Doing a new fanfic involving time travel. I've been playing a lot of Ars Magica lately, and as an idle project, decided to figure out how to merge it into Harry Potter. The timelines are close enough to work shockingly well, and the magic system is can be fit to the Harry Potter system with minimal tweaks. You don't need to know anything about the setting, as everything will be explained in the text.
Harry sat sullenly atop the Astronomy Tower, letting his legs hang over the side of the crumbled ramparts, blasted to rubble by spell-fire. It was an hour after noon, and the sun was shining brightly, but did nothing to warm the cold pit in his heart.
Funerals. Weeks and weeks of funerals. He had attended all of them, at least when the schedules didn't conflict. He felt he owed that much to them. His peers. His classmates. His friends.
So many had died in the Battle of Hogwarts. So many lives lost. Lives wasted.
Harry's fist clenched involuntarily, before he breathed out, and unflexed his fingers, shaking from the effort. He couldn't really claim to be at his emotional best.
Oh, he had tried. Tried to be stoic, tried to hold himself together. He had even been asked to make a few speeches. As if he could summon words to do justice to the life of the people who were murdered. How could they even ask that? Every time he heard those words, 'Mr. Potter, would you please say a few words for Colin?', his mouth went dry and a stone of dread weighed in his gut.
'No,' he wanted to say. 'I can't say anything. I barely knew the kid. He was brave. And he didn't deserve to die. What more do you want from me?'
Harry never said it though. Funny how much easier it is to be brave in defiance of Death Eaters, and yet when confronted with grieving parents, cowardice was the emotion of the hour.
It didn't take long. Soon after the first wave of funerals, he had to go to the one he was dreading. He had been asked to say a few words, but the moment Harry looked in the casket, he broke down. Fred laid there in a gentle repose, the shock of scarlet hair contrasting his pale skin.
They did a good job with the aesthetics, Harry thought to himself hysterically as he started hyperventilating, overloaded with the emotional toll of the wake. The mortician really managed to put everything together, and seal it up nice and tight. No cuts, bruises or tears, and for the extra fee, we'll give you enough to have an open casket funeral. Any muggle in an explosion like that? Closed casket for sure.
A hand was gently laid on Harry's shoulder, and pulled him away from the pulpit, where he had been standing, motionless in his emotional breakdown, for a good five minutes. A tinge of curly brown hair invaded his vision as he was taken to an empty backroom. Thank god for Hermione. Saving me from looking like a fool. Making a scene at Fred's funeral.
The rest of the funeral went well, for a given value of well. Hard to declare that a wake is a success, given the dead body in the room. Harry wore his Invisibility Cloak and Silenced himself, as he snuck back in, intent of not disturbing the event, or drawing any more attention.
Regardless, that was the turning point. After seeing his nearly public emotional meltdown, an unspoken decision was made. They stopped asking him to speak at funerals, and he stopped accepting.
They continued inviting him though, and he continued going. Again, it was his duty, to see and witness the lives taken by Voldemort's madness. However, he opted to continue going with the Cloak. The problem was, bluntly, that he was too famous. Infamous, really. Showing his face at a funeral was an invitation to stare at him, and more people would turn and watch him, than the body itself.
Harry made sure to try to catch the loved ones after the funeral, to assure them that he did go, as well as his reasons for preferring not to be seen. It usually went over well, but never without a tinge of accusation underlying the gaze of the people he was comforting.
It was a look that said, 'You did this. How dare you come here. How dare you show your face, when it was you who may as well have killed them.' It was an easy look to recognize, because he saw it every time he looked in the mirror.
Drown me in tears, and then put me through the emotional wringer, Harry thought to himself. Like a dirty rag, getting twisted and squeezed until there's nothing left.
"Doing alright there Harry?" Ron's voice asked, from behind his back.
"I am contemplating the nature of height," Harry responded airily, not bothering to turn and face his friend.
"Never knew you to be a philosopher. Thought that was Trelawney's gig, innit?" Ron noted, a bit of a skeptical tone in his voice.
"Can't imagine why," Harry snorted. "You'd think one of the professors would have covered that sort of thing, but nope."
"Harry, Ron, what are you two doing up here?"
Harry turned at that, squinting as he tried to resolve the form of Hermione, who was inconveniently standing right where the sun was shining into his face.
"Harry says he's contemplating the nature of height. Rumor has it he's looking to quit his day job, become a philosopher." Ron responded, lying back to bathe in the suns rays, his arms outstretched in relaxation.
Hermione stepped forward, her brow arched at his antics. Ron groaned, and sat back up as her shadow fell on him, blocking the warmth he had clearly been enjoying.
"And how recent is this rumor?"
"Oh, can't be more than five minutes," Ron said, shrugging.
"I reckon the castle will know by the end of the hour, and the press will know by nightfall." Harry added, a wry grin on his face.
"I bet you a Sickle that the press will know in two hours," Ron said, jokingly.
"Done."
"You two," Hermione scoffed, a reluctant smile touching her lips as she crossed her arms. "I can't believe you keep betting like this. One of these days, we're going to find you stumbling outside a muggle casino, plastered and broke."
"There are worse fates," Ron retorted. "Sounds to me like you aren't confident in buying in."
She rolled her eyes at that. "A Sickle says the Prophet finds out overnight, and prints the next morning."
Harry and Ron cheered at that, and Hermione sat down beside them, dangling her feet off the edge as well.
"Now, whats all this about height?"
"Oh yeah, Harry was just getting to that," Ron said, glancing back at him. "Go on then Aristotle, you've no need to fear we'll poison you for your opinions."
"Funny thing, height," Harry started, wetting his suddenly dry lips. "You know, it all seems really quite boring with a broom beneath you, but walk to the top of the Astronomy Tower, and you get a bit of vertigo, looking down."
He glanced down as he said that, peering over the edge. Sure enough, he could see the grounds from there, the people bustling about outside looking like toys, juxtaposed against the crumbled stone which had yet to be cleaned up.
"We went up here every week for astronomy, looking up at the stars," Ron noted. "Nobody ever really looked down though. Probably for the best. Merlin knows one of the firsties might've felt ill and toppled over the edge. Kind of surprised no one has actually. Though that just goes to show Hogwart's stellar commitment to safety."
"Professor Dumbledore died here," Hermione noted quietly.
"That doesn't count," Ron exclaimed indignantly. "Snape offed him, it's not like he went tumbling down on his own accord."
"A long drop, and a sudden stop," Harry agreed, nodding his head sagely. "Dumbledore was dead before he even fell. Doesn't count, now does it?"
"A bit morbid, don't you think? I mean that was the Headmaster," Hermione said frowning.
"I'm sure he doesn't mind. He was the type to make jokes about that sort of thing, at least in regards to himself." Harry said.
"You wonder if it would be crass to stick a painting of the old man to the outside rampart? So his portrait could come for the view." Ron asked, snickering at the thought.
"Yes Ron, that is crass, rude, grossly inappropriate even. What are we even doing up here anyways?"
"I told you Hermione, we are philosophizing on the nature of height." Harry said, laughing a bit.
"And we couldn't do that from the ground?" Hermione snipped at him.
"Come on 'Mione. When you stand up here, and look down at the ground, spread your arms out wide, and feel the wind in your hair, do you not feel the sudden, irrational urge to step off?" Harry asked, only half jokingly. They must have picked up something in his voice, because Ron flicked his eyes at Harry nervously, and Hermione's face twisted into a scowl.
"No Harry, I don't. I'll thank you to remember my aversion to flying. I'm not some adrenaline junkie like you, or the rest of the Quidditch team. If I feel the wind in my hair, it means there's a draft in the room, and I need to close the window."
"Right. Regardless, Ron and I were moving on, subject-wise. Discussing our truly tragic lack of a class for philosophy."
"Bit of a strange time to be debating on the nature of good and evil," Hermione noted haltingly. "One would think that you'd have figured out your position after being harassed by Voldemort for the last seven years."
"Ah, but that was a position I rather had to take. A bit of an easy choice that one. Oh, the pureblood supremacist killing everyone, don't really need to debate on who's evil there. But if someone went to King's Cross, and tied a bunch of muggles to the tracks to make a contrived point about saving the most lives, I would actually have to think a bit."
"Snape and Binns," Ron said triumphantly, reentering the conversation.
"I beg your pardon?" Hermione asked incredulously.
"They were the philosophy teachers. Binns mentioned a fair few philosophers, though more in the context of why they were important to Magical History. And while the man was a unrepentant prick, Snape's year as the DADA professor was the only real time that we even touched on some of the philosophy of why spells are considered to be dark."
"Seriously? Snape? You are just going to ignore Lupin and Crouch like that?" Harry exclaimed indignantly.
Ron started to argue back, but Hermione interrupted, "Now now, I think we can all agree that our education in that field at least was a bit lacking. Be nice."
"Regardless, I think this topic has rather exhausted itself. I'm going down to the kitchens, how about you?" Harry said, as he went to push himself to his feet. Except nothing happened, as though he was being held down by some massive weight.
"Hermione," Harry said flatly. " Did you hit me with a Sticking Charm while I wasn't looking?"
She blushed bright red, and flicked her wand at him, not bothering with the incantation. Harry felt the spell fizzle out, as he was able to lift himself up and get to his feet. He stared at her with a somewhat judging look, his eyebrow raised unimpressed.
"You were acting weirdly, and talking about jumping, while sitting on the Astronomy Tower. I know it's been difficult for you, for all of us, but that's why we need to stick together. Talk to us Harry. I'm worried about you. We're worried about you," She said, kicking Ron lightly to prompt him, when it didn't look like he was ready to jump in.
"Yeah mate, you've got to open up a bit," Ron recovered admirably. "They say if a muggle soldier has been in combat, lost his friends and comrades, he's got to go to a shrink. Or therapist, as the case may be. Now, I'm not saying you've got to find some muggle to explain your life story to. Pissing off the Ministry by breaking the Statute wouldn't be a great plan. But at least try to take some time, and process everything. Grieve the people you lost, and cherish the ones you've got left."
Harry let out a sigh, and looked between the two, noting the worried expressions both of them were sporting. The trouble was, he couldn't say with any confidence that they were wrong. There had been a moment there, where his grip was failing and he was sliding, ever so slowly. Sliding without stopping himself. And then Ron came up behind him, and Harry had to readjust his position.
"I suppose I'm just sleep deprived, that's all. Talking nonsense about philosophy. I close my eyes, and only see green flashes, and I don't remember the last time I got more than four hours of sleep. I'm sorry for making you worry, I never wanted to put you in the position of having to talk me down from a ledge." He said apologetically, arms outspread in contrition.
Hermione came up and hugged him fiercely, her hair tickling his nose. Harry could feel a bit of wetness where she buried her face in his chest. As she pulled away, her eyes were red and watering, and he opted not to comment on her tears.
"Come on then. We'll go get something to eat, and then bother Madam Pomfrey for a Dreamless Sleep potion."
As they walked back though, Harry cast one last glance at the tower edge.
Harry had been a good sport, and drank the potion. It helped him go to bed without nightmares, but the nasty effect of getting enough sleep, was regaining his lucidity. And with that, all of the emotions that he had been suppressing, that the delirium of sleep deprivation had been blunting.
A few days had passed, and Harry had fallen into a bit of a routine. Wake up feeling slightly numb, wash up in the loo as the side effects of the potion wore off. Disconcerting side effects too. Dreamless Sleep suppressed the ability to imagine things, to picture them. As though blindfolding your mind's eye. After that, go down to the kitchens and politely beg a meal from the elves, thanking them as they rushed to accommodate.
It hurt, seeing them when Dobby's death was so fresh in the mind, but eating at the Great Hall and seeing all those seats missing would have hurt even more. At least with the elves, he could limit his interactions, and bring the food back up to the Gryffindor dormitories.
Go back up to his room and twiddle his thumbs, while rebuffing Ron and Hermione's good-natured attempts to pull him out of his funk. Skip lunch, eat whatever he had left over from his breakfast for dinner, and get ready to go to bed.
Pour out the Dreamless Sleep into a marked cup, and bottoms up it was.
This went on for a week. And then Harry ran out of Dreamless Sleep.
Harry woke, gasping for air and covered in a cold sweat, as visions of death went through his mind. Fred's death. The shrapnel from the explosion stinging his flesh, where the bits of stone shard hit his skin leaving welts and cuts. The sight of Fred's body, lying there with empty eyes, when he had been joking with Percy the moment before. Dolohov, fleeing the scene.
It was vividly real, as if he was still there. He was a fool. The potion had lasted for this long, but when he ran out, Harry opted not to refill it with Pomfrey. He had thought, perhaps naively, that he could get along without it. After all, while not known to be traditionally addictive, he didn't want to become emotionally dependent on it. The Three Broomsticks might have lost much of it's clientele, but Aberforth's pub was packed to the brim night after night, with people looking for something stronger than butterbeer to forget.
But he had already become acclimated. Used to sleeping with the crutch. And now,with it gone, it was worse than ever.
Lifting his head from his pillow, Harry glanced around the room. Luckily, his nightmare didn't seem to have caused him to cry out, or do anything save frantic gasping.
He checked the time, grimacing when he realized it was an hour after midnight.
Convinced that he wasn't getting back to sleep any time soon, he grabbed his glasses and wand, and erected Silencing charms around his bed. Comfortable in the knowledge that he wouldn't wake his peers, he threw on his robes and shoes, and stood up.
Wrestling with himself, he finally worked up the will to take the mokeskin pouch that stored his most valued possessions. The Elder Wand. And the Resurrection Stone.
He had dropped it, intending it to be left in the Forbidden Forest forever. But he was forced to change his mind, when Aurors and reporters, and even some curious students began to trace his steps, and investigate the clearing where he had confronted Voldemort. That very night, he had gone back to search for it, eventually resorting to a summoning charm to grab it and stow it away. He couldn't in good conscience leave it there for someone to come across.
He had been tempted to use it, in the days since then. But wary of torturing himself further, he resisted, and kept it in his pouch. Even going so far as to curse it to heat to burning on touch. An easily dispelled little jinx, but one which would stop him for a moment to think about what he was doing.
Harry tied the pouch around his neck, and donned his faithful invisibility cloak, before silently making his way out of the dorms. As he walked, he noted the ill condition of the castle, much of which had yet to be repaired. In the aftermath of the battle, it was on McGonagall's agenda, but everyone's time had been preoccupied with mourning the dead, arranging funerals, and recovering from the injuries sustained.
Grimacing at the rubble, he began repairing as he walked, forcing the stone fragments to jump up and repair the jagged craters left in the stone walls. Dust was cleared from his path, and when he came to the end of the hall, he smiled, satisfied at the sight of the now pristine state of the hallway, restored to how he remembered it.
He kept walking, and eventually began making his way up the Astronomy Tower, meeting no one on his journey. He exited the stairs, and walked to the edge of the tower, peering down at the grounds. They were empty, not a soul in sight. The lights in the castle had been dimmed, and even Hagrid's shack was dark, as he was no longer building up his fire to last the night, given the summer warmth.
Harry pulled the Cloak off, and folded it, before laying it on the stone floor. He then plucked the Elder Wand from his pouch, and the Resurrection Stone, before laying them on the Cloak.
"And what do I do with you?" Harry murmured to himself, eyeing the lot. For artifacts of immense power, they were quite unassuming.
He could ward the area to prevent anyone from finding them, at least until Hermione and Ron came looking for him. He would leave an exception for them of course. He didn't like the idea of leaving the Stone to them, to potentially torment themselves, but they had each other, and neither would tolerate the other falling into some obsessive fugue with it's use. The Cloak was essentially harmless, and Harry had no compunction over leaving that to them.
The wand though, that was trouble. The Elder Wand was not something he wanted to survive. The question, was if he jumped from the tower, dying on his own terms as Dumbledore had sought to, would that break the power of the wand?
Wrestling with indecision, he placed the wand back on the Cloak. Dumbledore had been convinced that it would work, had practically staked his life on it, as meaningless a gesture as that was with the curse, and only Malfoy's actions had thrown a wrench into everything.
Besides, if it didn't work, Hermione and Ron could perhaps succeed where he had failed. He was tempted to snap it in half, but as his experiences with his own holly wand had proven, that was not a solution which could necessarily be trusted.
Harry fished around for something to write on, eventually grabbing the letter that his mother had written to Sirius, and scrawled a quick goodbye note on it. He made sure to emphasize the importance of destroying the wand, if this did not work, and ended it by reassuring Hermione and Ron that he didn't blame them, and wished them well.
His mind put at ease, he stepped to the side of the rampart and looked down. Ready to take the final leap. Gryffindors were meant to be daring, after all. Why hesitate on the next great adventure?
His grip tightened, and then he relaxed his fingers.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," Harry heard an unfamiliar voice say, startling him.
His head whipped around and he clambered to his feet, before standing in shock.
It was the Bloody Baron floating there, dressed in some outdated noble attire. His chains clanked gently, and Harry's eyes were drawn to the silvery blood which still covered him.
"Baron," Harry greeted the ghost somewhat stupidly. He hadn't expected to be interrupted, and the Baron was perhaps the last person he would have expected, considering he had never spoken to the ghost in the years he had been at Hogwarts. "I didn't expect to see you."
"Oh?" The Baron floated closer, raising an eyebrow. "I daresay most people are aware that I prefer the Astronomy Tower as my favored haunting locale. I've no need for sleep, so when I heard footsteps up the stairs, but no student to be seen, I became curious."
"Apologies for disturbing you, sir," Harry responding, dimly remembering Nearly Headless Nick mentioning the Baron's habits. "I wasn't sleeping well, and decided to go for a walk, to clear my head."
"Indeed. Mr. Potter, do you know what look was on your face?"
"No sir." Harry said, unsure of where the ghost was going with this.
"Sudden conviction. An absolute surety in one's actions, after having no direction or drive."
"I don't know what you are talking about," Harry denied firmly.
"Don't you?" asked the Baron placidly. "I am aware that Helena shared the details of our ends some time ago. I know the expression on your face, because I wore it myself. I am the last person to judge one's motivations, but I would caution you. I cannot tell if you are the type of person to come back as a spirit. Think well on that, before committing to your action."
"I'm not afraid of death," Harry retorted, put on the defensive by the Baron's insight, and seething at being vulnerable before him. "I walked into the Forest to face Voldemort. To face my death. I won't come back as a ghost."
"And yet, you came back once already, did you not? You had the option of moving on, but you refused. Mr. Potter, it is not just fear of death that causes one to come back. It is unfinished business. It is attachment. You felt a responsibility to your friends and peers. You felt protective. You felt loyalty. Perhaps you do not wish to go on like this. But can you honestly say, in your heart of hearts, that you wouldn't want someone to guide them, protect them, advise them? And if you are not there to do it, why not your ghost?"
"I don't believe you," Harry lied as his mouth went dry. He did believe him. He didn't care for himself, his own well-being. But his friends? He might very well come back for them.
"As you say," said the Baron, clearly humoring him. "Well, if you choose to disregard my advice, you should at least heed the words of your friends. Isn't that right?"
The Baron turned and pointedly glared at the wall next to the doorway. A moment passed, and then it started moving, as a Disillusionment charm was dispelled to show Hermione and Ron standing there sheepishly.
"Oh," Harry said, eyes wide at having been caught essentially red-handed. "What are you doing up?"
Hermione and Ron looked at each other tensely before Ron spoke up.
"Well 'Mione got it into her head that you might be thinking of doing something foolish," Ron started, a forced casualness in his voice. "So she set a silent alarm ward by the portrait, and keyed it to you. It woke her up, she got me, and we followed you up here. Which, let's be honest Harry, if Moody were still around, he'd be laying into you. He was yelling 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE' in our ears for months, and you got caught by a simple alarm? Bit of a disappointment that."
Harry opened his mouth to retort, and then closed it again. He wasn't really sure how to respond, now that the situation had become unbearably awkward.
"You know, I don't think I ever actually learned to preemptively detect alarm wards. Bit of spottiness in the curriculum, I suppose." He deflected, avoiding confronting the elephant in the room.
"Ron said something of the like to me," Hermione said, gesturing at him. "I was ready to start breaking out the tracking spells you only see in the Restricted Section, but he said to me, 'Nah, don't worry about that. Harry isn't being hunted by Death Eaters any more, and besides, I don't think he even knows how to sense small wards like that.'"
"So if you were here to stop me, why didn't you show yourselves?" Harry said, finally mustering his courage and getting at the meat of the issue.
"We didn't want to do anything," Hermione said, glancing over and receiving an encouraging nod from Ron. "We figured that if we showed ourselves immediately, dragged you back inside, it would have made things worse. You tend to be stubborn and willful even in the best of times, and I don't think we could stop you if you were truly determined. I wanted to see if you would decide against it, on your own terms, without us nagging you or guilting you. If you had really stepped off, well. I was ready to hit you with a Slowing Charm. Ron would have had enough time to run to the bottom of the castle, and fetch you, considering you might have been falling for well on twenty minutes."
Harry sat back, stunned. He knew that his friends would have not taken his death well. That fact weighed on his conscience. But the fact that they were already stressing out, and taking steps to account for him struck a deep guilt in him.
"I just don't know what I am doing, to be quite honest with you." Harry started, a forlorn look coming to his face. "Everywhere I look, I see the people that were missing. Every time I walk through the castle, I am reminded of everyone we lost. When I sleep I dream of the last battle, and when I am awake, I can't help but dwell on it. I spent years of my life, defined in relation to Voldemort. Now that he is gone, I find myself lost, adrift really. Who am I? Who is Harry Potter without Voldemort."
"Who are you? Harry, you are our best friend," Ron said assuredly, stepping in when Hermione seemed at a loss for words. "Now is the time to be yourself, to be your own man. You are not a coin whose other half is a snake-faced blighter. You are a good man, a good wizard, and a good friend. You are free of him now. So what do you want?"
Harry had to think about that for a moment. He hadn't really pondered it, to be quite honest. He had told McGonagall at one point that he wanted to be an Auror. But that wasn't really his true desire, it was just a career option that he was good at.
"I suppose I want to make sure this never happens again. That Voldemort, or anyone like him, is prevented from ever becoming a problem again."
"Well, this is touching. But I believe I will take my leave. Peeves has been suspiciously quiet of late, owing perhaps to the carnage wrought here. But I would prefer to keep an eye on him, to correct backsliding if nothing else." The Baron interrupted, moving to drift past Harry, who nodded in acknowledgment even as Hermione and Ron murmured their thanks for his insights.
But then he paused, and looked down. Staring at the Deathly Hallows.
"Mr. Potter, do you know what these artifacts are?" asked the Baron in a strangled voice, as he gazed at them with some indescribable emotion.
"The Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Cloak of Death. The Deathly Hallows, created by the Peverell brothers." Harry replied, taken aback at the rapid shift in demeanor.
"The thrice-damned Peverells, a curse on their names!" The Baron snarled as his face twisted into a deadly rictus. The air around the tower began dropping in temperature rapidly, frost forming on the stones with a crackle, and the Trio's breathes were all made visible as clouds of white fog juxtaposed against the summer evening.
"What did the Peverells do?" Ron blurted out in a panic, as he drew his wand, Harry and Hermione following suit.
"They destroyed the Wizarding World!" The Baron raged, clutching his chains in agitation as the clanking grew louder. They seemed shinier now, more solid, and when one of the chain links fell on the cloak as the Baron gesticulated, the fabric wrinkled, as though it had been touched by a solid object.
The ghost's gaze fell on Harry, and the rage melted away, leaving a plaintive look.
"Please, Potter, Harry." The Baron addressed him directly, taking on a pleading tone. "I know we haven't interacted much in our years. But if you hold any mercy for me at all, any affection for the ghosts of Hogwarts, for Sir. Nicholas even, please, destroy the Resurrection Stone. We would be in your debt."
"But it's a historical artifact!" Hermione protested, clearly dismayed at the idea of outright destruction.
"It's an abomination. It must be destroyed." The Baron said firmly.
Harry looked to Hermione then to Ron. Hermione was clearly reluctant, though cowed by the Baron. Ron on the other hand shrugged.
"It's your call mate. Your stone, your decision. You were going to leave it to be lost in the Forbidden Forest originally anyways. Probably would have been eaten by a spider. I'll support you, whatever you choose." He said, nodding at the stone.
Harry looked back at the Baron, and was moved by the pleading desperation on the face of the normally stoic ghost.
Making his decision, Harry took the stone and placed it on the ground, affixing it to the floor with a sticking charm.
He drew himself up, and leveled his wand. "Reducto!"
The Resurrection Stone exploded, shards of crystal spraying every which way. A shock-wave of magic seemed to emanate from the site, shaking the four and sending their magic into a brief turmoil.
"Finally," the Baron said, a look of utter bliss on his face. "We are finally free."
"What do you mean by that?" Hermione ventured cautiously, still wary of the mercurial spirit. "If you don't mind me asking sir."
The Baron turned to her, a gentle smile on his face. "The story of the Hallows Ms. Granger, is a story of the death of Wizarding society. The Resurrection Stone gave power over the dead. It could compel us, force us under geas. Most of the history you think you know, is a lie. A fabrication, deliberately created to reshape Wizarding Europe, perhaps farther. A conspiracy of traitors and liars.
But there was one aspect they could not control. Ghosts. How do you compel a ghost to stay silent? We knew the truth, because we were there. We could not be threatened into silence. We might have been banished or exorcised, but I am no mean shade. I had to power to resist such a fate, and so too did Helena. And Peeves for that matter. We are the three oldest spirits of the castle, and were born early enough to know a world without the Ministry of Magic. Without Merlin.
So we were bound, by Cadmus Peverell, using the Resurrection Stone. I only know that he was an accomplished necromancer in his own right, but after the siblings returned from an encounter with a powerful being, his strength was without parallel, using the Stone. I know not whom or what the creature may have been. They claimed it was Death, but I had my doubts, suspecting one of the Faerie Gods, or Titans of old, perhaps even King Fir himself, though I would be surprised they survived such an encounter."
"So what will you do now?" Ron asked, piping up, seemingly interested in his tale.
"Now?" mused the Baron. "I have come to terms with my life, and the regrets of my death. My relationship with Helena is stiff, but after a thousand years, we have mended our bridges, slowly and painfully. My last regret, was that I could not reveal the truth of the Merlin Conspiracy. But now? I think I will go to Helena. And we will depart Hogwarts, entering the afterlife after all of this time."
"But you haven't revealed anything!" Hermione exclaimed, indignant. "You told us that all the history we know is a lie, and one of the Peverell brothers kept you and the other ghosts silent about it. And it involves Merlin somehow."
"I suppose I should give you the tools to find the knowledge yourselves. After all, this is a school, and self-study is well rewarded here," the Baron said, smirking. "The school of Hogwarts was founded with the explicit purpose of subverting the original Houses of Magic. Salazar Slytherin, then Salazar ex Tremeri, was a magus hailing from the Hibernian Tribunal. Tribunals being the local organizations of magi at the time, and distributed based on geographical areas. Salazar discovered a method by which a mage could ensure their offspring would have the Gift.
The modern teaching of purebloods and muggleborns, is pure, anachronistic nonsense. Before Salazar's discovery, there were no purebloods. Modern scholars claim that Slytherin was a pureblood, and are wrong. His lineage was pure, in that he was apprenticed to a mage, who in turn was apprenticed to a mage, and so on, who was eventually apprenticed to Tremere the Founder. One of the original creators of the Order of Hermes. But he himself, was never what you would call a 'pureblood', as we know the term today."
The Baron paused to take in his audience. Hermione was enraptured, a gleam in her eyes at learning the truth of history from someone who had actually been there. Ron looked troubled, taken aback at the revelation about lineages. And Harry? He was still watching the Baron. The history of Hogwarts was interesting to be sure, but he got the sense that the Baron had more to add.
"Potter, you had a prophecy made about you, yes?" The Baron demanded, focusing his attention on him.
"Yes, the prophecy between Voldemort and I. It ended when I killed him." He responded.
"Then you know that all the prophecies made in the British Isles are recorded in the Department of Mysteries?"
"Of course," Harry said, frowning as he recalled his memory about the cloudy glass orbs which caused so much trouble. "But they all were destroyed during my fifth year."
"Not all of them," The Baron said slyly, laying his finger by his nose knowingly. "Prophecies made before the Department of Mysteries, may yet exist. Recorded elsewhere."
"Begging your pardon Baron, but I haven't really had much good experiences with prophecies. I would prefer to avoid them, if at all possible," Harry said firmly.
"Very well," the Baron said, shrugging. "I have said my piece. If you intend to gain more information regarding your true history, well. There is a place in Wales, called Cad Gadu. It is an island in the middle of a lake, located in the mountains of Snowdonia. It is likely to be heavily warded, even after all this time. If you go down to the very basement, there is a lake within an unlit cave. You may find your answers there. If you choose not to, then I expect that you should be fine. Of course, if you do decide to go, the prophecies would have accounted for that as well. Regardless, I wish you well."
With that, the Baron bowed, before sinking into the ground, apparently in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower.
Harry, Ron and Hermione sat back in silence, ruminating on the ghost's words. Harry drew his legs up, hugging his knees as he scratched his cheek a bit.
Ron looked at Harry, who was moodily staring off into the distance, and then at Hermione, who was positively vibrating with excitement.
"Right then," He started, clapping his hands together before rubbing them for warmth, in the still chilled air left by the ghost. "Hogwarts is gloomy, none of us are particularly happy, or even coping marginally with the post-war. How about a vacation to Wales?"
"Yes!"
"No!"
Harry and Hermione exclaimed more or less simultaneously. Hermione narrowed her eyes and glared at Harry's refusal.
"Harry. This is the possibility of uncovering a secret history of the Wizarding World which hasn't seen the light of day for a millennium. This could be the most important trip in the history of, well, history! It might revolutionize our understanding of the Founders! Come on Harry, you have to admit, the prospect of a mystery with no deadlines or imminent danger is appealing." Hermione wheedled, a fire in her eyes which stated quite plainly that she was not going to be letting this go.
"Hermione, there is a prophecy," Harry said slowly and deliberately, enunciating each word for emphasis. "I do not like prophecies. They do not like me. This is a bad idea."
"What are the odds you get another prophecy Harry? You might go just for your peace of mind. If the prophecy is already made, it's not like it stops if you don't read it." Ron reasoned.
"Besides, you are doing literally nothing else. Don't you want to get out of the castle? Away from everybody? It'll just be me, you and Hermione, off on vacation. No politicians breathing down our necks, no fans bothering us, no reporters. Honestly, with everything we've had to put up with this last year, we bloody well deserve a vacation. We'll just tell them all to bugger off while we relax and go searching through abandoned ruins."
"Et tu, Ronald?" Harry said, clutching his hands to his chest. "Fine, we can go to Wales. But I want it on record that I think this is a bad idea, and if I get suckered into yet another prophecy, I blame you two."
"That's the spirit!" Ron said enthusiastically, clapping Harry on the back. "Lets go back to the Common Room. I reckon none of us will be getting back to sleep, so you can play me in chess, and Hermione can start reading up on Gad Cadu."
"Cad Gadu," Hermione corrected absently. She smiled, and looped her arm around Harry's, helping him up, and offered her arm to Ron, as they made to exit the tower.
Together, they returned to the castle, leaving the dark of the night behind.