Chapter 20:

The Great Reveal

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It is perhaps the greatest conceit of wanded wizards that they, almost to a one, solely practice wand magic. They forget, in their arrogance, that there are other forms of magic that do not require a wand. So it is that when they threaten a poor defenseless fortune teller, they forget that threatening someone who can see the future might be ill-advised.

"You said the dragon would kill her! Would kill all the mudbloods!" the woman known as Mary Hagglethorn screeched while brandishing her wand threateningly.

I pointedly ignored her and instead took a drag on my cigarette, only to stop and give it a considering look. Anny must have gotten the wrong brand again, she knows I prefer Benson & Hedges. Ah well, needs must. I took another deep drag on the subpar brand before finally answering. "No, I said that the odds were good that the overgrown lizard would kill her. Not once did I say anything about it killing anyone else. That was all you, dear."

Mary screeched, "Do you know what I could have done with a Great Dragon? Do you know how much one is worth?" She looked around the small shop from which I did business and sniffed disdainfully. "No, of course you don't. And that doddering old fool is after me now. Why couldn't that moron have done his job right?"

I made an attempt to placate her, even though I knew it was hopeless. "I warned you that the bounty was an exceedingly bad idea. That you did not listen is no fault of mine. The odds were good that the Dragon would kill her, but it was not a sure thing, as I told you."

Mary sneered, twisting her lovely features into something ugly. "That whore was instrumental in my Lord's defeat. I shall not leave her death to chance. It's time I dealt with matters personally." She pointed her wand at me, a green light forming at its tip.

I smiled, "'I would like to remind you that killing me after pledging safe conduct would break the Accords.'" She hesitated, and I continued. "If you really want to kill her I have a suggestion." I indicated behind her.

Keeping her wand trained on me she slowly turned around and nearly froze when she noticed the assault rifles pointed at her. She may have been an arrogant fool, but you couldn't do business outside of her small wanded community without recognizing the danger they represented.

"Perhaps we can still help each other," the woman currently known as Mary Hagglethorn finally said. I took a final drag on my cigarette and smiled. Let's see how you handle this, Alex.

888

Alex

I took a deep breath of air, savoring the ease with which I was able to do so. I spent a long moment gathering myself before I looked around. Hagrid and Hermione were still out cold.

Pansy, her eyes wide, was gasping for breath and staring at me wide-eyed.

"Are you ok?" I asked, I tried to get to my feet but had to lean against a nearby tree to keep from falling over.

"You soulgazed a Dragon?" Pansy asked after she started breathing normally. She sounded like someone had told her Voldemort had given up the Dark Lord thing in favor of sewing.

"Yes?" I answered confused. "I mean I know it's rare for us to have one but it isn't unheard of."

"Dragons don't have souls," Pansy said, gravely.

I gave her a look of confusion, "What?"

"Humans have souls. It's what separates us from everything else!" Pansy exclaimed passionately. "Demons don't have souls, Sidhe don't have souls, Dragons do not have souls. It's the one thing that we have that makes us better than they are. They have power, more power than most of us could dream of, but we have souls. We have choice." She said choice like it was something holy.

I tried to process that. It sounded right, but if that was true, then… "How did I soulgaze Vivavax?"

"I don't know," Pansy made a frustrated noise. "Go over it again, slowly."

"The egg exploded and she came out and launched herself at me, you know, like she does with the golems? Anyway, she latched onto me and started draining me." I swallowed — I had never felt closer to death than I had then — before forcing myself to continue. "I felt my life leaving me, I could barely see, everything was going dark, and I knew if I didn't do anything I was going to die, but I couldn't move, I couldn't fight." I cleared my throat. "So I did the only thing I could think of. I gathered the last of my magic and pushed it out of my eyes to try and Legilimens her into stopping."

Pansy made her way over and sat next to me. "You can't forget a soulgaze. Can you tell me what you saw?" She pulled me into a half-hug.

Remember it? If I closed my eyes it was like I was still seeing it. That nearly endless void and the titanic aspects fighting it out. It was intense and beautiful. Never had I felt smaller or more awed.

As I relived it, I relayed my experience to Pansy before asking, "So, any ideas?"

She shook her head. "No, but Alex, we can't tell anyone about this. If anyone else found out, if they thought that you could ever replicate that, someone, something would take you and keep trying until it really did kill you."

I nodded, but shot a look at Hermione. I was already keeping secrets from my friends, and keeping more wasn't something I wanted to do. Besides, "Hermione can keep a secret."

Pansy got a frustrated look on her face before nodding. "Fine, we'll tell Hermione tomorrow, but for now we need to get them out of the forest.

We stood and got to work.

888

Hermione took the news about as well as I expected. That is, she had a small freak-out, calmed down, asked a dozen questions, got overexcited, calmed down again, and finally roped Pansy and I into a five-hour research binge.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I like reading. I even like learning about more obscure subjects, especially when they might help me find out how I managed to give a soulless being a soul, but five hours straight of reading text so small my eyes started hurting after the first hour was a little much.

Especially when it got us nowhere.

The only truly useful thing to come out of the situation was that I was able to determine, with a startling degree of certainty, that the Room's library lacked anything about Horcruxes.

The closest thing I found was the Soul Jar, similar to a Horcrux in that making one involved placing your soul in a container, but you could only do it once and, most importantly, Soul Jars were disgustingly vulnerable.

You needed specialized weapons to destroy a Horcrux, basilisk venom being the only reliable way as far as I could remember. With a Soul Jar all you needed to do was drop it on the floor. Not what I was looking for, but I noted it down for future reference.

Aside from that little gem, most of what I found was a whole lot of speculation and not a lot of evidence. Wizards liked to write about the soul but — aside from noting that humans had them — they were almost as much in the dark as the rest of the world.

"I can't find anything," I announced, shoving away from the table.

Pansy looked up blearily from her book before standing up and stretching. "Me neither."

Hermione sighed and put her book down reluctantly. "Nothing. As far as I can tell only humans and half humans have souls. There are no cases I can find where a fully non-human has a soul."

Pansy snorted, "Maybe Ice Queen made the Dragon part human?"

"Vivavax is no more human than I am Dragon," I said

"Well, you do have that dragon in your head. Maybe you are part Dragon?" Pansy said.

"Rawr," I said, deadpan.

Hermione blinked, "Alex, how big did you say your mindscape was?"

"With my house, the forest, and the volcano? Maybe fifty square miles or so?" I answered, after thinking on it for a moment. "Why, how big are yours?"

Pansy and Hermione exchanged looks.

"My mindscape is barely the size of my house," Pansy said.

"Mine is almost the whole of Ravenclaw tower," Hermione said. "Your mindscape is huge, and every time something like the Hexenwolf talisman happens, or when Vivavax almost ate all your magic, it gets bigger. Almost like it's trying to get bigger or stronger?"

"Ok, but what does that have to do with Viv having a soul?" I asked.

"Maybe you got some of her dragon-ness and she got some of your soul." Hermione said.

I blinked, "Are you saying I'm soul bonded to a Dragon?" Because the last thing I needed was Ferrovax showing up and dragging me to an impromptu wedding.

"What?!" Hermione said, startled. "No, Soul Bonds require a full ritual and two souls." She shook her head. "I think that maybe she got a piece of your soul and, because she was so young and still forming, she used it to grow her own."

"I think I'm missing something," I said. "How does that tie into my mindscape being too big?"

"Don't you see?" Hermione asked. "Your mindscape is trying to get stronger, why I don't know, but it uses anything it can to do so, so maybe Vivavax got some of your soul and in exchange you got some Dragon-ness for your mindscape."

"On purpose?" I asked, worried. If my mindscape was making decisions on its own…

Hermione shook her head, "I mean that your mindscape just used what you got from her. Not that it made some sort of conscious decision to exchange soul for Essence of Dragon. That would be crazy."

As if any part of my life wasn't crazy. Still, I was reassured. No mental mutiny for me.

"That still doesn't explain why I have such a big mindscape." I said. Personally, I thought it was a combination of me having more life experience and me dealing with Voldemort's Horcrux in my head.

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but Pansy beat her to the punch.

"You just have a lot of empty space to fill up is all, dragon girl," Pansy smirked. She stopped smirking when I drew my wand and fired a paint spell at her head. I barely managed to dodge her retaliatory strike. The bookshelf behind me turned an appalling shade of puke green.

"This is a library!" Hermione yelled from behind a nearby bookshelf. If Pansy's training had taught Hermione anything, it was the benefit of cover.

Sadly there was a big difference between cover and concealment, as Hermione learned when Pansy and I both sent paint charms at her. Hermione's scream of outrage signaled her entry into the fray.

888

The next few weeks passed in something of a blur. We studied, we practiced, we researched, and we went to class. It was nice. So nice in fact that I had almost convinced myself that the school year would end before anything interesting — a dirty word if there ever was one — could happen.

My last name is Potter; I should have known better.

I woke up sandwiched between Pansy and Hermione again. I was beginning to suspect something odd was going on, because no matter what I did I would wake up between the two of them. They both denied any involvement and I was forced to believe them when, after going to sleep on the floor with a sticking charm firmly locking me to the floor, I still woke up in my usual spot with my spell still in place.

After I extracted myself — a process that still woke my bedmates up — and we completed our morning routines, we made our way to the Room for a few quick matches against the golems — level threes now, though I hadn't yet beaten one without using my cloak — before making our way to the Great Hall.

I was halfway through breakfast when the mail came.

Hermione had a subscription to the Daily Prophet, but she was too focused on reviewing her Potions essay to read it, so I procured it for myself. I had taken to reading it in an effort to see if I could spot any sign of Voldemort. So far I'd enjoyed no success but it was only a matter of time. Either Voldemort was here or he was out there. One way or another I would find information about him.

The front page story was the usual celebrity gossip, Gilderoy Lockhart and His Amazing… Smile, by Rita Skeeter. On the third page, though, was an article that drew my attention. At first I wasn't sure why, but when it hit me my stomach dropped.

"Alex, what's wrong?" Pansy asked concerned. Hermione looked up from her essay and gave me a curious look.

I put on a reassuring smile, "Nothing." I looked over at the Professors' table, my smile fading away when I didn't see Dumbledore. I reread the article.

…unusual Warden activity after what seemed like a lull in the White Council's war with the Red Court has many wondering if we may be looking at a return of hostilities. This despite repeated reassurances from both Red Court and White Council representatives that the war was something that both sides wanted to end.

If I was reading the clues correctly, then one of the Senior Council members was dead — despite reviewing my memories I couldn't remember which one it was — and Warden Donald Morgan was soon to follow.

Could I do anything? And if I could, should I? Morgan was a stranger. One who, from all accounts, was something of an ass. He was also a good man. One who, despite his numerous, numerous faults, always did what he believed was right.

If things happened the way I remembered they would, he would die. He would die remembered as a traitor. He would die after sacrificing himself to save his friend, and that was something I couldn't countenance. Such loyalty was admirable and should be rewarded.

"Alex?"

Which answered the question of whether or not I should do something, but what could I do? Going to Chicago was out of the question. Despite my mad skills I was far from ready to deal with that level of insanity, though if my current rate of improvement stayed consistent I might be able to risk it by my fourth year.

"She's got her thinking face on."

I could owl Dresden, but that was a fairly obvious indicator that I was a wand user — we were the only ones who made consistent use of post owls — and I did not need Dresden coming here. The combined bad luck of two Chosen Ones would sink Scotland.

"Really? It looks like she's in pain."

Which left, what, smoke signals?

"Well, yes, she's thinking. Pain goes with the territory." I smacked Pansy on the back of her head, and then started rubbing my hand. Pansy has a hard head. "Oh, so you are listening."

I ignored her. "Hermione, if I wanted to get information to someone quickly, without using an owl, how would I do that?"

"If we weren't at Hogwarts I would say a phone," Hermione answered, giving me a concerned look. "Or maybe email, but again we are at Hogwarts, so…"

I nodded, resisting the urge to face-palm. Less than a year in the magical world and I was already discounting muggle tech. I glanced around and noticed we were some of the last people here. It was nearly time for class.

"Alex, what's going on?" Pansy asked. I grimaced a little. She only used my real name when she was really worried.

"It's…" I stopped, unsure of what I could, or should, say. I didn't want to lie, but telling them I was worried because of meta-knowledge wasn't something I thought I was ready to tell them either. "I…—"

A chime sounded, signaling that classes would begin in five minutes.

"You can tell us anything," Hermione said, making no move to get up, though she did glance around nervously before focusing back on me.

They already knew I had somehow given Vivavax a soul, and I trusted them to keep that a secret, and that was knowledge that could easily get me killed or worse. The only reason I hadn't told them about my past life wasn't because I thought they would tell anyone. It was because I was afraid of how they would react to it.

I started to hyperventilate.

How would they see me if they knew that I was, technically, thirty. That I read about them in a book because in my old world they were fiction? How would they react when they found out I used to be a boy?

Pansy pulled me into a hug and Hermione came around the table to join us.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Pansy said, softly, while she rubbed my back.

"We trust you," Hermione said, as she too pulled me into a hug.

I closed my eyes and focused on breathing slowly, in and out, again and again, until finally I was breathing normally.

"Ow," I held my head. The lack of air had given me a headache.

"Are you okay now?" Hermione asked. I was about to answer, when Madam Hooch's whip like voice cracked out from right behind us.

"Why are you children not in class?!"

I tried to jump to my feet but only managed to slam my thighs into the table, stumble back, and fall off the bench. My heart pounded in my chest, and air was again in short supply. People kept sneaking up on me, and given that I had just started to get my breathing under control, I started hyperventilating again.

"It's Alex. She's having a panic attack." Pansy said.

I couldn't really see her because of the whole 'no air' thing, but Madam Hooch's voice was almost sneering when she replied, "Then get her to the Hospital Wing."

"Yes Ma'am," Pansy said.

Madam Hooch left and my friends started dragging me to the Hospital Wing.

888

By the time we actually made it there I was already starting to get my breathing under control, but Madam Pomfrey still gave me a Calming Draught and watched as I drank it down. She ran a few tests on me before announcing that she wanted me to stay until lunch.

"The two of you have already missed your first class, so you can stay for a few minutes, but I want you to leave soon so you can make it to your next one. Is that understood?" Madam Pomfrey said sternly as she looked at Hermione and Pansy. They nodded and she went to her office.

I took out my wand and cast a Silencing Charm. I thought we were alone, but there was no need to take any chances.

Before they could say anything I started speaking, the Calming Draught keeping my nerves at bay. "You both deserve answers and I'm going to give them to you, but it's going to take time and class is starting soon, so maybe I can tell you tonight in the Room?"

They exchanged looks before Hermione spoke up, "If you don't want to, you don't have to tell us."

"She's right," Pansy said.

I nodded, "I know, but I want to. I just have to do something first."

"What?" Pansy asked.

"Make a call," I said, already thinking about how to do so.

"How?" Hermione asked, her brows furled.

"Hogwarts obviously doesn't have a phone, and Hogsmeade doesn't either, but if I can get to London, finding a payphone should be easy," I said, thinking aloud. "There's probably a muggle town closer than that, but I don't know where, so that leaves using the Floo Network to get around." Even if I wanted to use my broom, I couldn't, as Vivavax had eaten its magic, rendering it little more than a stick with bristles at one end.

"In case you've forgotten, there's a price on your head," Pansy said.

"I remember," I replied. I should be nervous, but the potion kept me at an even keel. I loved Calming Draughts. Well, at the moment it was more of a platonic appreciation, but the thought still counts. "Still have to do it."

Pansy's hands flexed, almost like she was imagining how they would feel wrapped around my throat. "And just what is so important that you're willing to risk losing your head?"

"If I don't make that call, if the information I have doesn't get to the right person soon, a good man will die," I calmly explained.

"If someone's going to die, you need to tell someone," Hermione said, her eyes wide.

"That's what I'm trying to do," I said. Good, they were coming around. Now, how to use the Floo Network without being caught…?

"No, I mean—" Hermione said.

"She means that you should tell a Professor." Pansy interrupted.

"I can't," I said. How could I make them understand? "Look, I know things."

"You're psychic?" Pansy said, incredulous.

"No, if I was my information would be more accurate." I shook my head, "Look, I'll explain everything, but unless you want to skip, you need to get to class."

"If you think I care about class right now, you have another thing coming," Pansy said. Hermione nodded in agreement.

I frowned, "Look, it's way too early for me call right now. I'll stay here until lunch and then I'll explain things."

Hermione and Pansy exchanged looks before nodding.

"We'll meet in the Room?" Hermione asked.

"In the Room," I agreed.

888

It was nearly lunchtime when Madam Pomfrey let me leave. I quickly made my way to the Room, using my cloak to make sure I was able to get there without being waylaid.

I got there first and had the Room transform into the living room of my old house. After entering, I made my way to the shelf of movies to check if the Room had made things to speck. I smiled when I saw the first three Harry Potter movies, just like I had pictured. I popped the first one into the DVD player and pressed play, only to frown when the movie started skipping around.

Some scenes were completely garbled by static and others were completely black. I took the movie out of the player and put in another one — The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring — to see if it would play.

It worked perfectly.

I frowned. Why wouldn't the Harry Potter movie work? I tried another, RED, but it didn't work either. What was going on? I thought for a moment and looked at the covers for a clue. The Lord of the Rings one looked alright, but the cover for RED looked wrong.

R.E.D. — Old Dudes kill lots of CIA idiots.

That, uh… that wasn't the right summary. I turned the Harry Potter case over.

Yer a Wizard, Harry.

I tried a few more movies and started to see a pattern. Everything that came out before 2003 was fine. Anything that came out after that didn't work. Well, anything but the first Harry Potter movie, which I was fairly certain came out when I was still in elementary school, and so would have had to have come out before 2003.

So… what, anything that didn't exist in the here and now, the Room couldn't make? That seemed an odd limitation for the Room, but the evidence spoke for itself.

Before I could ponder that further, Pansy and Hermione arrived.

I wrung my hands nervously as they sat down on the couch. "I'm not sure where to start," I admitted. I'd planned to use the movies to help explain, but that was now out of the question.

"The beginning is usually a good place," Pansy said.

I took a deep breath — stupid Calming Draught was wearing out — and nodded, "Okay, the beginning. I was born on September 23, 1992." They looked like they were about to interrupt, so I held up my hand to stop them. "Please, let me finish." When they nodded I continued. "I lived a fairly average life until Spring Break of 2015, when something happened and I somehow found myself born again, this time as the daughter of James and Lily Potter." I gave them an expectant look. If they didn't believe that, then they really wouldn't believe what I said next.

I did not expect their reply.

"But all cases of reincarnation have come from people in the past," Hermione said, her brows furled.

Pansy nodded in agreement, "All the ones I've heard of did."

I blinked, "That's not the reaction I was expecting." Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.

"That's not it, is it?" Pansy asked, raising her brow.

"No, but that's the most believable part," I answered honestly.

"Most believable?" Hermione muttered. "What else is there?"

"It has to do with why I have to go to London." I swallowed before continuing. "Okay, so, not only am I a reincarnation, but I'm also completely sure that my past life was not from around here."

"Around here?" Pansy asked.

"I mean that I'm from Earth, just not this Earth." I looked at them to see how they took that. Hermione was clearly trying to process it, but Pansy just raised her brow and asked, "How do you know?" She didn't seem to think I was lying, but she clearly wanted me to prove it.

"The biggest difference was the complete absence of magic," I said.

"You could have just been a muggle," Pansy countered.

I nodded, "Good point." I honestly didn't know how to argue that. "But that's not the only reason I know I'm right. In my last life there was this book series—"

"Book series?" Hermione interrupted.

"Yes, um, the Harry Potter series. Now, I never read the books, but I did watch the movies," Hermione grimaced a little. "Well the first few at least, and I did read a lot of fanfiction about them. While they aren't completely accurate they do bear a startling resemblance to, well… this past year." I waited for them to respond, but before they could do so I kept going, my nerves getting the better of me. "They got a lot right, Hogwarts, the ministry, and spells and stuff." I crossed my arms self-consciously. "And I don't think the Ministry would let anyone make a movie."

"So what you're saying is that you are from another universe?" I nodded, and Pansy kept going. "And in this other world we were, what, just a story?" I nodded again. "That sounds…"

"Crazy, I know. That's why I never told anyone." I tried to think of something to say that would convince them. "Ask me something, anything. I know things that maybe will make you believe me."

They exchanged looks before Hermione spoke up, "You told me you heard about the Room from your parents, but that's not how you knew about it, is it?" I shook my head. She frowned before continuing, "Is there anywhere else like that, that you know of?"

"The Chamber of Secrets," I said without pausing. As far as I knew, Hogwarts only had two major secret locations; the Room of Requirement and the Chamber of Secrets.

"The chamber is a myth," Pansy said. "People have been trying to find it for centuries, and they never found any proof that it ever really existed."

"I know where it is and how to get in," I said, a trifle smugly.

888

The walk to the second floor was made in an awkward silence. I was trying to think of how best to explain everything and they were digesting what I'd revealed so far.

"It's in here." I pointed to the girls' room.

"In Myrtle's bathroom?" Hermione asked, aghast.

"We'll be fine if we leave her alone," Pansy reassured her before looking at me. "We are going to leave her alone, right?"

"Yes, we're going to leave her alone," I promised them. Ghosts in Hogwarts aren't violent, or at least they aren't violent to us. There had been a few occasions in the past where Hogwarts had been attacked and the ghosts had responded with overwhelming force, and that wasn't even taking into account how dangerous non-Hogwarts ghosts could be. People gave ghosts a wide berth for a reason.

Take it from someone who knows; Casper is not a friendly ghost.

We stepped inside, and thankfully Myrtle was nowhere in sight. I inspected the sinks until I found the one with a small snake carving.

"Alright, give me a minute. I want to make sure there's no surprises." I closed my eyes before they could respond.

Breath. Focus. Sense.

I extended my senses towards the sinks. There was a small spell that reminded me of slithering, and another that felt like change. The first one was the Parseltongue spell, and the second one was probably the one that opened the doorway.

I opened my eyes and focused on the snake.

"Open."

The wall opened up and a tunnel appeared.

"What was that?!" Pansy demanded. She had stepped in front of Hermione and they were both giving me wide-eyed looks.

"Parseltongue," I answered, honestly confused at their reaction.

"It sounded…" Hermione said.

"Wrong," Pansy finished, shivering a little

"Wow, thanks. That makes me feel so good," I said sarcastically. I mean, yes it sounded weird but, their reaction was a little over the top. "Anyway, believe me now?"

"Shouldn't we go down there to make sure that it's actually the chamber?" Hermione asked, as she moved over to the tunnel. I grabbed the back of her robe to keep her away from it.

"Sure, we can go down. If you want to run into a Basilisk." I said.

"A Basilisk?" Hermione asked, jumping back.

I focused on the snake and, making sure to whisper, closed the tunnel. Hermione still jumped back. I looked at them my eye brows raised. "Well?"

"Okay, so maybe you're not crazy," Pansy said. "But what's so important that you need to risk your life to, how did you put it, call someone?"

"Alright, um… so the Prophet had an article about unusual Warden Activity, right?" They had to have given the paper a once-over after my little freak out. When they nodded I continued, "If I'm remembering right, it's not because they're getting ready for another offensive against the Red Court."

"Then what are they doing?" Hermione asked.

"The Wardens are looking for one of their own who's been framed for the murder of one of the Senior Council—" I started only to be interrupted again.

"What?" They both asked.

"Can you let me finish?" I asked, a little annoyed at the constant interruptions. Once they nodded I continued, "There's a traitor in the White Council and he's using mind controlling ink to subtly influence the Senior Council's actions and policies. He used the ink to make one of the Wardens kill one of the Senior Council members." I eyed them both before asking whether they had any questions.

"Do I have any questions?" Pansy asked. "I have nothing but questions! But the most pressing of them is, how is making a call going to make any difference? If the traitor is mind controlling the Senior Council then just calling them isn't going to cut it."

"I have a plan, but I'm going to need you to trust me." I looked at them expectantly.

Hermione nodded.

"We got your back," Pansy said.

I smiled, touched, before laying out my plan. Once that was done we went to class, because tonight we put it into action.