Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I make any claim to, the 'Harry Potter' universe. I claim the plot and whatever original characters I choose to create.
A/N: Here's the second chapter of Message in a Bottle. Many of you who have read the first chapter long ago will know that this was originally the last half of Chapter 1. Since I'm trying to make the chapters smaller, I split it into two. I have made MANY changes to this story since then, so I strongly suggest re-reading the first chapter. I'll try to keep up with the updates to this story in a timely manner. (Word Count: 3868)
--
Chapter 2: A Trip Prepared
--
November 1, 2141 - 1:37 AM
The old man could feel Jaana's pearly eyes silently watching him as he worked. After an hour had passed, he lay the quill down and tiredly rubbed his eyes. His gaze gravitated back to the set of old wizard photographs that lined the upper tier of his desk. He could feel the ghost float up behind him and look over his shoulder at the set of very familiar photographs. He wasn't surprised at all when she began speaking to him.
"Are you sure that you know what you're doing? I mean, you've led a long and hap… productive life. I know I'm not the best company one could have, considering what I am, but it hasn't been that terrible being with me for these past hundred and thirty years, has it?"
"One hundred thirty three years, two months, sixteen days, twelve hours and thirty…" he glanced at the clock on the mantle and paused for a few seconds before continuing in a whispered monotone, "thirty two minutes, to be exact." His eyes drifted back to one particular photo, "Has it really been that long? It still seems like… I mean, have I really lived with it for this long?"
She could tell that he was about to go into one of his 'moods' again, and knew there was nothing she could do or say to stop it. She wished that she could hold him, to comfort him somehow, but there were distinct disadvantages to being a ghost. All she could do was try to reason with him, knowing full well how futile the effort would be.
"You do know that you could make things worse, don't you?" Jaana offered, "Maybe much worse?"
The old man let out a tired sigh and looked up at the youthful ghost, "I can't imagine how it could get worse. I can't believe I let it happen in the first place. All I've been doing is thinking about it… how I failed them… how I had failed myself."
Jaana let out a sigh, thinking, 'Yep, one of his moods.'
"You're right, I could spend my remaining months cloistered here beneath a dilapidated mansion and let Voldemort have what's left of the world whenever he next comes back… and you know he will come back." said Harry distantly, not really looking at his ghostly friend, "just a handful of scared magicals and a country full of angry muggles… but you already know what he'll do. There's nothing left here in Britain that he wants except me. Once I'm gone, he'll continue his assault on the continent and beyond…. with nobody around to stop him. Do you really think I could pass on and doom the world to enslavement for the remainder of time?"
Jaana simply nodded in a morose sort of way, then looked down to the book that he'd been working on for decades, "How far along are you? I know you finished the part about advanced magic years ago."
"Yes, that bit's done. There have been quite a few advances made since I went to Hogwarts, you know. I daresay I'd have been quite the wizard back then if I knew half of these spells and techniques. It's ironic how most of those new techniques were developed by…"
Harry drifted into silence as his eyes once again looked up to the photograph atop his desk.
"So, what are you adding now? Philosophy? Poetry? I mean, what else can you send that would be useful?"
He reached up and lifted the photograph that had captured so much of his attention over the years. His heart sank in his chest and the painful ache returned, just as it always did when he concentrated on those soft chocolate eyes. Without lifting his gaze from the image of his long lost friend, he answered in nothing more than a whisper, "I've written about what happened. All of it. About what I did… what I saw… about everything that happened, and everything that should be changed… everything," he looked up to the ghost and added more firmly, "That's the whole point of this project, isn't it? You say it could be worse, but how can it? There's nothing left… a whole race… the entire magical world… snuffed out in what seems like an instant."
"Are you sure it's wise writing so much about it? I mean, just the fact that you're sending it is going to change everything. You're going to make him more powerful than anyone could ever imagine. Won't the knowledge of those events be pointless?"
"No, not really. It will let him know why I'm sending it... why I needed to do it. It will make him aware of what I lost, and of what everyone will lose if he doesn't wake up and smell the pumpkin juice… and I have to convince him that this is real… he needs to understand."
The ghost looked up at a painting on the wall, seeing herself as she looked when she was alive. The portrait Jaana and the ghost Jaana smiled wistfully at each other before the naked painted image walked to the edge of the frame to return to the red divan and the jug of wine that awaited her in the receiving hall.
She turned to the old man and asked, "Have you decided when you're going to send it? Will it get there before I… you know… died?"
The old man smiled at the hopeful spirit and said, "Yes, I figure the best time would be the summer before his sixth year, at least that's what I'm aiming for… that's when everything started to go to hell in a handbasket. A spell like this has never been attempted before… for obvious reasons… and of course I've written all about you. About how wonderful you are and how you came to be in your current state. I'm sure he'll take the appropriate steps to ensure your safety," then he added with a wink, "After all, he has the same 'saving people thing' that I do, you know… and you are practically family."
She just nodded as she continued to look over his shoulder. After a few minutes, she broke the silence, "So, how much more do you have to write?"
The old man glanced at the clock on the mantle and saw that it was nearing two in the morning. He lightly blew a breath on the freshly written page to dry the ink, and then closed the book as he rose from the seat. He picked up the large tome, tucked it under his arm, and said, "Nothing. I've just finished it. I'm going now to have a last look around. Then I'm going to place it where only he can find it and perform the ritual."
"So, this is it?" asked the ghost anxiously, "I'm never going to see you again?"
With a wry smile, he answered, "Oh, I believe that you'll be seeing me much sooner than you think."
The ghost stared into the old man's piercing, green eyes and said, "I hope you're right, Harry. I hope you're right about everything."
"Well, if I'm wrong, then we'll know soon enough, won't we?"
When the old wizard silently faded from sight, the ghost wiped a silvery tear from her face and said to the empty room, "Goodbye, Harry, and good luck."
The old man appeared on a jagged outcropping of rock overlooking the silent rubble that was once Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Gone were the lofty towers and proud battlements, long ago reduced to rotted timber jutting out from broken stone during one of the 'final battles' with Tom Riddle. This particular destruction happened during his fourth rebirth… the fourth 'final battle.'
As his eyes scanned over the ruins and through the murky mists he could just catch a glimpse of one or two of the hundreds of ghosts that still wandered the area. There were many more today than when he had gone to school there. Many, many more. Most of the people here died so suddenly… so horribly… that they didn't have time to ponder whether to 'pass on' or not. He then thought that, because of the dark nature of the magic that was used here, maybe they didn't have the choice at all.
His gaze drifted over to where the vast Forbidden Forest used to be, now just a wide bramble field littered with decayed stumps. Nothing grew there, no animals inhabited the land. The centaurs, the acromantulas, the unicorns… everything gone… except for the bones of the giants and the others that were caught in the forest when it went up.
He turned towards where the lake had once been. In the dim moonlight, he could see the bleached bones of the merpeople sticking out from the dry, cracked lakebed. He could also see imprint of where the massive remains of the giant squid that once inhabited the former lake had rotted away to a squid-shaped stain on the now barren lakebed.
He finally let his eyes wander to the far end of the lakebed where the little hamlet of Hogsmeade used to stand. That was destroyed just after the Dark Lord's second rebirth. There was nobody there, no lights, no people… just a few dozen burned-out husks that once were wizarding homes and businesses. That area was also infested with ever-wandering souls, most of them existing as if they were still alive, which caused the wizarding world to dub the place a true ghost town. They sold their ethereal goods to one another, they drank at the decimated pubs, they ate their dinners in the midst of the wreckage that was once their homes… oblivious to the fact that they were dead.
Already feeling the draining effects of being in the area, he prepared to leave. He gave one last look at the ancient tomb that sat upon the barren ground near the dry lake. His eyes narrowed briefly as the memories flashed through his mind. The memories of all the things that he found out far too late to be of any use to him or anyone. If Dumbledore had only pulled his head out of his arse sooner… if he hadn't kept so many secrets from him. By far, his biggest gripe with his former Headmaster was that he withheld the knowledge of his older sister from him, but he only found out about her after she was already dead… after nearly everyone was already dead.
Harry's face hardened as he disappeared from the cliff. He faded into existence directly in front of the old Ministry of Magic building. He looked around the dark, empty streets of central London. Nobody lived here anymore. The muggles believed that some kind of a nuclear device, a 'dirty bomb,' was detonated by a terrorist, making the area uninhabitable for a thousand years. He knew the real reason.
It was during Lord Voldemort's seventh return to the land of the living.
Almost as if that thought summoned them, a throng of slow, hulking figures shambled out of the darkness surrounding him. Emaciated flesh hung loosely from brittle bone, soulless eyes stared blankly at him as the horde of inferi continued their endless, mindless search of any magical being. With a sweep of his hand, he created a tall wall of fire around himself, keeping the animated corpses at bay as he removed the seal that he, himself, had placed on the entrance and quickly entered the building.
The place was just how he had left it nearly two decades before. Scores of skeletons, some dressed in auror robes, some dressed in the infamous black cloaks and skull masks, littered the floor of the atrium. The place was almost as silent as a tomb, save for the scratching and pounding of the inferi as they tried in vain to follow him in.
He stepped through the once golden gates that led to the magical lifts. He looked longingly at the now useless lifts. The magic that allowed them to operate had long since faded, forcing him to take the arduous trip by the stairs.
It took quite a while for him to reach level nine, where he stepped out of the stairwell and began walking down the bare, windowless corridor. When he opened the black door, he was momentarily surprised when he saw a figure standing in the center of the circular room. He could barely make out his features in the dim light, but the identity of the figure was obvious to him.
Standing in the room was a thin young man, with dark, unkempt hair, a lightning-bolt shaped scar, and wild eyes that flashed with an emerald fire. The young man had an eleven inch, holly and phoenix feather wand pointed at him threateningly.
The initial shock wore off quickly when he realized what was happening. With surprising agility for someone his age, he instantly had his own wand in his hand and incanted, "Riddikulus!"
The effect was immediate. The angry young man before him morphed into a life-size, inflatable sex doll, which immediately let out a comical farting noise as air escaped from it, causing it to haphazardly zip around the room like a rocket before it disappeared under the door that led to the Brain Room.
The half-smile that he wore disappeared as he walked through the door to the Time Room. He paused to look around at all of the different clocks that appeared to take up every free surface on the desks, tables and walls. All of the clocks and gadgets were silent, as the magic that kept them going had left them long ago. All except for one item… the item that he had come for.
In the far corner of the room, next to the bell jar that had once housed the time-cycling hummingbird, stood a small table with an old hourglass resting upon it. He studied the hourglass for a moment. Inside, instead of sand, it contained a strangely swirling mist that reminded him of one's memories before being placed in a pensieve. With an appreciative nod, he gingerly picked the item up from the table.
He placed it in an inside pocket of his robes and began the long trip back to the first level. He exited from the building by climbing up through the visitor's entrance, thereby avoiding being caught in the middle of the inferi that was awaiting him at the main entrance. Once clear of the building, he silently faded from view.
The old man reappeared on a street in a quiet neighborhood in the village once known as Little Whinging. For a few moments, he just stood and stared at the row of now ancient houses, noticing that very little had changed in the past one and a half centuries. He looked between the houses to the northeast horizon and saw the spotlights and warning beacons of the mile-high wall that the muggles had built around London. They said it was to keep the radiation from spreading… he knew that it was due to the inferi infestation.
He briskly strode to the door of Number Four, Privet Drive, which opened for him automatically at his approach. When he stepped into the old house and scanned the interior, his eyes briefly paused on the small door to a cupboard beneath the staircase that lead to the second floor. He saw the flickering light from a muggle holographic running in the living room, telling him that the current occupants might still be awake.
As he walked to the stairs, a voice called out from behind him, "Oy! What'cha doin' in me 'ouse?"
He turned to see a rather large, middle-aged muggle rising from an easy chair with an angry look on his face. With barely a gesture from the old man, the muggle's eyes glazed over and he silently sat back down and continued to watch his holographic of a naked young woman, gyrating seductively to slow and rhythmic music.
The old man climbed the steps and entered the smallest bedroom, which was currently furnished as a small home office. With a sweep of his hand, the desk silently slid across the room, and with another sweep, the carpeting lifted from over a small area of the ancient hardwood floor where a tiny bed had once rested over a hundred years before.
With a pained groan, the old man sat down on the floor and pried up a loose floorboard, revealing his secret cubbyhole. He carefully placed the large book into the space beneath the floor and stared sadly into the dark opening.
He drew his ancient holly wand from the sleeve of his robes and began drawing on the floor with its tip while incanting long sentences, alternating between the Latin, Greek, and Sumerian languages. The tip of his wand left a glowing green line in its' wake, forming a circle around the hole in the floor. The speed and intensity of his incantation grew as he began drawing glowing red runes around the circle, which began pulsing brighter and brighter with every new rune added. As he placed the last rune, the very air in the room seemed to vibrate with magic.
He withdrew the hourglass from his robes and set it in the center of the circle, right over the loose floorboard. He tapped the hourglass with his wand while saying, "Novotempus!" The swirling gaseous liquid inside that had been gradually seeping from the top half to the bottom seemed to slow, then came to a stop. A moment later, the process began to reverse, with the contents quickly moving up through the aperture to the top half of the hourglass. As soon as the bottom half was empty, he turned the hourglass over and the process repeated itself.
He was counting each time he flipped the glass… twenty… fifty… seventy-five…
As he sat turning the hourglass over and over, a frown marred his face as he thought about the seventh and final, elusive horcrux… he had never found the seventh horcrux due to a fatal error on his part. He thought Nagini was the last horcrux. He remembered the relief he felt when Neville Longbottom decapitated the vile snake… but he was wrong. Voldemort discovered that Harry was after his horcruxes. That day, Voldemort created his last horcrux… the seventh horcrux… and hid it somewhere…somewhere… well, if he knew where, he wouldn't have had to fight the persistent prick every ten or fifteen years. At the bottom of the ocean? Frozen under the ice at the South Pole? Buried in the sand somewhere in the middle of the Sahara? Perhaps buried under a tree along the banks of the Amazon River? Maybe it was a nondescript manhole cover in the middle of Trafalgar Square? Only one being knew, and he certainly wasn't going to tell a soul… living or dead.
Every time the Dark Fuck returned, he was angrier and more desperate than the last… The last time, there was such vast, senseless devastation... such massive loss of life… Even the muggles were dragged into the fight. The resulting World War left very, very few unscathed. So little was left… so little…
Every sign pointed to his next return, but Harry wasn't getting any younger. He now knew what Dumbledore must have felt like in his final years. Harry knew he couldn't fight again and win… this thought steeled his resolve as he continued to turn the hourglass.
Unnoticed by him, Harry had accidentally repeated a count or two during his disturbing ruminations…
One twenty-five… one forty… one forty-four, one forty-five, one forty-six.
He watched as the remainder of the substance climbed up through the hourglass until the bottom was empty. With another tap of his wand, he incanted, "Recolo," and watched as the ethereal sand reversed itself and began trickling back down to the bottom.
He raised his wand, but paused as a rush of vivid memories flashed through his mind... memories of the seventeen years that his scar didn't bother him at all… until that one night, the night of September First after he had seen his children, or who he thought were his children at the time…off on the doomed train that was the Hogwarts Express… the train had never made it to Hogwarts. The memory of the second 'Final Battle' came to his mind, where he once again defeated the Dark Lord, Voldemort, and during which, he lost his wife, Ginerva Potter. He had found out about the ongoing affair that his wife was having with Draco Malfoy only after her death, where the fact was thrown in his face by Malfoy himself. The blonde-haired bastard gleefully rejoined the ranks of the new generation of Death Eaters upon Voldemort's return, all too willing to torture Harry by telling him of the affair and of the fact that Ginny's children were actually his, and not Harry's. He was never able to verify that particular point, but he was sure of the lengthy affair they shared. Upon reflection, it certainly explained the odd 'look' that Malfoy had given them just before the very last Hogwarts Express trip so long ago.
The faces of long dead friends, enemies and strangers flashed before his eyes. Every time the Dark Fuck returned, more faces were added to the seemingly never-ending throng of victims.
He vividly recalled the engagement of his two best friends to each other, and their subsequent wedding… the memories of their constant bickering, both before and after their wedding. He recalled with a scowl their vicious, sometimes violent arguments that he always seemed to be around to witness. After the deaths of their children, Ron had changed. The memory of his friend's drunken rage that fateful night… the one that sent his once-again pregnant, bushy-haired wife to St. Mungo's… came to the forefront of his mind.
Tears were streaming down into his beard at the memory of Hermione's deathbed confession of her unrequited love, her true love, for not his best friend, Ron, but for himself. His face screwed up in anguish as he recalled the funeral of the forty year old, brown haired, brown-eyed witch, and at the memory of his despondent, red-haired best friend's suicide and subsequent funeral. The memory of the past one hundred and thirty long, lonely years of researching and experimenting, and fighting a losing battle against an immortal Dark Lord… all culminating to this very moment in time.
Time that he was about to re-write… the world deserved a second chance… HE deserved a second chance…
With a final sweeping gesture of the Elder Wand, he called out in a strong, determined voice, "Contrado Terebrum Aetas Pridem!"
A wave of rippling energy flashed out from a small, aged house on a street called Privet Drive and instantly expanded out past the horizon. Time and space reconfigured and reinvented itself… The world shifted and changed, until it no longer resembled what it once had been, or more accurately, it changed to resemble exactly how it was before Britain was plunged into unending chaos. Nearly a century and a half collapsed in upon itself, focused upon a single, pivotal point in the old planet's history.
Time… such a beautiful and terrible thing.