There are things, though, in that book, that no one was supposed to know."

Hermione wouldn't push him anymore. Pleased with his honesty, she didn't object to the return of the secrets within the book. She didn't even notice how she leaned closer in anticipation. "The Horcruxes," he stated. "No one knew about the Horcruxes."

Hermione faltered. What?!

"No one knows Voldemort split his soul seven times," he continued. "They don't know that he methodically devised how to remain alive even in death. Long before he perished, when he was just a boy in school, he created a backup plan to ensure he could grasp what no man had: immortality." He scowled at the idea then shook his head. "The public doesn't even know what Horcruxes are. To create them requires the darkest of magic. But this book gave away all of those answers — let people know how to create them and how Voldemort survived the Killing Curse meant for me."

"Wow, so that's why the Ministry recalled the book? To prevent people from learning extremely dark magic?"

"And to maintain an illusion of peace. If the world knew the true depths of darkness…"

His voice drifted off, quiet filling the room again. Contemplating.

Then he said, "But there's more. More than maintaining peace or protecting people."

For some reason, Hermione's stomach lurched, a strange feeling entering her body. Instinct was communicating with her. Through her stomach, intuition told her something was off. That, marking those pages was something nefarious — and it would affect the lives of many, including hers.

Swallowing hard, she willed herself to listen instead of asking the many questions forming on her tongue.

"I'm sure you noticed the superscript numbers next to The Fall of Voldemort and The Prophecy."

Hermione nodded, bending down to look anyway, "I did. You came in before I had a chance to look at the endnotes."

Wordlessly, Harry flipped to the back of the book. When he found the passages, he held the book tight, his knuckles turning white. He stared at the words, his eyes moving over them two, three, four times. Until finally, he placed it down and pushed it toward Hermione.

She only hesitated a moment before hungrily looking at the citations accompanied by complementary information about Voldemort's fall:

A year after Voldemort's fall, a speculative theory rose amongst Death Eaters not imprisoned for their crimes. As it's told, Harry Potter's victory at The Battle of Hogwarts may have been premature. According to the most loyal of his followers, Voldemort didn't create just seven Horcruxes. As it's told, Voldemort produced eight. And while fatally injured, The Dark Lord's only chance of survival is by retrieving the final Horcrux [see The Prophecy].

The Ministry of Magic denies this theory. They adamantly disagree with, what they call, a conspiracy theory that claims Voldemort survived.

Hermione jerked her head up and laughed. "Well, that's silly. You defeated Voldemort. You were the seventh one, the Horcrux he never saw coming. And you defeated him."

A blood-curdling chill spread throughout her body when Harry tilted his head toward the book, nudging her to continue reading The Prophecy.

This time when she gulped, swallowing around the knot forming in her throat was far more difficult.

Her hesitance returned. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what this supposed prophecy predicted. But Hermione forced herself to continue, though she wanted nothing more than to slam the book closed:

While not confirmed, a speculative theory claims that more than one prophecy existed. During The Battle of The Department of Mysteries, Death Eaters were unsuccessful in retrieving The Lost Prophecy. After the Dark Lord's fall, however, escaped Death Eaters broke into The Department of Mysteries again to find a second prophecy. This time they were successful. As the cryptic message allegedly goes,

"Long lost, the last heir of an ancestry's past will return a thousand years beyond The Exodus. They possess the power to defeat the Darkest of wizards once and for all. And the heir will do so with a single pearl."

The Ministry of Magic denies a second attack in the department ever occurred. They adamantly disagree with the theory that such a prophecy exists.

Hermione scoffed. "An heir? A pearl? How could anybody take that seriously? It's a riddle. A silly riddle that has no merit, no proof, no empirical evidence that this could even be a possibility." Her words spilled forth frantically. Though she spoke to Harry, she was really trying to convince herself.

"But there is, Hermione. There is proof."

She didn't think she could get colder, but the chill now was making her body shake. Intuition unrelenting in conveying something bad was afoot.

"Voldemort said it to me. During our final battle at Hogwarts, he said, whether or not I defeated him that day, he would still live on. He said the pearl would finally bring him immortality."

Hermione refused to believe it. "He was about to die. He would've said anything, Harry."

"Except he told me about the pearl long before his followers stole the second prophecy. Only he could've known about the pearl being a Horcrux."

Swallowing felt a damn near impossibility, and she didn't quite understand why such a palpable dread was filling her body. What were her instincts trying to tell her?

And then it clicked into place.

Ancestry's past.

The last heir.

The need for protection.

Hermione brought her gaze up to meet Harry's, and the pain in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.

"It's me, isn't it? I'm the heir who can kill Voldemort."

A/N: Alas, the pearl! Thanks for reading — feedback and reviews are always appreciated here :)

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A Stranger in the House