Where Do Vanished Objects Go? Into Non-being, Which Is To Say, Everything

She remembered in a blinding flash of white light.

With a blast that sent her small body flying and slammed her against the far wall. Her neck snapped back, her back arched, and a startled wheeze escaped her lips as shadows danced across her eyes. She reached blindly for a phantom hand of her friend, of her near-sister or her little bird, mind bringing them both to her. She ends up clutching at empty air, thin fingertips groping blindly through stone dust and thick aftermath of strong magic. She screamed for her daughter to be with her with motionless lips, with no air in her lungs. She begged for Helena to forgive her for not keeping her safe and for not understanding the strain she had placed on her. Her only child. Her little bird... She begged Helga to help her, to hold her hand, and to take care of the students. She screamed mentally at both of them, her sweet child and her dearest friend, as their faces swim in her eyes.

And everything is throbbing in blinding agony, memories of a lifetime trying to make sense in the mind of a five-year-old.

She sees her own face, much too young, sweet and young. Different than before, blonde and doe-eyed. She sees her first face, aged, darker hair, keen eyes narrowed, chin harder. Her old name sings, Rowena of the Clan Ravenclaw, Fair Witch of Glen, Wit Beyond Measure is A Man's Greatest treasure.

And it is too much.

It was like a whirlwind or a tornado that touched her mind, brushing away everything built-in those five years with the strength of a hurricane. A maelstrom of sweeping winds that leaves her silent and shaking in the wake of the force.

She groaned her voice a gurgle of misery and wordless pain. She can barely analyze, barely comprehend what is happening to her. It felt like hours, but perhaps only a few minutes pass until she can see past the vision of black spots. She slumped further against the wall, falling to her side, hair across her face. Still, flat grey eyes look at her from across the room.

She knew death when she sees it, and in her agony and with the wind of fifty-four years of her first life in her mind, she still has enough of those delicate five-years of her present life to realize what she has just lost.

She reached for the love that was taken from her in a careless slip of a hand. A sob coming through her throat is gone unheard, her ears blown in the sheer force of the previous explosion.

Her hand, so incredibly small -wrong to the stronger memories- is pale and covered in soot.

And it is an echo of what it once was. Pale, youthful skin had once been swallow skin drawn taut over a skeletal hand of someone who had lost weight in too short a time. Her family's signet ring glinting in the light as she reached for someone who was not there is not present. Instead, a wring of twisted and wreathed grass is its place, a promise of friendship instead of a sign of Duty and Loyalty. Fevered apparitions of love gone projected against a loved one that had flat eyes and neck at an odd angle, across the room for her, out of her weak reach.

"No… No," her voice is weak, high and devastated.

And she can do nothing. For the moment it took to see Death, she lost herself to a whirlwind of memories.

When a warm, hesitant hand touched her head, she can barely register it. Hardly felt it as they bring her tiny body close, a wordless sob escaping their lips as they clutched her to them.

"No, no, please Merlin no."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

1983

Ron Weasley remembered when he is three-years-old.

And it's because at five-years-old, Fred and George want the teddy he has in his arms. They want it because it used to theirs(along with its twin, which had been easy enough to take from little Ginny) but their mum had told them that Ronnie needed it more. They do not like this, and they definitely do not like that their baby brother is looking so smug about it. Especially because he had just broken Fred's toy broomstick just a few seconds before. And Fred is mad because that was his teddy and the broomstick had been his only birthday present.

Ron is holding his teddy, gnawing absently at the ear, comforting because it smelled like his mummy, and it's rather warm. He is half asleep, when it changes, comforting plush arms beginning to wiggle, and new ones sprouting. The thick, coarse and tuffs of spiky hairs dig into his skin and he screams bloody murder. In a burst of accidental magic, the largely fought over teddy, now a crawling spider is sent to the wall with a large SPLAT.

But Ron hardly hears it, for his memories come to him like crashing wave against soft sand, or the movement of flood gates being crashed open by a tsunami.

A whirlpool that swirls around his three-year-old brain sweeping away what little memories he has made in an agonized current of water that has him gasping. He fell back and began to spasm. Fred and George start to cry in fear, holding onto each other with disbelief as they watch both the ooze of what was left of the spider fade into pieces of stuffing and matted, abused fur and their baby brother. Baby Ronnie is a horrible sight, his back arched and curled unnaturally, a gurgled scream in his throat.

Fred and George cannot even speak, wordlessly sobbing as they watch their brother.

Molly Weasley is in the kitchen when this happens, but within her eyesight is a wedding gift from Arthur- the family clock(a gesture of assurance and comfort at the start of the War). It is more of a nervous habit than anything when her eyes go to the clock, and she gives a startled intake of breath half between a cry and a denial, as Ron's hand goes to 'Mortal Peril'. She still had the reflexes of her time in the war, though Molly had never been part of most of the fighting with so many young children, she still had honed herself in preparation to protect what was her's. Her wand is in her hand and her heart is pounding as she dashed out of the kitchen.

Her youngest boy is on the floor, his beautiful blue eyes are rolled into the back of his head, mouth open in wordless pain. He thrashed and arched his back with a sicking creak. His little hands claw at his shirt, knuckles white, and a horrific wheeze escapes his drooling mouth. Molly goes to her son, dropping her knees and quietly going through what little healing Magic she knows. Nothing worked, and she does not believe she can perform any sort of evaluation magic even if she knew it.

So she sings, softly, an old spell taught to her by her mum, who learned it from her mum. It is not powerful, but it is soft, warm and familiar and she hopes to calm her son as much as she can as she understands that she can do nothing by herself. She does not hesitate, does not flinch, she does not bother pulling on a cloak, she simply bellowed for Bill to come down to be with little Ginny, Percy, and Charlie hot at his heels with her well-practiced yell. She levitated Ron with a steady, even hand. Even if nothing of her feels steady, even as she feels tears of fear and uncertainty come to her eyes at the sight of her youngest boy twitching and spasming unnaturally. And after her yell, her children wide-eyed and frightened as they look at their brother, she keeps up her Mother's song on her trembling lips and quickly floos with Ron to Saint Mungo's.

OOOOOOO

1981

Harry Potter remembered when a wand is pointed at his head, by a tall, skeletal man. He is a one-year-old, can hardly see past his nose in the darkness of the room. But can see the flash of emerald light- it hit him, agonizing and brilliant and his head slammed into the crib bars behind him. Now, all he can do is wail at the feeling that the spell has cast, especially when he spots his mother slumped against the crib, her violently red hair covering her face. He is confused, in pain and he reached for her, hands so much smaller than what he can comprehend.

The memories of another life come to him like an inferno hot and melting, or rush him like wildfire that blazed across his mind.

He cried and thrashed, and burned through the memories of an adult assaulting a child of only one. He continued to do so when warm, impossibly large hands try to grip him. Rubeus Hagrid is horrified at the sight he found- Harry Potter sobbing, his fist gripped in tightly over Lily's beautiful auburn hair, as he moved about in clear, unrelenting pain. Hagrid hasn't had much in the terms of being able to help, other than to quickly grab his blanket, bundle the flailing child close and dash as quickly as he can out the door. He makes about three feet from the door when he is startled by Sirius Black, running up the lane with a wand in hand.

"NO!" he cried, and the young man is aghast as he watches his godson flail and screamed in a way no child should ever have too. Hagrid is holding him as steady as he can unsure and frightened beyond belief to what was happening to the boy.

"Sirius! Sirius! O' Lil' an' James! I don' kno' wat ter do wit' Harry- There's somethin' wrong with 'im!" said Hagrid, voice a sob of confusion and grief.

Sirius Black trembled, fevered vows of revenge and grief come to a complete standstill at the sight of the one-year-old. James' son. My godson. Every fear of what had happened to Peter- he should not have done this to his best friend, he should have never asked Peter to do this and taken the vow himself- is gone in that single movement. Because Harry needed him.

"Give Harry to me, Hagrid, I'm his godfather, I'll look after him!"

"I 'ave me orders Sirius, I 'ave to take 'im to Dumbledore."

Sirius ran a hand through his hair, panicked, eyes wide as he took in his thrashing grandson. He swallowed. I can't leave him, even to check on Peter. Not now. Not with him like this.

"Hagrid, given him here. I'll hold him while you drive my bike. It can fly and hold us both if I take out the sidecar. Let's go!"

Hagrid nods gave him Harry before they head for the enormous bike.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

1983

Hermione Granger remembered because she falls off the swings. It is mid-swing that it happens, the old, rusty chain snapping. She flies, hovering in the air for a fraction of a second longer than gravity would usually allow. She giggled, an infectious thing of a baby. And then it happened.

It's a torrent of earth crushing her mind- a shaking movement that rocked through her mind and took her completely and utterly down.

She fell like a stone, startling her mother as she started to twitch, flailing around in wordless pain. When her back arched, cracking, Emmeline Granger is screaming, starling everyone in the small park as she watches her four-year-old daughter twitch and flailed as if she was having a seizure. Her father, who had pushed the swing, Robert Granger is already running to her, hands reaching for his daughter with a panic. When her vividly light brown eyes roll into the back of her head, Robert swept her up in his arms, bolting for the car with his wife at his heels.

AN: I do not own Harry Potter in any sense. It's universe, characters all belong to its wonderful creator, J.K. Rowling, its publishing and broadcasting companies.

EDIT: 2 April 2020

This is me, playing in its sandbox, making misshapen sandcastles.

Whew, so from the beginning, this Founders fic was always going to take place in Harry's Generation. I've been throwing around this idea for a while, and finally got the nerve to post it a bit back.

The identity of one of the founders is kept vague on purpose, though I don't doubt that a very savvy Harry Potter fan will get the context clues.

On the subject of Ron Weasley- well. I will justify and fight it, especially when it's revealed who he is in terms of the Founders. But I honestly think he get's a bad rep simply because people don't like him very much. Que bafflement on my part when a lot of fics make him a death-eater, or the fact that hijinks usually excluded him and are delegated to Hermione and Harry gallivanting off with each other. I mostly find that boring, and a little bit of a coup out simply because Ron is very hard to write. No really, he is very difficult because most people seem to focus on making him as petty and mean-spirited as possible, and I don't think that quite true when it comes to his actual character. Yes, he's dense and unthoughtful sometimes, but with a couple exceptions of three instances(third, fourth and seventh year) his is an unwavering loyal friend, and he generally cares about the people he loves. Now, remember that his self-esteem is so terrible that his worst fear is that people will prefer his best-friend over him, up to and including his own family. Oh, and the moments we see him in canon is when he is fucking eleven to seventeen. Tell me that most of us were perfectly well adjusted at that age, especially in terms of self-esteem and how we feel in terms of our relationships with others.

So yeah. Salazar is Ron Weasley.

Fight me.

Kay. So I was writing Harry's part, and as soon as I remembered that Sirius Black was supposed to come up, I suddenly thought:

"Fuck."

'Cause I knew that it wasn't in his character to leave Harry in obvious pain. And I tried to justify and change it so it goes about as canon. But I couldn't do it without making it illogical or awkward. And yeah. So Sirius made me rewrite the whole first part of the fic because he's a goddamn drama queen that loves his godson and gosh damn it.

Erm... He hasn't gone to check on Peter yet. So for all he knows he's been killed and caused the charm to fail. So, yeah. Yay?