Harry Potter and the Veil of Time
Chapter Four: Merlin... Really?
By Cybergades
Harry stood dumbfounded, feet planted firmly on the ground of this strange place within places.
"You're who?" he asked, sure that he had simply misheard the man, who he was only half-sure wasn't a hallucination or dream.
"Merlin," he stated plainly.
"Merlin, like the Merlin?" Harry pressed. "Are my dreams really that unoriginal?"
"This is not a dream, strange though it may seem," Merlin replied. His speech was like that of Dumbledore's, although he lacked a certain personable nature and kindness that had always persisted in Dumbledore's voice. "And yes, I am the same Merlin of Arthurian legend."
"But how is this possible? Haven't you been dead for hundreds of years? And what spell is this, how are we even talking?" Harry's mind buzzed with questions and impossibilities, but Merlin raised a wrinkled hand and he fell silent.
"Allow me to make us more comfortable," Merlin said, waving his hand purposefully.
The empty space around them slowly coalesced into the Gryffindor Common Room, although it seemed somehow very different, like it had been painted by watercolor. Objects and colors only seemed to have a sharp definition when Harry looked directly at them, and other than that they remained watery and somewhat unfocused. Merlin seated himself in a large high back chair, shifting his robes somewhat.
"We are, in a way, utilizing magic, although it is magic that is beyond even someone of your fairly prestigious skills, Harry. I will explain more later, but suffice it to say that the magic witches and wizards have access to is a somewhat diluted form of the power I tap into. For example, I have constructed this environment out of the subtlety and complexity of your own memories. It seemed like a place of great comfort to you, and so I brought us as near to that place as we can both exist at this juncture."
"So are you like a ghost?" Harry asked. "I'm just trying to make sense of all this."
"Yes, I imagine that is rather difficult," Merlin mused. "No, I am not dead, although I am no longer alive in the sense that you are probably considering."
"Did…did Dumbledore go wherever…however it is you are?"
Merlin shook his head slowly. Harry's face fell.
"Fear not, Harry. Simply because Dumbledore is not here does not mean that he is not at peace, or that he would not be immensely proud of your accomplishments."
Harry shrugged noncommittally. "I'm glad someone's at peace."
Merlin nodded somewhat sadly at this.
"Yes, if there is something you and your friends deserve, Harry, it is peace. But unfortunately, we are not always offered the luxury of everything that we deserve. For men of honor there is always a time of sacrifice, where those of true valor must protect those without." He gestured to one of the spectral chairs. "Please, please, sit."
Harry sat in the chair, somewhat surprised at how real it felt as he sank into the cushion. "So what are you saying? That this isn't over? I saw Voldemort die by his own hand."
"Yes, indeed. I have been watching you with great interest, Harry, even though you have not been able to make contact with me until now."
"Why's that?"
Merlin paused for a moment, a look of serene contemplation crossing his face.
"I believe," he said, gesturing abstractly with one finger, "that it was your state of extremely intense conflicting emotions that brought on the mental state whereby I was able to connect with you. Your joy at defeating Voldemort, coupled with your anger at him, at the Malfoys, even at yourself, for stooping to their level of violence for even a moment, and of course your grief," he paused as he saw Harry biting his lip. "In your mind's overwhelmed state, you reached a level of consciousness where at last I was able to interact with you, and it is happy fortune that we were able to meet! For I have much to tell you of, much to warn you about, and precious little time!"
"Much to warn me about?" Harry asked. "What do you mean?"
Merlin opened his mouth, but remained silent for a moment, as if searching for the right words.
"…There are threats to this world approaching, from very far away and very long ago, and allies willing to help you defend against them. I can offer you some aid, some guidance, and whatever wisdom I can manage, but there are others like myself who would frown upon my intervention, even to this meager extent. For my part, I am sorry that I am unable to assist you more directly, but any flagrant intervention could end up only making things worse for you in the end."
"I don't understand," Harry said.
"No, I feared as much," Merlin said with a shake of his head. "Harry, your ancestors…there is a power in your bloodline, a power that you are beginning to manifest beyond your peers. You share a connection to your ancient ancestors that few can claim in this day and age, and it is an absolutely vital tool in what is to come. For it has been too long already, and we will be forced to compromise. You are familiar with the Department of Mysteries, correct? At the Ministry of Magic?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, but…what are you talking about?"
Merlin rose and approached him. He took his hand, and Harry flinched for a moment before realizing that Merlin's hand felt the same as any other human hand that might have taken his. There was a sincerity and clarity in the ancient eyes that seemed somehow familiar to Harry.
"Harry Potter," Merlin said. "You are willing, are you not, to do anything to protect the ones that you love?"
"Yes," Harry said without hesitation.
"You are somewhat unique in that regard," Merlin said with a small smile. "Although you have several friends who could give you a run for your money with regards to selflessness and sacrificial love."
Harry immediately thought of Ron and grew silent, retracting his hand from Merlin's grasp.
"Very well, Harry. I understand that this all must seem a bit surreal and difficult for your mind to parse properly. So let me come to the heart of it. What would you give for a chance to do it over again, with what you know now? To confront the Dark Lord again, but with all the years of knowledge and effort you've already accumulated at your disposal?"
"You mean like using a time-turner?"
Merlin shook his head. "No, not simply sending your future self back into the past, with all of the potential for causal disruption that implies. No, the process I am talking about would revert the entirety of existence to an earlier point in time, but your mind, and only your mind, would be left intact. Once there you will be able to make contact with me, that is to say, my past self, and we can set to work in earnest, for there is much work to be done, and," he paused, laughing softly, "precious little time in which to do it."
Harry stood up, noting that Merlin seemed to tower over him.
"Why would you do this? And how? I'm supposed to just believe all of this, get whisked away on some grand sacrificial journey not a day after the greatest struggle of my life?"
"I'm afraid so," Merlin said. "You must understand, there is so very little time to explain."
"Make time," Harry said flatly.
"That is what I am trying to do!" Merlin said somewhat impatiently. "Harry, I promise that, in the past, I will explain everything to you, in much greater detail, when we have the luxury of much more time to prepare. Now, you are familiar with the Department of Mysteries?"
"Of course, don't you know that I am?" Harry snapped.
"Yes…yes, of course, the Hall of Prophecy…you remember then, the Death Chamber, where tragedy befell your godfather?"
"Yes. I remember." Harry said.
"The Veil, Harry, the Veil is the key! To nearly anyone on Earth except for you, to pass through the gate is certain death. But your level of…advancement, of evolution, make it such that you can use the Veil, you can pass through it fully and emerge unharmed."
"Does this have something to do with the Peverells?" Harry asked warily. "The Deathly Hallows?"
"No no, dear lad, nothing of the sort. The Deathly Hallows were purely wizarding innovations, impressive though they might have been. The idea of their origin from an anthropomorphized death is merely a flight of fancy on the part of your culture, to try and explain how the Peverell brothers could operate with magics that were beyond their understanding or capacity."
"So I'm supposed to just…" Harry tried to handle the idea in his mind, his brow furrowing. "I'm supposed to just trust the strange old man speaking to me in my mind, sneak into the Ministry of Magic, and walk through the archway that killed my godfather, in the hopes that it will send me back in time to combat some unspecified evil which is greater than Voldemort himself. Does that about sum it up?"
Merlin sighed. "It seems, Harry, that you are doomed to follow the cryptic instructions of meddlesome old men. I wish I had more time to explain everything to you, and I promised you I would. Or rather, I will have. Please, Harry, you have to trust me." And Harry saw in his eyes that same strange familiar sincerity, something he couldn't quite place.
"Am I supposed to just walk into the Ministry?"
"I don't see why not," Merlin said. "You do, after all, possess the Invisibility Cloak. And I suspect people will be a bit more receptive of your presence than the last time you visited."
"Have you been spying on me this entire time?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Longer than you know," Merlin said. "You are destined for great things, Harry Potter."
"Lovely," Harry said. "Just when I thought I would never have to hear someone tell me that again."
"Get to the Veil," Merlin said, and Harry noticed that his form was starting to become smudgy, watery, like the edges of his vision in this strange room. "Once there, you'll know what to do. I'll see to it. Good luck, Harry,"
"Yeah…thanks," Harry said uneasily as the figure of Merlin dissolved into a flurry of colored lights and disappeared. The strange and dreamlike Gryffindor common room faded around him as well, the watery and over-saturated colors fading into their normal, more somber texture, still lit by the stubborn embers in the otherwise-dead fireplace.
The Great Hall was still littered with the injured and the dead the following morning, although Madame Pomfrey had enlisted the help of some other students to begin wrapping the dead in sheets. Harry noted with satisfaction that they were wrapping them by hand, which seemed proper to him, for some reason. When Harry saw Hermione, slumped onto one of the benches and leaning forward on her elbows, he edged towards her, a lump of guilt in his throat. Merlin said that going back in time would reset everything, didn't he? Does that mean that no one would remember any of this? And that Ron and Ginny…
"Hi, Harry," Hermione said quietly, when Harry had wandered close enough.
"Oh, er…um…hi," Harry said, sitting down across from her.
"I'm sorry about Ginny," Hermione said weakly.
"And I'm sorry about Ron," he replied. The two of them were silent for a moment, both aware that their apologies could never encapsulate what they were really trying to say to one another.
"If it wasn't for him, I never would have even made it to Voldemort," Harry said. "We all owe him everything." Hermione nodded slowly, chewing her lower lip as though she was trying to decide if this was any consolation or not.
"What's going on in Hogsmeade?"
"They're still trying to get everything cleared away," Hermione said. "There was a lot of damage to the village during the battle, most of the inhabitants had fled. It'll probably never be the same again, but at least most of it is still standing, more or less."
"What about Hagrid?"
"They moved him back up to the school grounds this morning. Professor McGonagall said they were going to bury him out near his hut. Oh, Harry, you should have seen Fang, he's been inconsolable all day, he won't leave Hagrid's side."
Harry smiled softly at this, thinking of Hagrid's overly affectionate and loyal watchdog.
"Listen, Hermione, there's something I have to do, and…and I'd like you to help me."
The words were out of Harry's mouth before he could really think about them, and he immediately wondered if it had been a good idea to mention anything. Hermione looked quizzical.
"Sure, Harry, what's up?"
Slowly and carefully, Harry explained what the spectral Merlin had explained to him, from the shadowy evils to be defeated to the seemingly ludicrous idea of going through the archway in the Death Chamber. Hermione listened without much response, making Harry unsure of how she was taking the idea. When he had finished, she sat there staring at him for a long time, until at last he cleared his throat and she began to speak.
"Harry, this is…I know how you're feeling, with Ginny and Ron and…" she stopped, brow slowly furrowing. "No, no, Harry, this isn't fair, I don't know how you're feeling. We've both suffered a loss, and now you want me to help you kill yourself? And you're feeding me some story about Merlin, of all people?"
"No, Hermione, it's not-"
"I thought you knew me better than that, Harry Potter." She stood up swiftly, pacing away from him so that he could not see her face. Harry let her go, wringing his hands as he sat at the long table. What if she was right? What if he was trying to get himself out of this miserable situation, by just…letting go?
But Harry knew that wasn't the case. While he was willing to die, for his friends or his family or humanity at large, if it came to it, he wasn't the sort of person who would throw their own life away, especially after fighting so hard to achieve the successes that had been hard-won in the last few days. So that left only the implausible truth, that the ancient wizard Merlin was coaxing him through a potentially deadly time portal in order to buy precious days with which to combat some unseen burgeoning menace. With a sigh, Harry felt for the Invisibility Cloak in his robes on his way out the Great Hall door.
When he was a safe enough distance away from Hogwarts, Harry threw the Invisibility Cloak over himself and Apparated to the Ministry of Magic. His first attempts to gain entry failed; apparently the visitor's entrance in the phone booth was still inaccessible. He had heard on his way out of the castle that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been appointed interim Minister of Magic, but he didn't know exactly what degree of control the Ministry itself was running under…there could still be pockets of Death Eaters and their sympathizers within, although most of the Imperius Curses should have been broken by now. Finally, after nearly two hours spent lounging around the lavatory entrance to the Ministry, he managed to pick the pocket of a Disapparating wizard and gain entrance by flushing himself down to the Atrium. The main statue, of the pureblood wizard rulers seated on a throne of Muggles, had been half-deconstructed, with tiny Muggle statues strewn across the Ministry floor, where a crowd of maintenance wizards were carefully collecting and marking every piece.
Avoiding contact with anyone, Harry slipped into one of the more deserted stairwells, keeping his breath even and silent as he descended several flights, to the Ninth Level, the Department of Mysteries. He nearly held his breath as he made his way through the black-tiled winding corridors, past locked doors and shadow-shrouded chambers. He knew what he was looking for. Even after two years he could still find his way there easily; the Death Chamber.
It was deserted when he entered; no doubt study on the objects in the Department of Mysteries was suspended due to the chaos across the wizarding world in the wake of Voldemort's defeat. In the center of the chamber stood the arch, brittle and ancient-looking, the great black curtain strewn over the yawning mouth of the archway, fluttering slightly in the eerie non-existent breeze. Harry stepped out from beneath the Invisibility Cloak, walking towards the arch, his mind aflutter with emotion and remembrance. The room was filled with the whispers of those beyond the veil. One, however, came to the forefront.
"I had faith in you, Harry. I knew you would recognize the truth of my words." It was Merlin. Harry saw the dreamlike saturated colors return to a corner of the room, coalescing together to form the well-kept, long-bearded and sumptuously-robed old wizard.
"I'll ask again," Harry said, swallowing hard. "I've got to just…walk through this, and everything will be all right?"
"See for yourself," Merlin said, directing Harry's hand towards the rim of the arch. Reaching forward tentatively, Harry brushed a hand along the ancient stone of the archway. The entire ovoid shape crackled suddenly, causing Harry to retract his hand as though he had touched a hot stove. From the point where his fingers had brushed the stone, a series of runic symbols traced in light began to appear. They stretched across the circumference of the arch, connected by a spider-web of faintly-glowing leylines, until the entire archway was brimming with a ghostly pale light. The black veil was blown aside as though by a great wind, and Harry looked through the archway and saw an endless expanse of undulating forms and shapes.
"Later on we built gateways that were more stable," Merlin explained. "They stayed away from the close connection this gate has with the land of the dead, but in exchange they lost the power to travel through time, only through space."
"Like a Portkey?" Harry asked.
"Yes, very much like a Portkey," Merlin said. "Now, Harry, I need you to concentrate. Feel the images welling up from deep in your mind. Close your eyes if it helps."
Harry tried to concentrate with his eyes open, but the shifting shapes within the archway were too distracting, and he finally closed his eyes. At first there was only the warm blackness of his own eyelids and the frenetic scurrying of thoughts and worries through his brain. But gradually these surface thoughts quieted, and he was left with strange sensory thoughts, images of strange glowing symbols that burned in his mind as strongly as any childhood trauma.
"What are these symbols in my head?" Harry asked, clutching the sides of his face. "What did you do to me?"
"I only gave you the necessary knowledge," Merlin said gravely. "There are many who would say I have already done far too much, and yet I hope to do more, much more, in the past.. Now, hold the symbols in your mind and touch the arch."
Harry reached forward again and touched the glowing archway. A set of 9 symbols along the archway's edge began glowing fiercely, far outshining their peers.
"Yes, yes, very good," the shimmering Merlin image said. "I must leave you now, Harry, before I am discovered. Step through the gate, and we can begin our great work. Remember how you contacted me before, in this time. You will need to reach those heights of emotion again. I've planted the seeds in your mind, along with the knowledge that you need." With that, he faded away, like a watercolor left in the rain.
"Can't be worse than Apparating," Harry said to no one in particular, looking into the archway again. The shifting forms of the dead had disappeared, and instead of an empty black expanse there was a thread of blue winding its way into the infinite darkness like a tiny river. Harry took a deep breath, terrified that it would be his last, and stepped across the threshold of the arch, into history.