Disclaimer: I own nothing of the 'Harry Potter' universe. I make no money writing this stuff.
A/N: Here we go… What kind of Karma is our Harry collecting from this chapter? You'll just have to read to find out. As the saying goes… 'How d'ya like me now?' ; (Word Count: 4365)
----------
Chapter 13: As Ye Sow…
From The Life of Harry James Potter – Excerpt from Chapter 73: The Major Players in the Wizard Wars.
By far, the most notorious Death Eater was Lucius Malfoy. Until his death in 2022, he was the major financier of Riddle's cause. The Galleons he slipped to countless businesses and Ministry officials were the catalyst for virtually all of the hardships suffered by the supposed 'underclasses' of wizarding society. His influence decidedly shaped the attitudes of the controlling pureblood elite, making my job as 'the boy who lived' exponentially harder.
Lucius was never overt in his ministrations, he preferred to just set things into motion and then sit back and watch the chaos, ready to jump in to claim responsibility for 'cleaning things up' if events didn't go exactly as he planned. The event that perfectly demonstrated this tactic of his was when he slipped the diary horcrux to Ginny Weasley. Not only did he nearly succeed in returning Tom Riddle to a body two years earlier than he eventually did, but cemented the idea of me being Ginny's 'knight in shining armour.'
From that point in time, Ginny was solely focused on being 'Mrs. Harry Potter.' Eventually, she got her wish, but as with most things in life, if you get what you wish for, it may not turn out to be what you really wanted. As the years passed, she became less interested in being the wife of 'the famous Harry Potter' and more interested in what lay beyond our marital bed. That interest eventually found sanctuary in the arms of Draco.
Draco had everyone convinced of his reluctance to serve Tom Riddle… even Dumbledore was fooled.
I, for one, never trusted him… my suspicions turned out to be right on the money, and his actions cost me the family I had always wanted, and the life of the woman that I thought I had loved. I had never really recovered from Ginny's treacherous infidelity, nor the fact that her children weren't actually mine, but my worst enemy's.
Yes, Lucius had taught Draco well…
----------
Thursday, June 15th, 1989 8:09 AM
Harry awoke with a groan and climbed out of bed. With his eyes barely open. He crossed the room and headed for the bathroom to prepare for the day's training. As he passed by the window between his bed and the bathroom door, he caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye and stopped in his tracks. He turned his head and caught sight of something that he wished he didn't see.
On a small, rocky mound of earth in the back yard sat Jaana with her head resting in the palms of her hands as she stared out to the horizon. She had been distant and pensive for the past three weeks… the time since the incident with Jonsson.
The muggle police had been by a few days after the incident investigating the disappearance of a Jon Jonsson, as Jonsson had been last seen leaving the tavern with Jaana. When Jaana explained what she remembered of the night, which was barely anything at all except for being in the tavern and then waking up at home on the sofa, Harry noticed both of the officers giving Jaana a sympathetic grimace. The officers then mentioned, off the record, of course, that there had been previous complaints filed against Jonsson… apparently he had the habit of drugging young ladies and having his way with them. The victims, usually tourists who had only come to Iceland for short wilderness vacations, would never stay in the small country long enough to have any charges carried through.
Jaana's complexion became paler as the officers explained Jonsson's history. She had told them that she didn't think that she was assaulted, but really wasn't sure. She didn't feel as though she had been violated… although she had never had sex before, she assumed that she could tell if anything had happened.
Of course, Harry knew that the man was mostly unsuccessful in his attempt to rape Jaana. When he threw Jonsson across the room, the man's bits were as soft as a grape, most likely due to how drunk the man was. Still, Jonsson had made a good show of it at the time.
After briefly inspecting the area, the police left… leaving Harry to comfort his badly shaken guardian.
Harry wished he could tell Jaana what he knew of the attack. Seeing her in her depressed state was tearing at his heart, but he really couldn't tell her about what he had done. He still didn't know what prompted him to do what he did… something came over him at the time, something that made his actions seem logical and rational… Jonsson deserved what he got. Even now, he knew he would do the same thing over again if the same situation arose. Jaana was all he had, and he couldn't bear the thought of her being harmed in any way. He couldn't lose her… not now.
Harry spent a few more moments looking out at Jaana sitting there with her lost expression. He sighed and then continued his trek to the bathroom.
----------
Sunday, July 2nd, 1989 3:16 AM
Harry sat on a stool with his chin resting on his folded arms, which were in turn resting on the tabletop in front of a steaming cauldron. Harry had his tired eyes fixed on a small hourglass whose sand was just about depleted.
He had been working on this potion for nearly a month. In just a few minutes, it would finally be ready.
As the last few grains fell from the top chamber, Harry stood from the stool, grabbed a cloth, and lifted the cauldron from the fire. He hefted up the small cauldron and immersed it in a pail of ice water, causing a cloud of hissing steam to billow up from within it.
Harry fanned the steam away with his hand as he looked closely at the liquid in the cauldron. He watched as the thin, watery liquid rapidly changed from a translucent ruby red to an opaque, pale pink. The liquid then condensed into an uneven lump of pink goo that sat on the bottom of the now cool cauldron.
Harry reached in and picked up the substance, placed it on a clean spot on the table, and began rolling it into a long, thin stick that appeared to have a rubbery quality to it. He picked up a silver knife and began cutting the substance into twenty, inch-long pieces.
After a quick reference to a page of parchment that was lying nearby, a page he had copied out of his book without Jaana's knowledge, he nodded to himself as he reached for a wooden rack that contained four small vials of different coloured liquid. He picked up the first vial containing Essence of Camphor and placed a drop on five of the pieces. Upon contact, each of the five pieces turned white. He took the white pieces, wrapped them in specially prepared grape skins, and then placed them into a small bag marked 'dispel.'
Harry repeated the process with the remaining three vials of Essence of Myrrh, Essence of Cherry Blossom, and Essence of Galangal, the results of which he placed in bags marked F, Y, and O, respectively.
Harry took a few minutes to clean his equipment before he doused the lights and headed back to his bedroom. He placed the bags deep into a corner of his trunk and climbed into bed where he sat there staring out of his window at the deep blue sky. The sun was still just under the horizon where it had been all night, but soon it would peek above the distant mountains.
He was now ready. He had everything he needed to put his plan into motion. This was the week he would right a plethora of wrongs.
----------
Sunday, July 2nd, 1989 8:45 AM
Harry rose from his bed and walked over to his desk. On the desktop was a recent copy of Britain's Daily Prophet. The paper was folded so that page three was on top.
His eyes focused on an article that praised the efforts of the benevolent Lucius Malfoy who had just made a sizable donation to the newly enacted 'Equal Start' plan, a program that supposedly helps children of pureblood families 'catch up' with their muggleborn counterparts. The argument was that muggleborn children were receiving a 'formal, publicly financed education' while magical children were forced to be home-schooled, causing an unfair advantage in favor of the muggleborns. Of course, it was never mentioned that the muggleborn children were not receiving any magical tutoring, something that this new program would supply to pureblood children.
Harry knew that this was in response to the increased surveillance by the Ministry on all magical households, so any advantage that the Malfoy patriarch could supply to the pureblood community, especially his own son, would be pursued with vigor. He would do anything to make 'real' wizards and witches seem more adept at magic.
It had just so happened that Mr. Malfoy would be making a personal appearance that day at 9:00 AM for the opening of the new school that was located in muggle London near Diagon Alley.
Harry planned on being there, too.
It was time to set things in motion. He opened a drawer and withdrew a parchment envelope that had the name, 'Sirius Black' inked upon it. He walked across the room and opened his window. With just a thought, he summoned Wynmae who was playing down by the glacial stream that bordered the property. An instant later, the little creature was fluttering just outside of his window.
"Are you sure that it's not too far for you to travel?" asked Harry, "It will be a lot warmer there than it is here."
Wynmae giggled and said, "Not too far, and not too warm. Plenty of cold water to help Wynmae."
"Okay," whispered Harry, "just remember that you can't be seen by anyone… leave the letter for him to find and get out of there, and watch out for the dementors…"
"The Old Ones will not bother Wynmae," chimed the little creature as she reached for the envelope, "Wynmae will be back very soon."
As soon as Wynmae touched the envelope, it dissolved into a wispy vapor along with the little creature. Harry watched as the foggy mist swept across the dimly lit landscape and disappeared to the southeast. He closed his window and waited.
A few minutes later, he heard Jaana's light footsteps pass his door and disappear down the stairs. When he heard the front door close and the telltale crack of Apparition, he knew that Jaana had left for her monthly shopping trip which would end with her having lunch with Healer Cooley. He knew that he had well over four hours until she returned home.
Harry reached under his bed and pulled out a cloth sack that contained a variety of different clothing. He pulled out a small sky-blue sundress, a lacy white shirt, a small pair of girl's underwear, a pair of long white stockings and a pair of black leather shoes. He then opened his trunk and pulled out three wrapped pieces of goo from the bags marked 'dispel,' 'O,' and 'F.'
Harry quickly got undressed and placed his clothes into a small knapsack. He unwrapped the pale yellow 'F' piece and looked at it with distaste before he popped it into his mouth and began to quickly chew. A few disgusting moments later, he swallowed hard and waited.
A minute passed with no effect whatsoever, and he was beginning to think he had made a mistake in the brewing process when he felt an uncomfortable tingling begin in his belly that quickly spread throughout his body.
The change only took a few painful moments, but after the tingling had passed, he turned and looked at himself in his mirror.
Looking back at him was, what appeared to be, a very small girl, perhaps six years old, with long, black hair, thin, spindly arms and legs, and a rather thin, featureless body… well, it appeared featureless to him as he found himself staring at the place where at least one prominent feature had been just a minute before.
He shook himself out of his shock and quickly dressed in the girl's clothing he had set out for himself, stuffed his wand, the 'O' piece, and the 'dispel' piece into the bag that contained his normal clothes as well as a larger set, a small metal cage, and a muggle tape recorder. He slung the lot over his shoulder as he took another quick look in the mirror to make sure his scar was covered by the lengthened bangs of his hair before he soundlessly vanished from the room.
----------
Sunday, July 2nd, 1989 9:57 AM
Lucius Malfoy was feeling quite pleased with himself. Being a respected member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, and counting on the fact that nearly all of the other members were woefully misinformed of the true nature of muggle education, it was very easy for him to convince the entire board to support his plan to provide underage magical training to pureblood children. With the support of the entire board, it was assured that the Oversight Committee of the Ministry's Department of Magical Education would approve the establishment of the new training facility.
Those fools are so gullible…
He had just left the new facility and was walking down the sidewalk towards Diagon Alley when he noticed a small girl wearing a sky-blue sundress leaning against the wall of a building and crying piteously.
Normally, he would pass by the urchin with hardly a glance, but paused when he recognized that the girl had attended the opening ceremony for the school he had just left. As he approached the girl, he could tell that she was a magical child, and since she was at the ceremony, she was more than likely a pureblood.
He almost… almost… stopped and asked the girl what the trouble was. He fully intended to stroll past the girl when she looked up at him with her teary green eyes. They immediately widened in recognition.
"Mister Malfoy, sir!" pleaded the girl, "Can you help me?"
Lucius easily detected the refined quality behind her cracking voice… she was certainly a pureblood. Still, he opened his mouth to inform the whelp that he had neither the time nor the inclination to assist her when the girl spoke again.
"The muggles, sir!" said the girl in a squeaky, panicked voice, "They grabbed my sister and dragged her in there! I heard her scream!"
Lucius looked down into the shadowed alley that the young girl was pointing to. He saw nothing, and was about to scoff at the dark-haired girl when he heard the clang of a rubbish bin and a muffled cry of pain. He heard the girl behind him let out a frightened whimper, and decided that a bit of authorized 'muggle hunting' could do nothing but improve his standing in the magical community.
Lucius drew his wand and whispered to the girl behind him, "Wait here, I'll get to the bottom of this."
Lucius entered the shadows of the alley, but before he made it even ten feet in, he felt a series of sudden, sharp pains pepper his back. Even when he looked down at himself and saw the dozen thin, pointy metal shards sticking out through the front of his robes, he still had no idea what had just happened. He turned his surprised face around and saw the little girl standing just a few feet behind him… with a blank, emotionless expression on her face and an apple wood wand in her hand. As his vision faded, he could have sworn that the little girl's face was covered with frost, and the breath that was escaping her nostrils came out in vaporous clouds, as if it were the middle of winter.
That was the last thing Lucius Malfoy would ever see.
The little girl stepped over his lifeless body and walked further down the alley to where she had hidden the tape recorder that was still emitting the sounds of a struggle.
Just as she clicked the machine off, a blonde, middle-aged woman stepped into the entrance of the alley. The woman looked down in horror at the lifeless body.
"Lucius?" she asked fearfully as she stepped closer to the body. The woman looked up and saw the young, dark-haired girl standing in the middle of the alley a few meters beyond where Lucius was lying. The child looked back at her with cold, impassive eyes and silently vanished from sight.
----------
Sunday, July 2nd, 1989 10:08 AM
Harry faded into existence in central Devon in a grassy clearing amidst a copse of birch trees at the base of a hill. He had scouted out the area a few days earlier, and found it was the easiest place to begin his search for the one that had caused both him and his older self a lifetime of misery… he still had about two more hours before Jaana returned, and from this place he had about a thirty minute walk to where he could find his quarry. There was one final thing he had to take care of this day before he returned home to Iceland.
He had just begun his trek when he heard a very loud explosion come from up the hill just beyond the trees behind him.
He didn't even flinch at the loud noise. He instinctively crouched down, and then rolled across the ground to his left behind the cover of a wide bush. He came to his feet again with his wand in his hand and in a defensive posture, but the only thing he could see was a cloud of black smoke rising from beyond the trees up the hill.
Harry quickly and cautiously navigated through the woods until he came to the area at the hill's very crest. There stood a tall tower made of dark stone looming against the cloudy, late-morning sky. Out through one of the broken lower windows poured a billowing black smoke. Through the crackling fire that was burning inside, he could hear the cries of a young girl.
Instinct kicked in once again and he raced up to the tower's front door. He entered the lower level and paused for only a moment at the sight of all of the bizarre oddities that covered every inch of the walls and were scattered throughout the room. There were a series of glass display cases that held, among other things, fragments of petrified animal parts and incomplete skeletons of creatures he couldn't readily identify. There were clipped articles about odd creatures that were accompanied by blurry, unfocused pictures of whatever the articles were about.
Amidst all of the cluttered displays, he noticed a relatively clear moving photograph of a creature that he immediately recognized… it was of a being that looked very much like Wynmae. He was about to move towards that display case when he heard the girl's pitiful cry coming from the next room and he remembered why he was there.
Harry rushed across the room to the door that was next to a tall spiral staircase. When he opened the door, he immediately started choking from the wall of black, foul-smelling smoke that poured out through the doorway.
"Hello?" Harry called into the smoky room between his coughs, "Are you all right?"
There was no answer save for the sound of the small girl's crying. Harry cautiously entered the room, but he couldn't immediately see anything through the thick smoke. As the smoke began to clear, he could just make out a figure kneeling in front of a motionless form lying on the floor.
Harry carefully stepped closer and asked, "What happened?"
The kneeling form slowly turned her face towards Harry and he could see that a good portion of the small girl's long blonde hair had been singed away and that her tear-stained face was coated in the same black soot that covered everything in the room.
The girl's wide, protuberant eyes lingered on Harry for a few seconds before they drifted back down to the figure lying on the floor.
"M-my mother… dead…" whispered the girl in a halting voice.
Harry looked around the smoke filled room and saw that the fire from the burning table on the far side of the room was beginning to spread to the curtains and other nearby pieces of furniture.
Harry laid his hand on the girl's shoulder and calmly said, "We have to get out of here… the fire…"
"No!" screamed the girl as she threw herself onto the still smouldering form of her mother.
Harry grabbed the girl and tried to pull her away, but found he didn't have the strength to even budge her. He suddenly remembered that he was still in the body of a very young girl. He quickly reached into his pack and pulled out the wrapped piece of goo that came from the bag labeled, 'dispel,' peeled off the leaf wrapper, and popped the white, clay-like substance into his mouth and began to chew.
It took a minute after swallowing the goo for him to feel the effects of the prior piece wearing off. He felt his body enlarging when he suddenly realized that he was still in the sundress that was quickly becoming four or five sizes too small for his nearly nine-year-old body, but he didn't have time to change. The fire was quickly spreading and the room was beginning to rapidly fill with smoke once again.
In his original, larger body, he was easily able to pull the young girl away from the lifeless body of her mother. He dragged the kicking and screaming girl from the room and outside into the tower's front yard.
Still panting from the exertion, he told the distraught girl, "Stay here, I'll try to get her out."
She looked back at him with a confused expression, obviously trying to figure out where the small girl went and where this boy in a skin-tight, girl's dress came from.
Harry rushed back into the smoky tower and navigated through the junk towards the burning room. He would try to get the mother's body out, but he knew that it would be nearly impossible for him, and he wouldn't risk his life for a corpse. If it got too bad in there, he would abandon the body… but he had to at least try.
Harry kept close to the floor as he crawled inside of the burning room. He felt his way to the body of the girl's mother, grabbed hold of her charred robe and tried to drag the body towards the door. The rapidly building smoke burned his throat and made it difficult for him to breathe. Just as he decided it was a lost cause and he should get out while he could he heard something that made him freeze in place… a low, pained moan that came from the body he was dragging.
The woman wasn't dead.
Adrenaline coursed through Harry's veins as he began frantically pulling the woman across the floor, but he knew his energy was quickly draining away along with his strength.
There was only one thing he could think of to do. He reached into his backpack once again and drew out the last piece of goo that had been labeled 'O,' unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth.
By the time the substance took effect, his eyes were burning badly and his throat was nearly closed against the smoke that permeated the burning room. He could feel bits of smouldering cinders falling against his exposed skin, as the tiny dress he was wearing had ripped away at the seams when his body took on its new shape.
Harry scooped the stricken woman up into his arms and sprinted out of the room and outside into the fresh air.
He laid the woman down on the grass and began choking in as much clean air as he could as the young girl ran up and collapsed on her mother.
"Get help," choked out Harry, "She's not dead."
The girl looked up at him with shock clearly etched on her face. He wondered why she was just staring at him until he looked down at himself and saw that he had the body of an adult… a completely naked adult, save for a few shards of blue sundress and a now very restrictive backpack.
Harry shrugged off the backpack, reached in, and pulled out a large pair of trousers. He slipped them on and was just buttoning the waist when he heard voices approaching from down the hill.
"Help is coming," Harry said to the young girl who was staring back at him with wide eyes, "I have to go. I can't be discovered here."
"Who are you really? I saw you change right before my eyes…you're not a girl, and you're not an adult… are you a Mandrogan Chameleon?"
Harry wasn't quite sure he knew what a Mandrogan Chameleon was, but he was sure that he wasn't one of them.
"I'm just a boy. My name's Harry."
"My name is Luna. Will you come back to visit me?" asked the little girl.
Harry looked closely at the soot covered girl for what seemed like the first time. He could almost see the loneliness in her eyes. He could tell that she was yet another child who was virtually friendless.
"I'll visit you soon…" said Harry as he looked over his shoulder towards the approaching voices, "I must go now."
With that, Harry silently faded from sight and returned to Iceland. He would have to postpone his quest to steal the rat from the Weasley family, but vowed to himself that he would get the traitorous rodent very, very soon.
----------