In which we learn how a stranger finds an even stranger building on a strange asteroid on an unfamiliar planet.
VII. Lift-off
A history of a building that will never fall
2021 – It takes until Scorpius Advait Malfoy goes to Hogwarts and walks into the school for Harry Potter's magic to wake up. Scorpius feels like he is coming home. The castle wraps him in a warm magic that his dad told him was unique to Harry Potter. The castle, Scorpius Malfoy decides, surely must be Harry Potter saying hello. Whenever he sees the statue in the stairwell, Scorpius knows intuitively that Harry hates it simply because of how the magic feels. He thinks this is funny. He goes through his entire school career touching the walls, and telling the castle—who he named Harry—hello. And he always gets a gentle nudge of that welcoming magic in return.
2066 – Genevieve Malfoy is graduating Hogwarts and she runs her hand down the stone one final time. "Good-bye, Harry," she says. Her grandfather and grandmother and her grandmother's best friend, a nice Muggle named Elizabeth, spoke of the man fondly, and she has been happy to get to know him here. The castle says good-bye in return and thanks her for trying to topple that horrible statue.
2124 – Ikaros Malfoy is a third year at Hogwarts and he is telling the new batch of first-years about the castle. "Welcome to Harry Potter's school. Officially, the name is Hogwarts—but as soon as you show up, you'll know that his name is really Harry Potter. He has a statue in the grand stairwell, but he really doesn't like it. Our goal is to bring it down. No one in over 100 years has succeeded. I think that together, we can do it. We're also going to change the name of the school. Harry will think it's annoying, so we're going to do it. Besides, no one even calls the place Hogwarts anymore except on the official letterhead."
2286 – Numerous Malfoys try to topple the Harry Potter statue as a rite of passage and none succeed until Draco H. Malfoy is a 6th year at Harry Potter's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. He finally collapses the statue of Harry Potter in the grand stairwell. The magic in the castle is rejoicing and everyone in the school is celebrating. "Thank Merlin," the Headmistress said, "Harry really hated that statue."
2800 – With the statue gone, Harry Potter's is as quiet as a magical school can be, and Harry gives every first year a warm hug as they enter. The Malfoy name has vanished, but there's always a few students who feel a certain bond to the castle—they have a greater sense for Harry Potter's magic than anyone else. No one makes the connection.
3351 – The last Headmaster of Harry Potter's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry stands in his now empty office and looks round with tears in his eyes. "I am sorry, Harry. But we have to go. We were able to withstand the effects of the environmental changes with magic for only so long. But the atmosphere is too harsh for us to breathe now, and no one is having any more children. Thank you, Harry—for everything. May we meet again." Harry Potter's magic weeps as the Headmaster ushers out the last of the house elves, closes the school, and vanishes.
4402 – Harry Potter's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry stills stands even though the wizards and witches have long left. Harry Potter's magic has dropped the wards, desperate for some interaction. The school is impeccably clean. Wandering animals sometimes walk through the castle but they are few and far between. Other buildings dot the desert that used to be the United Kingdom. They all feel very similar.
5832 – It has been a very long time, but the castle stands empty still. But it still stands. It is a building that will never fall. Intelligent life has fled Great Britain—humans have left the planet altogether. All that remains is dust.
10000 – The castle remains, looking the same as it did the first time it was built. Harry Potter's magic has gone dormant. Animals that walk through the castle no longer stir his attention. He is asleep. It will only take other magic to wake him now. But the castle will stand clean, pristine, and solid without his constant attention anyways.
15392 – And there it is— a spark of magic and Harry Potter's magic awakens to find a strange humanoid figure entering his walls—it is intelligent, not human—no, time has passed and there are no longer any humans in this galaxy; Harry Potter's magic remains. As does his building.
15393 – The humanoid beings move in to the castle. Harry Potter's magic plays host to their strange lives. They are magical, but unaware of it. Harry feels that it is only natural that he must teach them; this was originally a school.
15400– The beings, Doruns, are now witches and wizards. They have learned magic, and they call Harry Potter's magic a new name - Nawbe, which means Father in their language. Nawbe accepts his new name, and thus begins a new cycle of teaching, hope, and Nawbe's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry is reopened for the first time in over 12,000 years. The castle looks the same as it did the day Harry Potter died: brand new.
15450 – The Doruns are people of war, Nawbe learns. They use the magic he has taught them and destroy the planet. Life—any form of it—nothing is left on the earth.
15460 – The Doruns have passed on. Despite their best efforts, Nawbe's School stands, looking the same as it always had.
15500 – The planet is a desolate wasteland. The oceans have dried; the atmosphere is empty—nothing is left but a scorched earth, crying out. Nawbe—no, it's Harry; they betrayed me—is alone at last. Nothing remains.
24310 – Existence is pain. Harry tries to hibernate, like he did before. But the Doruns damaged him somehow—they took away that peace. They took away his rest.
31943 – The windstorms have grown fiercer, now. Harry knows that the smaller buildings he once had been destroyed in the Doruns destruction. Harry wishes he could be destroyed too.
52385 – An asteroid hits earth, and it splits in two. A small part of Harry is amused. Harry is sent catapulting deep into the darkness of space—out of the orbit of the sun. He fears he will never see light again.
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? – Without light, the passage of time is immeasurable. Harry waits. He keeps the castle clean.
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It has been a long time.
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And then—is that light?
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Suddenly—the asteroid Harry is on is an inferno of stone and he is careening toward something green and bright and—
—impact.
The professor and the explorer sit down before staring at each other in awe.
"You have to take me to this building, now," the professor says. "You've—you've found Harry Potter."
"How did he find us?" the explorer asks. "Out of all of the planets in the universe—how did Harry find the one that the magical people went to? How did he find our planet?"
"You have to—get the—get the Headmaster," the professor exclaims.
"Do you think—" the explorer says as the professor nods, and so the explorer runs out of the room and leaves the professor behind.
The professor stares at this book—this biography, rather, of Harry Potter. He sits there in awe—and then starts to laugh.
The explorer returns with the Headmaster. He is exceptionally old—the oldest member of their society, the eldest man in the colony, and their founder—and when he sees the book that is on the desk, his eyes widen.
"Where did you find that?" he says.
"In a strange building—on an asteroid," the explorer says.
The Headmaster picks it up, and opens its pages. He looks immediately confused when he realizes he cannot read it. "Why can't I?"
"It's in runes," the professor says. "Ancient language—I have rarely seen it."
"I just was expecting something different," the Headmaster admits.
"Take me there," the Headmaster demands.
The professor, explorer, and Headmaster all travel to the asteroid site and the strange building. When the Headmaster sees it—he immediately starts to cry.
"Oh, for all—my—" he stammers while weeping uncontrollably.
"Are you alright?" The explorer says.
"I am more than alright," the Headmaster says. "Let's go inside."
The three approach the building and the Headmaster begins to tell them about the time before the colony—how he was the last person who had been woken that was from the home planet. How back when they lived on the home planet, people lived much longer lives, but people die much younger now so that's why his age seems so extraordinary. But that they have only really been on this planet for 80 years and that the magic they had used had taken them thousands of years to arrive here. And how he had requested that he be woken upon landing—and how when he did he had discovered that most people that had been requested to wake several years before landing. But that time awake in travel-time had disrupted their lifespans. And so now he was so old—but he wasn't really that old—but that when he was on the home planet, he had taught at Harry Potter's school, that he was the last Headmaster of that school. That he had been the one to close the school down because the magical people were leaving the home planet—and that this school in front of them? That this school was that school he used to teach.
The explorer and professor listen in awe to the Headmaster's story.
As soon as the Headmaster steps inside he touches the wall and says, "Oh, Harry—we are meeting again."
The Headmaster gives the explorer and professor a tour—showing them the rooms and the classrooms and how there were hundreds of students at one point, how battles had been fought there and people fell in love there and there was such history in these stones that it was if they were alive, as if they were living stone, that this castle was not just a castle, that it was Harry Potter—that was who the magic belonged to.
And that the book they found must have been written in the language Harry Potter used to use, because that was not the language that was used when he was the Headmaster, and so then the Headmaster sits down on one of the tables in the Great Hall and he smiles so broadly that he cries tears of joy.
"Oh, this is my home," the Headmaster says. "Thank you, for telling me about your discovery."
"So what will we do with this?" the explorer says.
"We already have a university," the professor points out.
"The university is new construction—this building? This is a school. It is a home for the homeless and a rest for the weary and a balm for the burned. This is a school – and so a school it shall be," the Headmaster says. "As soon as we can make access here easier, I imagine we'll open up for enrolment."
"Like it used to be?" the explorer asks.
"Just like it used to be," the Headmaster says. "Isn't that right, Harry?"
And a strong sense of magic encompasses the three and they just know the castle—oh, the castle—it is singing.
Thank you for reading this story! I am blown away by the response this story has generated on this site.
Some final thoughts: I feel like this story is more of a rambling than actual plot-but I hope that you find it as enjoyable to read as I found it to write. I let a lot of potential plot lines and side stories fall to the side on the way though. I may go over this story at a later date to try and flesh out some of the loose ends that I completely ignored, but that will likely be at some distant point in the future. But you may have some outstanding questions that didn't fit into the narrative:
1. What happened with Daphne and Wesley?
If I was a proper writer, this wouldn't be a question. Daphne and Wesley continued to pursue Wesley's ambitious political plans. If I cared for plot, I would have created an incident where there would have been a dangerous confrontation between the two groups that could have resulted in Harry taking a larger role in the world. It would have tied together the group in Haryana and integrated all of the different people Harry met in his travels, and would have been likely very epic. Personally, I consider this as a major and blaring flaw of this story.
2. Why were you so hard on Hermione and Ron? Why did you make them so stubborn?
I tried so hard to not "bash" them, so I apologise if it came across as bashing. I love both Hermione and Ron as characters. I tried to portray that they just grew apart from each other-and that sometimes we assume things about friends we had when we were children that no longer apply anymore. The labeling and refusal to let go of the past is damaging to friendships. I think Hermione and Ron both wanted to stay close with Harry-but they were hurt by his neglectful behaviour and other incidents where Harry did not include them in his post-Hogwarts life.
Hermione and Ron still love Harry-and after Harry's death, Hermione and Ron try to reconcile with Harry's family and friends. Obviously, it doesn't work so well because Harry is the one thing they have in common, but there isn't lasting resentment. The slow destruction of the trio's friendship was due to holding grudges and a slow accumulation of communication errors-something that happens to real friendships all the time.
3. What about the second family in Haryana?
They found about Harry's death, and grieved. But their lives were separate and so it was not as devastating as it was for everyone else. They probably found out some weeks later when Draco remembered to send them an owl with the news.
4. What about Lizzy? Draco and Astoria?
They continued to live, as we all do. They grieved, they mourned, and eventually, they moved on. And while they found sorrow, they did find happiness as well.
If you have any additional questions, leave a comment, and I'll answer you there (likely through a PM because this site doesn't allow comment replies, but I'll also add the answers below). Thank you for reading!
[Further questions answered]
5. What happens in Lizzy's family and their reactions to this?
Lizzy's family is devastated. They loved Harry, but they're confused and they don't really understand why Lizzy can't go to the funeral. A lot of their questions go unanswered, and never will be answered. Claire is the only one that Lizzy ends up telling the whole story, since she is already aware of magic due to the trial of the Dursley's. Blair and Ross will come to stay with Lizzy at the Loch Awe house for as long as they can.
6. Will Lizzy stay in the house Harry built?
Not forever. When Blair and Ross have to return to their own lives, Lizzy starts to spend more and moret ime away from the house. She eventually finds the courage to move away from Loch Awe a year or so after Harry's death (2011/2012). The house reminds her too much of Harry. I'd like to imagine that when she moves away from Loch Awe, she gives the house to her brother Andrew.
7. Will Lizzy adopt?
No, she will not adopt. I hope that one day she remarries. I do know that no matter what lays in her future, she will always stay close friends with Draco and Astoria.