A Different Kind of Training, Chapter 2: Through the Veil
AN: Anything bolded is dialogue from the book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I cannot claim credit for those jewels.
Dumbledore sprinted past Harry and Neville, impossibly fast for his age, and began at once to fire on the terrified Death Eaters. As soon as they realized who they were confronting, however, the complex spells he was casting were not even needed; once they saw him they turned and fled, Jugson even dropping his wand in his haste. Only Bellatrix, occupied with dueling her cousin Sirius, did not seem to notice that he was there.
The two wizards circled one another, Bellatrix blasting spells and Sirius blocking and dodging them, both of them totally oblivious to the fact that the rest of the Death Eaters were now frantically trying to escape Dumbledore's onslaught.
"You've got to do better than that, Trixie," Sirius was saying, taunting Bellatrix every time she missed a shot. "Even Pettigrew could cast a better cutting curse. How on earth did you get into Voldie's inner circle, is it just because you're his girlfriend? 'Cause if so, horrible taste- can he even get it up now that he's resurrected?"
Bellatrix was fuming. She screamed in fury, a blaze of red light streaking from the end of her wand, slamming into his chest, hurling him back into the Veil of death with his face still alight with laughter.
Harry glanced up, panting, from where he was fighting Mcnair...just in time to see the colored light strike the still-laughing Sirius in the chest, knocking him backwards into the ragged, whispering curtain drawn across the archway behind him...
Harry knew intellectually that it was too late, but he simply couldn't comprehend. "SIRIUS!" he screamed, lunging after him. Remus Lupin grabbed him by the back of his robes.
"Harry, he's gone, Sirius is gone," he was staying, a fistful of Harry's cloak and outer robes in his calloused hands.
Harry pulled away from Remus's soft embrace. "He's just on the other side! Don't you understand? We can bring him back!"
"There's nothing you can do, Harry … nothing …. He's gone."
"NO!" Harry screamed, and before Remus could stop him, he plunged bodily through the misty curtain and was gone.
It was white. Everything was placid and blank, not the white of mist or snow, but the white of something unfinished, the white of a canvas that hadn't been painted. Harry glanced around him in the nothingness.
"Sirius?" He turned in a circle, watching as, as if by brushstrokes, the Great Hall of Hogwarts began to slowly take shape. "Sirius?"
Nothing. Harry became vaguely aware that he was entirely naked, but even as he thought it, Hogwarts student robes appeared on the polished and unmarred, but empty Gryffindor table, and Harry quickly pulled them on, still looking around for Sirius.
And then he saw them.
A tall, vivacious young woman, with fire-red hair and almond-shaped eyes the same shade of emerald that his were was standing by the entrance. Beside her, with one arm around her, was a young man with messy black hair and kind brown eyes framed by circular glasses.
Harry forgot about the prophecy, about Sirius, about his friends, still fighting at the Ministry. He even forgot about Voldemort.
"M...mum? Dad?"
"Oh, Harry," Lily's voice was just like he remembered it, but full of peace, as she was no longer begging for her life. "I missed you so much!" And then she was running, throwing her arms around him. Harry gave a little choking sound and leaned into her embrace.
"So...am I dead then?" Harry asked, when he could speak. It felt strange to say. After all those years of narrow escapes, he had been killed by drapery. And his friends were at Voldemort's mercy. That sobered him. He would have gone on, but that was when James spoke.
"That's the thing, Prongslet," he said from behind Lily. "You're not. Yet."
"What do you mean, I'm not? How am I meeting you if-"
"If you're alive?" James supplied. "It's complicated. You might want to sit down for this one."
Harry glanced at his parents and then sat down on the head table.
"So, the first thing you have to know is that Dumbledore is a bastard."
"James!"
"Well it's the truth," James protested. "Ok, he's a manipulative SOB."
"JAMES!"
"Who leaves a baby old enough to walk on a doorstep all night? Or-"
"James, I know! You don't have to use vulgar language to get your point across." It sounded like an argument that his parents had had a lot.
"Um guys," Harry broke in. "What did he do to make you so mad?"
"Well, first of all, the fact that Voldie came after us is his fault. I mean, sure, Snivellus overheard the prophecy and ran to his precious master, but-"
"Whoa, whoa whoa, hold on!" Harry said. "What's this about Professor Snape and the prophecy?"
"You see," James began, "Snape was being the slimeball he always is, and he-"
"I'll tell it," Lily interrupted him. "Severus was waiting to be interviewed about the DADA position,"
"Or more likely just loitering around looking creepy," muttered James before Lily smacked him.
"And he overheard Trelawny telling Dumbledore a prophecy. There was another Death Eater there, too, and he heard it as well, so Severus had to go relate it to Voldemort. The prophecy said that there was a child who would have the power to kill Voldie, born "as the seventh month dies", so Voldemort decided to hunt all the kids born at the end of July. He decided I and Alice Longbottom were the ones he had to worry about, so he went to hunt us down. It was Dumbledore's suggestion to use Peter as our Secret Keeper when James refused to use him...he told me to obliviate him when we switched, but he's an occlumens! The obliviate shouldn't have held for more than a year or two!"
"You mean Dumbledore left Sirius in Azkaban?!" Harry burst out.
"It looks like it," said Lily sympathetically. "Even if he never regained his memories, which is, actually, a possibility, since I was halfway to being a Charms mistress when I died, he should have at least pushed for a trial- it's not like he couldn't pull any strings. Then there's your scar. I really can't forgive him for that one."
"What do you mean, my scar?"
"I...oh Harry..." she broke off, her grass-green eyes filled with tears.
"What she means to say is that a little bit of Voldie's soul got stuck in your scar and Dumbledork just left it there for years."
"James!"
"Well, it's the truth. I figured I'd just get it over with."
"Wait." Harry was having difficulties breathing, which was rather odd, since he wasn't. "Did you just say I had a piece of Voldemort's soul in my scar? And Dumbledore knew about it and just left it there?"
"Yes to both."
Harry gulped, feeling sick. "Do I want to know how that happened?"
"You probably don't, but you need to," James responded. "You see, the reason Moldy didn't die the first time was because he created things called horcruxes, which are really nasty pieces of dark magic, created by murdering someone and then doing this ritual that involves eating the heart of a black goat raw and-"
"I think he's got the picture, James,"
"And, well, other stuff," James said quickly. "So anyway, what I was going to say was that he split his soul into seven pieces, and by the time he got around to murdering us it was so unstable that a piece of it just sort of got loose and fell off when he got blasted by the killing curse. Once he was dead it sort of didn't know what to do and it just attached itself to the first thing it came across, and that was you. So basically the guy's just going to keep coming back until you kill all the bits and pieces. That's also why you get another shot at life, though, because when you fell through the Furnishing of Doom the chunk of Voldie's soul died instead."
"Well, that's one way to put it," said Lily dryly.
"So, recap," James went on. "When Voldie died the first time, part of his soul got stuck to you, and it's essentially a get out of purgatory free card. Dumbledore knew about it, and the prophecy, and some other stuff he should have told you, and he didn't say a word. He also disregarded and sealed your mum's will and stuck you with the horse and the walrus. Moldy-Shorts cut his soul into little pieces and hid them around the world. The prophecy states: The one who has the power to defeat the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one who has the power to defeat the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."Also, Snivellus is a git. I think I got everything, didn't I?"
Lily shook her head fondly. "That's not a recap, that's a whole summary," she told him. "And will you quit calling Severus that?"
"Whatever. Got the point across, didn't it? And no, Snivellus deserves it."
"So...do you know what the prophecy means?" asked Harry, still overwhelmed.
"Yeah," James responded. "You're the Chosen One, you apparently got some kick-ass powers, and you and his Moldyness have to fight each other to the death. By the way, I'm 99.99% sure you're gonna kick his arse, since you're my kid."
"Um. Do you have any idea what powers I might have?"
"Well, Dumbledork thinks it's love, or something mushy like that. I mean, what are you going to do, snog him to death? I'm pretty sure it's Potter awesomeness, but Lils here has a few more concrete ideas."
"More concrete ideas? I didn't see you having any concrete ideas at all."
"Well, you could sic an army of trained puffskeins on him. Or feed him nutella- supposedly he's allergic to hazelnuts- or-"
"James?"
"Yes dear?"
"Do me a favor and SHUT THE HECK UP! Sorry, Harry," she continued after James had closed his mouth. "When you have an eternity to spend together all the little spats you have can just get too much. So anyway, I think that the power the Dark Lord knows not is us. You literally walked into the veil of death and came back; no one else alive could do that. So naturally you will be changed when you come back. But aside from that, the prophecy may or may not be fulfilled; some never are. You just need to kill him. And I think I know a way to do that."
Harry stared at her. "How? What do I have to do?"
"Well, you could either hunt down all the magical trinkets he stores the pieces of his soul in and destroy them individually..."
"Or?"
"Or you could just annihilate his soul entirely."
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