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The End Or The Beginning?
The one…, just that, the one.
Harry stood in front of the cracking fireplace. His back to the room. He was thinking hard, how to explain what needed to be explained and keep secret what should be kept secret. After a moment of silent mussing he could feel the tension in the room. He felt their expectant looks on his back.
But he needed to know at least few things before he would say anything. Just a few details.
"Before I begin," he said turning to the room, "I need you to answer some of my questions first."
He waited for their nods.
"I need to know how I died?"
The question hung in the air for several minutes.
Harry knew, that by asking that, he would hurt his parents. He could easily see by Lily's reaction, her teary eyes were enough to confirm his thoughts. He saw James glance sadly at his wife and daughter. His shoulders slouched. Then he looked at his hands and wasn't the one to answer.
It was Flamel, his voice rang through the chamber, his expression grave.
"You were killed by Tom Riddle, as we already mention it. It happened during the Halloween night, on October 31, 1981."
So I died at the same time my parents did in my world. Harry thought.
"He had brought few of his supporters with him. James and Lily, they had managed to fight them off for almost half an hour. Thankfully, some of their friends showed up earlier to the party they were throwing." Flamel paused and looked at James and Lily. Lily was crying, holding very sad looking Rose. James had tears in his eyes as well. He still hadn't looked up.
"During the fight, Riddle had somehow passed behind them and crept to Harry's room, where he… killed him."
"Did he use the killing curse, or some other means." Harry asked noticing that Flamel's voice wavered. Lily wailed harder, Rose was consoling her, looking teary herself. Harry saw James clenched his hands into fists, his jaw set.
Flamel sighed, reluctant to tell the story, but finished nonetheless. "No," he said quietly, "he sliced his throat with something sharp, probably knife."
Harry processed the information in silence. He might had looked cold and uncaring, he saw to many horrors, and Occlumency always helped dealing with results of war, but he was far from it. Oh, how he hated the vile creature. And after he had lost so many, after he had scarified so much, he ended in a place where Tom Riddle still existed. He thought that walking through the veil, he would make the ultimate sacrifice but somehow that was not his time yet. Maybe Riddle wasn't as feared as in Harry's world. Maybe he wasn't as powerful as Voldemort. But from what Harry gathered, he was as evil as the one Harry had spent his life fighting. And he was still running loose.
Harry's expression hardened as he was thinking thoughts, he hoped, never to cross his mind in his next great adventure.
"You weren't under Fidelius?" Harry asked James. It wasn't even a question, more like confirming his suspicions.
James looked up surprised at being asked. "No," he said in a strained voice, "the house was warded in the usual way."
"Did he attack the Longbottoms as well?" His question startled the others. Harry was watching Dumbledore very closely, looking for any indication that the old wizard knew about the prophecy. But he could only see confusion there, no hidden knowledge, nothing, just plain curiosity.
Harry waited patiently for an answer. After awhile Dumbledore shook his head. "He never attacked them directly."
"They have a son, Neville, right?" Harry asked hesitantly. For the first time there was a visible nervousness in his voice. The others wondered if Harry knew Neville from his dimension.
"Yes, I believe he is your age." Dumbledore said.
Harry nodded, he was quickly loosing his composure. Neville is my age. He is alright. Harry took a deep breath, he still didn't know about the prophecy.
"Did you," Harry paused, looking at Dumbledore, "Does Sybil Trelawney work here as a Divination teacher."
Another question that was met with confused glances.
"Our Divination teacher is Hammy Hames. She's been teaching for over twenty two years." It was Dumbledore again that answered him.
Harry sighed with relief, almost sure that the prophecy were never made in this world. It seemed that Dumbledore never meet his Divination teacher. But why would Riddle kill the other Harry. From what they said, it looked like he had come to kill him. Or was he just cruel, and even if not strong enough to kill them, he wanted to harm the Potters.
Fawkes appeared suddenly in a burst of flames, startling the occupants. Dumbledore took the note, the beautiful bird brought, read it, then frowned. He scribed something on a piece of paper and gave it to Fawkes. The Phoenix thrilled beautifully and vanished with another burst of flames. Harry was surprised seeing the bird, after all, Fawkes had left after Dumbledore's death, but then he remembered where he was.
"Is something wrong?" Lily asked.
"No, no. I am sorry for interruption." Dumbledore said, but he didn't elaborate. He looked expectantly at Harry to continue.
"Right," Harry didn't know if he should just ask about prophecy, but he decided that, most likely, there was no prophecy in this world. "For me, it all started on the same night that, it seems, for the other me, all ended."
"As I said earlier, Riddle was known in my world as Lord Voldemort. And that name inflicted fear. There weren't many that could stood against him. In fact there were very few. In my world, at a time, there was only one, that Lord Voldemort feared, the one who defeated Grindewald," all eyes turned to the Headmaster. So he did it here as well. "Dumbledore." He finished.
"My parents were a part of the Order. And they were one of those, very few, that had escaped his wrath. They did it tree times." Harry paused for a moment. "After I was born they decided to go into hiding, under a Fidelius Charm."
Harry continued to tell the story. Their eyes hardened when he said about what Wormtail did.
"Your love saved me," he smiled at his mum, "he took you away, but it saved me and have been protecting me for many years." He had found himself engulfed in her wonderful hug again.
They had tears in their eyes when they found out where Sirius had spent twelve years of his life. His parents already new about the Dursleys. And he didn't really want to talk about his years spent there. He told them about the Philosopher Stone and Flamel's death. The ancient wizard only said, that he considered destroying the Stone himself, on a few occasions.
It turned out they knew about the Chamber of Secrets and the Basilisk. However in their world it took a squad of Aurors and fifty roosters, to kill it. The dairy never surfaced in that world. After he told them about his third year he noticed James' angry looks whenever he brought Snape's name.
To his relief, he had found out that Ron and Hermione, as well as Ginny, were alive and safe. But he didn't ask about them, he wasn't ready, he had mourned them long and knowing they were alive, was enough for then.
Telling his story, Harry had noticed that he spoke mostly of sad and scary things. His good memories were blurred and a very small part of him.
The story grew darker and darker. The mood in Dumbledore's private chambers was getting sadder with every new event from Harry's life.
When he was finishing telling them about his fourth year at Hogwarts, the tears were falling freely and horrified expressions met his words.
"I saw the echo of you coming from his wand," he paused looking at his parents "but strangely, it is one of my best memories of you. For the first time I had a chance to hear your voices, other than when Dementors are near me."
Harry had a wistful smile on his face. He was surprised that when he had managed to deal with Cedric's death, memories of his parents, telling him to go on, that they were proud of him, were the most memorable from his first real duel with Voldemort. Those were one of the memories, that kept him going during the hardest times.
He didn't tell them why his friends and he had gone to Department of Mysteries, only that to save Sirius. Never mentioning the supposed weapon. The news that he was forced to take the Occlumency lessons with Snape, were met with angry accusations in the direction of Dumbledore. The wizard didn't even try to defend the decisions of his other self.
Telling them about Sirius' death had brought another wave of tears from Harry's family.
The professors, however, had a thoughtful expressions when he said how his godfather died.
His sixth year was described rather briefly. Harry had omitted the Horcruxes and concentrate on telling them about Dumbledore's death and Malfoy's role in it. Harry could see that James almost rushed to the dungeons to face Snape, when Harry informed them who killed the Headmaster. It turned out that Snape wasn't in the Order in this world, but he also wasn't suspected of siding with Riddle. Even if few, James and Sirius among them, thought him evil.
Harry had found it surprisingly easy to talk about all of that by then. Those were old memories. Memories of times when he was young and naïve. He was getting more nervous when he had started telling them about more recent events.
He told them about his training, about his increasing role in the Order. It was hard to describe events and explain why people had chosen to listen to him, without revealing the prophecy.
When he was telling them about the battles he had had to participate, about his dying friends, his voice had become tense. He was struggling to finish the story.
They were shocked to the bone, when they heard that it came to destruction of Ministry, Hogsmade and some parts of Hogwarts. That Beauxbatons Academy didn't exist, as well as some other, smaller schools. They couldn't believe that Harry had set himself and the men he was leading, to destroy Durmstrang. He had mentioned places that even James, Lily and Rose had never heard of. But the shocked looks on Flamel and Dumbledore's faces, had told them that those places were of some significance.
Harry had finished his story, telling them about his fight with Voldemort, on the debris of the Department of Mysteries. They had already knew about his connection with Voldemort. He had told them, that he had killed the monster. And that he had walked through the veil, after he had sent there Dark Lord's dead body. He had to be sure that any parts of Riddle were removed from his world.
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"Rose said that we should somehow brighten Harry up," James said to Lily when he had walked into their bedroom.
It was much later in the evening. They had come back from Hogwarts when it was getting dark.
Lily had been sitting on the bench by the window. She was gazing out the window, into the clear, summer night. James noticed that she had been withdrawn ever since Harry had finished his story.
He walked to her and stood beside her taking her hand in his.
"I can't even start to imagine living the life he had." She whispered in a teary voice. James didn't say anything.
"And the things he didn't say? James, how can one person live through that? Where is justice in all of that?" She was crying freely by then, holding his hand tightly to her heart.
"I…"she started in a chocked voice, "I th-think, I am glad our Harry died." She cried harder. "I don't know if I could sacrifice myself like that, knowing what would happened." She chocked on the words, her breath shallow. "Am-Am I a bad mother?" She broke down completely.
James knelt beside her, he was crying as well, and took her in his arms. He let her cry, comforting her quietly.
"No, honey. You are a wonderful mother. Don't think about that, love. Be proud of him. He survived and became a man we met, Lils." He stroke her hair.
"He is with us now," he said softly, "and no matter how hard his life had been, he has a family that will love him through the rest of it." They stayed silent for a long time, thinking about their son.
Finally Lily turned from the window and looked at him. Her beautiful, green eyes were teary, but a small smile graced her angel face.
"Thank you James. I love you."
"I love you longer." He smiled and kissed his wife tenderly.
Some time later, they were watching the sleepy, peaceful street, silently.
"When do you think he will come back? I think he should stay, he was obviously tired." Lily said anxiously.
"They'll be fine, honey. I'm sure that Harry and Sirius are having fun together."
Lily snorted despite her evident worry. "Yeah. I am sure Sirius is trilled that he will have someone he can go to pick some girls with. Oh, how many times I've heard that Remus is no fun and Kingsley is to stiff." She finished shaking her head. But then she sobered again. "I hope that Harry can relax. Did you notice that he is always so alert? Even today at breakfast, when laughing and all, he seemed so…, I don't know, aware?"
James nodded. "I think Rose was right, we should arrange something. I think a Quidditch match, well, and a picnic, would be a good idea. We could put together a bunch of people and have fun."
After another few minutes of silence James said.
"I don't think he will be back today, honey." He leaned and kissed her lovingly. "Come to bed, love.
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AN:
And there you have it.
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Chris Halliwell - As I am sure you've noticed, Sirius and Remus are not a couple. Sorry mate, but I can't picture myself with a man and I couldn't write anything like that. I wouldn't know how and I wouldn't like to read it. … Great that you are from New Zealand, it is nice to know that someone is reading my story over there. I mean, this is the furthest place from Poland. You couldn't go any further because you would start coming back.
Chapter 7 - Midnight Dragon Shadow; Freak in Corner; Emmelz; Crydwyn; Joanna Potter; .; bananana; Althea; Anave Lipad; Chris-Halliwell; NoAlias; Bloodless Ace; haro-chan; pinkharry; william488; Jinxeh; Bluie Twilight Star; japanese-jew; CrimsonReality; Shadowed Rains; Inu-Angel Z; Mystiksnake; Intromit; Padfoot Reincarnated; sparkley-tangerine;