Desiring Other Times
Chapter 16 – Cleverness
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, this would cost you mighty amounts of money, be in paper form with a nice cover and advertised through some means other than FanFiction.
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We may call planet Earth one 'world' in an infinite number of possibilities, one existence in our solar system, our galaxy, our universe. But within this one world among worlds are the various existences of all the life-forms on this planet. The extent of the world that a chipmunk that has been born and raised in captivity for the sole purpose of having chemicals experimentally used on it is completely different to mine. My world is that of comfortable beds and warm clothes in winter, of fresh food and fine friends.
My brother and I may belong to the same 'world', but the Fates have treated him far worse than they have treated me. Sometimes I believe that if the prophecy hadn't been made, if Voldemort had bothered to find out the full contents of the prophecy, if only all manner of small changes had occurred… I believe that my brother and I would have been treated like any ordinary child, that he wouldn't have felt the desire to prove himself better than me. That he wouldn't need to get stronger. And he wouldn't have ended up the way he has.
The purebloods say that Harry James Potter bit off more than he could chew. That it was the mudblood in him that made him too weak to handle the power of Magic. I wouldn't know, being of mixed blood myself, but I truly believe that they must be wrong. They have to be.
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"-my… Jeremy… wake up, Jeremy. Jeremy!" I snapped my eyes open as the voice grew louder and more strident.
Some indistinct figure (my eyes were still cloudy with sleep) stalked to my window and ripped the curtains aside, bring glaring light in to flood my bedroom. The lancing brilliance caused me to shield my eyes with one arm and I propped myself up with the other. Looking down at the arm that I had used to sit myself up, the fog of sleep was instantaneously vaporized as I realised that Harry would never be able to do something as simple as sit himself up with one arm, the other… slamming down on an alarm clock? Throwing off the covers?
No matter – all that resounded in my mind (like every morning since that day) as I sluggishly climbed out of bed was that here was just one more thing I had over Harry. I was hale of health, whole of body, sane of mind and on the way to becoming a powerful wizard. Harry may be sane (although the jury's still out on that one), but the rest, the rest Harry used to be.
There is no worse feeling than to have something incredible and then lose it. Look how much more unhappy little kids become if you first give them candy then take it away from them, compared to if you just ignored them. I have no idea what goes on in his mind, since Professors Snape and Dumbledore decided that it would be 'unsafe' if I learned the art of Legilimency and inadvertently fell to the same fate as my twin.
"Mu-u-um! Did you have to open the curtains?" I complained, although not with much enthusiasm – no matter how much Harry complained, he would never get his arm back, or his magic. In hindsight, it was as if magic had defined him, as if magic had helped form the majority of his personality. Losing his magic had destroyed him immensely – thinking of it like that makes me wonder what would happen to all those purebloods if they lost their magic…
Perhaps they hate Muggles because they fear their determination? Because they believe they couldn't do as good a job if they were Muggles? It certainly opens up a new dimension to the matter – 'Purebloods Hate Muggles Because They're Jealous', I can see that on the Daily Prophet, maybe. Wait, I take that back, probably more likely on the cover of something like the Quibbler, seeing as the Prophet is primarily owned by purebloods.
But that's not worries me. What worries me is that before… before his 'accident', Harry and I seemed well on the way to being, well, I don't know, friends? Yes, friends, something like that; I'm sure that given time, Harry and I would have been able to call each other a 'friend' as well as a 'brother'. But now, now? Harry doesn't even talk when he comes back (we're not even sure if he talks when he's at school either, come to think of it), and certainly not to me.
Dumbledore comes to visit some times – he used to visit every other night, but when it became obvious that Harry outright loathed his presence (he only 'hated' the rest of us), the visits dropped off to once a week, to once a month, to hardly ever. During the holidays, Dumbledore sends me a letter and asks about Harry in a rather indirect manner, his request hidden among the quite amusing anecdotes he writes about. I do believe that most of them are fabricated, although it wouldn't quite do to accuse the Supreme Mugwump of the Wizengamot of being a fraud, would it?
"Yes I did, Jeremy, now get up!" Commanded Mum, and I stumbled, yawning, to the door, down the hallway, past Harry's room (the door was firmly shut like all the others in the hallway, but it seemed to exude an aura of menacing animosity) and into the bathroom. Matthew was already there, with Dad, and Dad was brushing Matthew's teeth.
My littlest brother was now almost three years old, and it was almost exactly that long ago that Harry had experienced that life-changing moment. When Matthew had started to learn to speak, he had also started asking those difficult questions like 'How come Harry has one arm?' and 'What are those?' (as he pointed at Harry's scars). It was probably why Harry seemed capable of hating Matthew more than he hated the rest of us – even if we all had magic, we didn't consciously and deliberately bring his situation up.
Breakfast was a quiet affair. Occasionally, Matthew's intermittent burbling would break through the silence and Mum would fuss about him for a few moments before it was back to quiet again.
"I'm staying at school next holidays." Harry suddenly uttered, and then it really was silent – the clinking of cutlery on flatware had ceased on Matthew had paused in his struggles against the highchair.
"Why not, honey?" Harry's eyes narrowed at that last word, but he didn't comment.
He shrugged. "I'd rather not waste your time and mine, travelling to and from Eton. Petrol costs a lot these days and all, and-"
"Oh, don't worry about that, Harry." Dad waved a hand dismissively. We can deal, it's no skin off our noses to drive to Eton to pick you up."
Harry's face froze into a mask of nothingness. "…and I want to stay at Eton so I don't fall behind in my studies. I have holiday projects that can't really be completed at home, seeing as well, we don't have all the books I'll need."
Mum sighed and put her tea-cup down. "Ho- Harry, you know we offered to stock our library with Muggle books. And the offer still stands, Harry."
Harry sighed. "I… well, I think it's really… you've already done so much, buying me three computers-" Two were desktops, one for home and one at Eton, and the third was a notebook-tablet combination. "-getting the house fitted with the Internet, I mean… it's just…"
Had Harry spoken more than two words during the holiday, I might have believed that he truly was uncomfortable with Mum and Dad spending all that money on him. Well, saying it like that isn't quite right – I mean, it's more like it seems that isn't the only reason why he wants to stay at Eton College during the holidays. Mum and Dad seemed to miss "…you've already done so much, I…" Here, he seemed to be trying to speak around a lump in his throat, and overwhelming emotion welled in Mum's eyes, while Dad blinked rapidly.
"Oh, Harry." Mum hurried to his side and hugged him tightly, while Dad tried to maintain his façade of 'I'm too tough to cry'. "If…" She sniffled slightly. "If you ever need anything, anything!" Mum emphasised. "Then you just have to ask, okay?"
She looked at him patiently, and Harry finally nodded, slowly. "Okay," he replied, in a rather small voice.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, wondering just how much of it had been an act. For as long as I could remember, Harry had never acted like this, especially to Mum and Dad. But who could say that he couldn't change?
Mum and Dad fussed over Harry for a little bit more, while Matthew and I ate our breakfasts silently. For a toddler, Matthew seemed a lot more intelligent than he should be. Not that I had any idea how intelligent one should be, as I didn't really have all that much experience with young… with babies. But it didn't change the fact that Matthew's sudden reticence in the face of the 'family bonding' Mum, Dad and Harry were engaging in was a little eerie.
"Mattie?" I murmured out of the corner of my mouth, and he twitched, then slowly turned his head to look at me.
"What, Jere… Jerim… Jerry?" The jarring voice of paranoia within me kept leaping about – Matthew had spoken quietly, and with Harry's little attempt at fooling Mum and Dad, I got the feeling that Matthew was trying to make me think he couldn't say my name.
I blinked, then shook my head. "Never mind, it's nothing." I finally muttered, and he blinked owlishly at me then returned to clumsily eating his breakfast.
"Well!" Dad drew away from Harry and sniffled a little, but then he pasted a grin on his visage. Mum wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, and sat back as well. "I guess it's almost time for… for us to drive Harry to Eton." said Dad as he glanced at the clock.
Breakfast was finished up quickly. Mum went to help change Matthew, while I checked my things again, to make sure I had everything. Dad Levitated Harry's suitcases into the car, then my trunk as well. Eventually, all five of us were packed into the car, and we drove off to Eton College.
Once there, another tearful goodbye (on Mum's part) took place, and then we drove to a nearby Wizarding Portkey portal. All the portals in the UK were designed so that large items (like cars) could also be transported, and in a flash and a whirl (and a whirl and a whirl and a whirl) we were at the closest portal to Kings Cross Station. Carefully, Dad manoeuvred the car back onto the streets, and then slipped into a parking lot that had been built specifically for the use of wizards and witches. There were several wards on the lot, including Muggle Repelling, Notice-Me-Not, Unplottable and a rather strange Space Stretching ward which was (apparently) similar to one used by the Knight Bus. Dad parked the car in between a horse-drawn carriage and a vintage ragtop.
As we alighted from the car, Dad frowned at the emblem on the carriage (a drop of sparkling crimson on a circle of silver – the crest that fundamentalist purebloods stamped across practically everything they owned). Unfortunately, all spots in the parking lot were on reservation only, and the one that was always next to ours was the one for the Parkinsons – spots were allocated alphabetically, unless you felt it was worth throwing several hundred galleons in to get a spot that was only a few metres closer to the entrance to Kings Cross. The Malfoys always did that for some reason, but I supposed it was just because they wanted everyone to know they were rich. Excessively rich.
But not rich enough to bring his son back to life.
Reports had filtered into the country through word of mouth that Malfoy (senior or junior didn't matter now, only one of them was alive now) had travelled to almost all of the Alchemists in the world, and begged them to bring his son back. After the first few times of being violently rejected (human transmutation was forbidden for some reason), he proceeded to ask to learn the art of Alchemy. No matter what he did, none of them said yes, and even he and his many friends couldn't face off against a whole clan of Alchemists when he tried to kidnap one.
And so it was that the Malfoy family wasn't present at all today, and they wouldn't be present when the holidays rolled round, or next year, or the year after that. In fact, most people wondered if the Malfoy family would ever have a reason to be at Kings Cross Station ever again, but being a rather traditional family, it was with little doubt that Lucius Malfoy was going back to square one in his 'Procure an Heir' path. Well, not quite step one, considering he already had a wife.
"Everything all right, Jeremy?" Dad peered down at me, wondering why I was standing frozen next to the boot of the car, staring in the direction of the place where the Malfoys normally parked. I closed my eyes, and tried to clear my thoughts the way Dumbledore had been trying to teach me for several years. For some reason, it only seemed to get harder and harder, and Snape had been particularly venomous ever since.
"No- I mean, yeah, everything's fine." I shook my head, and grabbed hold of the luggage trolley Mum had eased my trunk on to. We trundled on to Kings Cross Station (Dad was carrying Matthew), and were immersed in a crowd of Muggles, with a few islands of rather conspicuous wizards and witches (some were talking rather loudly about Magic or Muggles, or were wearing robes and suchlike) dotting the press of people.
Mum helped me haul my school trunk onto the train, just like she had for the last two years. This was my going to be my fourth year at school, the third year I would spent tens of kilometres away from my twin. "Look after yourself, Jeremy." She murmured as she hugged me tightly, and we stood there for a while. She sniffled, then drew back and looked at me tearfully, worriedly, as if this might be the year I would come back in a coffin. It didn't help that at the Quidditch World Cup Final, Death Eaters had swarmed over the campsites, and the Dark Mark had been fired into the air.
People were getting nervous, and it was times like these I wish I knew just what was going on. That I wished that the Sphere could let me see who the Death Eaters were and what they were up to. Unfortunately, I still hadn't gotten the hang of concentrating on more than one sphere at a time, so I couldn't scry for information as it required the use of the Time and Space spheres, and quite possibly the Soul one as well, but I wasn't sure.
"Stay safe, son." Dad whispered, and Matthew peered at me with wide eyes, and waved cheerfully.
"Bye bye, Jerry!" he called, and I smiled sadly.
"Bye, Matthew. Mum, Dad." I hugged them in turn, and then they returned to the platform, leaving me standing in the corridor of the carriage. Some students brushed past me, and I smiled again, wryly this time. They'd never recognise me now, not with my hair having grown a little longer and the tips bleached blonde. Puberty had been kind to me, and I had shot up a few inches but still trailed behind Harry, who had always been taller than me.
"Don't forget to write!" Mum reminded me, just like she did every year after Harry's 'accident'.
"I won't!" I cried back, and stumbled to brace myself as the train started to move.
When the train had pulled out of the station, I returned to my compartment, and slid open a Muggle book about meditation techniques. Ever since Harry had lost his magic due to bad information that he had come by through Legilimency, my ability at Mind Magic had started to wane. Dumbledore hypothesised it was because I didn't want to end up the way Harry did, but it seemed nothing could help me remove my mental block on learning Occlumency and Legilimency.
The door to the compartment slid open and closed as people came and went, trying to look for their friends.
"Jeremy? Is that you?" I looked up from the book, my hair swaying with the motion.
"Oh, hey Ron. How were your holidays?" I closed the book and tucked it away. Ron entered the compartment, trunk in tow, and I realised suddenly just how tall he was – the compartment seemed to shrink as he passed through the door.
"Hmm? Oh, they were okay, I suppose. Mum got really worried though about the World Cup – I mean, we didn't have the time to send her an owl or anything, telling her we were fine." Ron had gone to the World Cup, as his father had been able to (somehow) procure some tickets. When Ron had invited me to join them, Dad said I couldn't go, as it would be 'detrimental to Harry's progress'.
"…and we were in the Top Box-"
"Ron, is that you?" The door slid open once more, and Neville stood in the doorway.
"Why, yes, of course it's me. Who were you expecting, Malfoy?" Ron rolled his eyes, and Neville's eyes darted to look at me, to gauge my reaction, but when it became obvious that I was merely bored with everything, he grinned as well.
"Well, I don't know. Maybe you're some mutant clone of him or something." Neville sat down next to Ron, and we chatted about the holidays.
"-and we were in the Top Box and everything." Ron's hands gesticulated wildly as he described the Quidditch World Cup Final, and Neville showed me a few of the souvenirs he had bought while there. A few minutes later, Ginny and Luna turned up as well, and our compartment started getting a little cramped.
"Hang on!" I stood up and shooed everyone outside. "Just wait, I'll explain." I waved a hand at them dismissively when they complained.
Levelling my wand at the compartment door, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath then snapped my eyes open. "Spatium Grandere," I intoned, waited a few moments, then tucked my wand away. Gingerly, I slid the door open and grinned when it opened onto a much larger compartment.
"I had no idea you owned Clouted Snout Bugbees, Jeremy," murmured Luna as she looked about the room dreamily.
"Er, what?" Despite spending almost a year in her company, Ron still hadn't gotten used to her rather strange pronouncements. None of us had, really, although Ginny seemed to be the best at hiding her reaction.
"Clouted Snout Bugbees," repeated Luna. "If you tame them, they react to a pass-phrase and do things like this." She waved her hand at the expanded room.
"Like… what?"
"Ron…" groaned Ginny exasperatedly, and she slumped into the seat next to me.
"He's been like that all holiday. It's as if he has to use up all his stupidity in the holidays just so he can be responsible during the term…" She muttered, and I rolled my eyes.
"Responsible? I suppose…" I tapped my chin thoughtfully. "What with Hermione being in the States, the both of us have had to hunker down and actually pay attention in class."
"Took him long enough to realise that…" Ginny tapped absently at the panelling.
"Yeah – a year and a half!" I joked, half-serious.
"Hey! I'll have you know that I was doing perfectly fine before – I just decided that-"
"-that you needed to get better marks or Hermione would never talk to you," finished Ginny in an undertone.
I chuckled, and Ron scowled at me. "It isn't funny!"
The banter continued for quite a while, punctuated only by a few more visits by friends and the Snack Trolley.
"How is she doing? Hermione, I mean?"
We all looked at Ron, seeing as he owled her almost three times a week. "What? Why are you all looking at me?" When we all looked at him in a manner that implied that his act of ignorance was completely and utterly not working, he sighed. "Fine, fine. She's doing fine-"
"-which translates to getting all A's in Hermione-Speak."
"A's? What? Of course not, she's not getting Acceptables-"
"Ron, in America, they use a different grading system to ours. And considering the school she's going to, they've adopted a Muggle grading system. 'A' is the highest grade, followed by 'B', and 'C', and so on."
"Oh."
"Yes, oh. Now continue."
"Well, I wouldn't have stopped if you hadn't interrupted me!"
"Ron!"
"Fine, um, where was I? Oh, yes, um… She said her parents take her around the States during the holidays, and has these amazing pictures of the Grand Canyon…" He leapt up, rummaged through his trunk, and pulled out a photo album. "Look," he said as he flipped through the pages.
"Amazing…" I murmured at the gaping gorge.
"Clouted Snout Bugbees made that," was all Luna said.
"Er, right." Ron shifted uneasily. "Anyway, she said she's really happy over there."
"Hmm, she looks happy," Neville pointed at one picture where she was standing in front of the Washington State Wizarding and Witchcraft Academy. Photo-Hermione waved happily up at us, and Ron sighed happily.
I pulled out my pocket watch, flipped open the lid and tried to divine the time. It was a rather complicated time-piece, and then I realised I was looking at the wrong layer. I flipped the Astronomy plate over, and then the Soul Status plate (the many hands corresponded to different people, and would point at various statuses, like 'Early' or 'Home').
"It's almost time," I murmured, and closed my watch. "Time to get changed." I looked pointedly at Ginny and Luna, and they left without argument. Although Luna did tell us to beware being bewitched by Blasting Blob Butterflies.
"Jeremy?"
"Yeah? What?"
"How's Harry these days?"
Harry leaned with his back against the apartment door, and relaxed slightly as the moonlight that filtered past the curtains played across his face. The day had been rather troublesome, with his parents having insisted that it wasn't any trouble to pick him up every holiday. And then there had been the new students, who had stared at him and his pinned up sleeve and his scars. He'd had to bark at them a few times before they finally realised that typically, someone as physically damaged as him could hardly be warm and amiable.
An owl fluttered in through the window, and softly landed on the carpet. With a practised hand (and a handy penknife), Harry removed the letter (return address to Hermione) from the owl's leg.
"Thanks, Mittere," murmured Harry, and the owl hooted then flew out the window again. Muggles had never heard of owls being pets, and so during the term, Mittere stayed at home in Godric's Hollow.
Harry slit the envelope open, pulled out the latter and skimmed down the parchment page.
Harry,
How are things in Eton? I hear you're about to graduate early – congratulations. Things over here in Washington are pretty good. The teachers are all very well qualified, and I'm very impressed with their teaching methods – certainly a lot better than Professor Snape, I should say!
I know this is rather late for a birthday present-
She'd already gotten him one, but that didn't matter.
-but the delivery was held back by some… rather stringent customs decrees.
Eh? What had Hermione gotten him that could be even vaguely illegal? Harry shook the envelope, and out fell a silvery metal chain bracelet with one dangling platinum charm. The charm was in the shape of several concentric rings inside of a clear bubble that had a metallic sheen to it. The rings floated within the bubble, all seemingly unattached to anything that could hold them in midair.
Harry tapped the bubble and it swayed on the chain. The little rings stayed unmoving, although one of the rings seemed to quiver when he touched the outer bubble.
A little annoyed that she had gotten him something that would remind him of one of his most precious possessions (and Jeremy had usurped ownership of it), Harry returned to reading the letter.
I know you wish you could still do magic – we all do – and so when I discovered that there existed items that could allow Muggles (or Squibs) to perform magic, I searched high and low for something of the sort. As far as my research has shown, this bracelet is one such artefact, and it works in almost the same manner as the wristband you wear – it draws on the magic in the area to perform the magic.
This was certainly new – Harry hadn't come across any such object when he had investigated any possible way for him to regain his magic. Was this a joke?
"Wingardium Leviosa," He held the charm up and concentrated on the chair in front of him. Nothing happened.
Feeling a little foolish, Harry looked back at the letter.
I talked to Jeremy about this, and he's sure that the rings are like the spheres in the Magic Sphere that Dumbledore said that you made that somehow came into his possession.
A run-on sentence – Hermione was getting confused.
And if you remember which magic type corresponds to which sphere/ring, than apparently – I'm going on theory here, Harry – apparently, that ring will spin if there's magic of that type floating around you. So if there isn't any magic at all – or not enough – then the rings will be stationary. And you can only use magic of that type, so if say, the Soul magic ring is spinning – I hope it doesn't – then you can only perform Soul type magic.
Ah. That would explain things. In particular, it explained why one of the rings – the fourth, and that of Soul magic – had quivered when I had touched it. Apparently, the wounds I had sustained had been caused by that part of my soul that had contained 'Magic' being forcibly ripped out of my body. My wand arm had been completely destroyed due to my holding a magical focus with that arm, and apparently I was lucky half of my torso hadn't joined it. Some of the Magic from my soul had remained in the scars, but obviously, if the ring had only moved a tiny bit, there wasn't much left now.
I know that you might be confused as to why your wristband can work perfectly fine in almost all parts of the world – this is because the ward on the wristband pulls on any and all magical energy to change what you perceive, and seeing as Muggles can hypnotize others with practically no magic involved at all, the ward doesn't require all that much energy.
There are various uses for this object, as it can be used to detect if magic has been performed in the area. I'm not sure what would happen if you were to get a hold of a mature wizard's – or witch's – wand, and try to draw magical residue from it. Perhaps it could supply you with almost all the magic you could ever need, but not many people have ever gotten their hands on something like this.
So how had Hermione – a Muggleborn witch, mind you – managed to purchase this?
Now, you might be wondering how I managed to get my hands on such a rare item. Well, let's just say that I had to get the help of your brother, or, more specifically, his fame, to persuade a rather stubborn owner to 'give it up', so to speak. It took us a while, you know – a year or so, actually – to wear her down, but now you have it.
I hope you don't do anything too dishonest.
Hermione
A part of Harry felt disgusted that it was his brother's fame – falsely earned, really – that had brought this drop of salvation. Another part of him said 'screw that, I can do magic!'. Gingerly, he brought the bubble into contact with one of his larger scars, and watched the fourth ring twitch, then swivel a little. A little more slowly, he brought the bubble closer to his right shoulder, closer, until it bumped gently against the cloth of his pinned up sleeve.
The ring started to spin slowly, a little hesitantly. Harry quickly removed his over-shirt, leaving him in a sleeveless shirt. The moment the bubble touched his right shoulder, the fourth ring (counting from the outside) began spinning freely, smoothly and Harry grinned.
With an almost audible click, he brought some of his Occlumency barriers up again. At the same time the walls went up, all the buzzing interference that he had become inured to suddenly disappeared, and he only noticed its presence when it had gone.
"Must have been the scar," he muttered, moving to bring the bubble to his scar. The moment the bubble left his shoulder, the Occlumency barriers fell to pieces, and the buzzing began anew. "Damn!" he cursed, but brought the bracelet near his forehead nonetheless.
Straining to see if the rings moved, Harry was forced to keep the bubble about an inch away from the scar so he could see. It twitched a little, but Harry wasn't sure if that meant anything – after all, the ring had swivelled a little when it was only separated from his shoulder by a layer of cloth, and had spun smoothly when it wasn't. An inch of air could be all the difference between a subtle twitch and full out spinning madly.
He sighed. It really wasn't much use if he couldn't do any magic unless he kept the bracelet firmly attached to his shoulder – which was impossible unless he taped it there. Or had a ring piercing put in and hung it there like an earring.
But it was the beginning of the revival of hope.
"Harry? Oh, I dunno. I'm sure he's doing fine. He's top of his classes and all, and Mum and Dad are really proud of him." I shrugged. "Sometimes makes me wish I was half as smart as he is, but there's nothing I can do."
Ron sniggered. "Did Harry get your brains as well, when you were born?"
"Ah, that might explain things. Like how I'm a brainless Gryffindor and all that whatnot."
"Hey, we're not brainless-!"
"Oh look what the cat dragged in." A rather deep voice spoke from the doorway, and we all turned to look, with our wands out.
"Crabbe?" A faint hint of confusion entered Neville's voice, and the rest of us were quite surprised as well. Crabbe had somehow managed to string together an intelligible sentence that was vaguely insulting?
"Of course," Crabbe murmured in a rather Snape-like fashion. He acted nothing like the grunting gorilla we had thought him to be when he had been Malfoy's bodyguard. "We Slytherins are known for being cunning, after all. And I'm afraid this is the end of the line for you all – I can't have you lot running around and telling everything that I can actually speak, after all."
He raised his hand up and we saw that wrapped about his wrist was a rather strange wire torque that wound up his forearm like a snake. The end that was nearest his palm was actually shaped like a snake's head, and the eyes of the snake glowed green.
The room suddenly shrank, and I realised that the magic was being sucked into whatever he was wearing around his arm.
"Shit! Everyone, wands away!" Without waiting to explain, I leapt at Crabbe, swinging wildly. The rest hesitated for a moment, then did as I said and hurled themselves at Crabbe.
"Heh." Crabbe snorted in a rather condescending manner, and my eyes widened as the metal snake's eyes glowed blue, and Crabbe was surrounded in a corona of magic so dense I could practically smell it.
"This is the end, Boy-Who-Lived." He intoned rather dramatically, and swiped at me.
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Author's Notes: Well, I'm back! Since people are being so negative, I decided I'd have to surprise you all and… bring you a chapter! I hope there's enough in this chapter to intrigue you, and get you really hooked!
BTW, those of you who are pointing out all those 'plot holes' in the story, do remember that most of this story is told in first person. This means that any assumptions and mistakes the character whose POV is being shown is also written into the text – meaning those 'holes' aren't really 'plot holes', just gaps in a character's knowledge of the situation. One such 'plot-hole-that-was-just-Harry-being-stupid' was his plundering of Flitwick's 'mind', but was in actual fact his being tricked by an artificial Occlumency ward.
1. Parallels – remember that in the first volume, the first words (apart from the little 'tid-bits') are of Jeremy being told to wake up by Lily. In the second volume, this is again in the beginning, except Lily is being much less 'polite'.
2. Harry – oh, let's see how well he can act. He's getting better at twisting those parents of his around his little finger, but it's still probably going to make him bitter that it took him losing an arm and his magic for them to start treating him as good as (if not better than) Jeremy.
3. Portkey Portals – you've heard of Apparition Points, of all those sorts of places that are set aside for people to 'appear' in (like how at the Quidditch Cup, they're in a clearing). So here's a little more elaboration on the Portals as they exist in this Universe.
4. Parking Lots – if only Muggles could reserve lots for a day…
5. Pureblood – Silver is used to ward off the Undead, such as werewolves, and is known as a purifying or cleansing substance. The red drop is symbolic for blood. Pure Blood, simple as that.
6. Human transmutation – I'm borrowing a little bit of lore from Full Metal Alchemist (not to be confused with the Western film Full Metal Jacket or the anime/manga Full Metal Panic). Human Transmutation is forbidden in FMA as it generally results in perversions of nature and the alchemist involved (at best) loses a limb or (worse) their life. In this AU, the worst that could happen is that alchemist becomes a monster themselves.
7. Spatium Grandere – 'Spatium', Latin for 'space' or 'distance'. 'Grandere', a corruption of the Latin word 'grandis', meaning 'great' or 'full grown'. Full meaning is Greater Space.
8. Clouted Snout Bugbees – A spin-off of the Crumple Horned Snorkack. They may exist, and Luna believes they can expand space.
9. The watch – Dumbledore's watch in the first book is described as 'having twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge'. In Jeremy's case, you open the pocket watch like a normal one by lifting the lid open on its hinge. There are three disks inside that are attached to the same hinge, and the top one is like Dumbledore's watch, in that it tracks the paths of important cosmic objects. The second disk is like the clock in the Weasleys' house. The final and third disk is a normal analogue clock, with smaller dials in the face that specify the date.
10. Blasting Blob Butterflies – they blast blobs of blue brilliance to bewitch… ok, that's it, I'm not doing any more alliteration in the description. They shoot balls of light that can bewitch victims. If they exist, that is.
11. The 'charm bracelet' (even if it only has one charm) – I'm feeling cheap, and this is about as bad as that artefact Ishida Uryuu gets provided with in the anime fillers of Bleach to 'temporarily' return 'some' of his powers. In this case, Harry still can't really do any magic, and it's just sitting there taunting him (ok, so maybe not).
12. Slytherin – it's known as the house of cunning, so at the very least, all the people in that house should possess some cunning. I'm not going to say that there are only four types of people in the world (or at least, in the Magical population of the UK), but that surely there is a reason for why Crabbe and Goyle somehow managed to get into Slytherin. I mean, they are sort of loyal to Draco, so wouldn't that have gotten them placed into Hufflepuff if they really were that dumb?
Phew! That was a hard slog, getting the chapter started so that I could move onto the action! Will Jeremy get his ass handed to him by a suddenly intelligent Crabbe? Well, you'll have to wait a while to find out!
Please note that my two week holiday actually starts… in two days. Sorry if what I wrote was a little misleading, I was led to believe that holidays began after exams, when in actual fact they began five days after exams, as there was a weekend, then three days of school, then holidays.