Important Author Notes - PLEASE READ:
I've received quite a few mixed reviews about this new version of HP The Veil Of Time, So i think it's time i address some of the commonly reoccurring misunderstandings and concerns that seem to keep popping up in these reviews. I Hope you'll all take the time to actually read this so that you can get a feel for where I'm coming from.
OK Let's start with the most commonly reoccurring element first... GINNY.
With this version of the story i have aimed for a more realistic telling of the events. I wanted to explore more accurately how things would likely play out if Harry truly found himself living in a war torn world where most of his loved ones were dead only to have some mysterious character claiming to be Merlin show up and offer him a way to do it all over again.
So here's Harry, who has just lost the only woman he has truly loved and as a result he's pretty screwed up emotionally at the moment and not likely thinking properly as you might imagine, and so he grasps onto that slim chance that it might really be true and jumps before he looks so to speak.
Now put yourself in his position and try and ask yourself how you'd react if you suddenly found yourself back in the past, reliving events that to you, had already happened years earlier, seeing people who moments before had been lying dead in the great hall. Throw into that the uncertainty of the future along with the vague haunting threat of the unknown that Merlin has alluded to... Can you honestly tell me that Harry would have it all together. Frankly, if it were me... I'd be out of my bloody mind.
So I've tried to portray that. He's confused, and he's trying desperately to roll with the punches so to speak. He's arrived in the past at a very chaotic moment and events are already starting to spiral out of control. He's not really had the chance to think about the more personal aspects of his life except for perhaps in passing and at the same time he's also vaguely aware of the fact that he has to avoid acting to out of character.
In the past, He'd barely said 5 words to Ginny in his fourth year... If he were to suddenly worship the ground she walked on people would start to ask questions. But mostly, it's not conscious at all. he's just overwhelmed with what's going on and hasn't had enough time to settle into this new reality and allow himself to relax enough to enjoy the wonderful new opportunities he's been given.
So all that said, i encourage you all to stick with this story. Things will start to heat up here in the coming chapters and Harry will start to interact with Ginny alot more as well. This is a Romance/Adventure story and Ginny will play a very significant part in it starting very soon.
And now... On with the show.
Harry Potter and the Veil of Time
Chapter Eleven:
By Cybergades
The moon struggled to peer through the thick cover of dark clouds, which, haloed in its silvery light, drifted slowly over the British wilderness. Below, a few flecks of silver trembled in the black waters that reflected the overcast sky, while the piles of cut stone struck out against the sky like dark fingers grasping at the heavens. Among the heaps of building materials strode a figure, stepping carefully over the uneven ground. Parts of the hillside had been recently leveled off, leaving wide expanses of the ground flattened and cleared of grass and rocks. The stones had been laid out here, forming the beginnings of a building's foundation, and it was out onto this field of leveled brick that the figure crept, a smear of shadow on the ground.
It reached a location that seemed to suit it and dropped to one knee, reaching out with a careful hand to feel at the stone. Satisfied with whatever information it gleaned from this, it reached into the recesses of its robes and drew forth a curious, crystalline device that hummed with power. Within the depths of this device lay untold leagues of space, tucked away from the rest of the world and humming with a hidden power ready to be put to use. Moving aside one of the stones, the lonely figure slipped the crystal underneath the foundation of stone, scraping out a depression in the earth and fitting the device snug within it. Then, with a slight motion, he set something in the crystalline object alive, and it began to let out a low thrumming purr.
Protrusions and cables burst from the device, burrowing into the earth and stone around it with equal ease and binding the device into place with the nascent castle and the hillside itself. There it would remain, melding with the growing architecture and layers of magic that would soon surround it, biding its time until the day it would be discovered by one with the ability to unlock its true, and invaluable, function. Satisfied that its work was complete, the cloaked figure rose and stepped away from where it had hidden its charge. With a deep breath, the figure prepared itself for transportation, and with no more than a slight mental effort was whisked away through space in a flurry of muted colors, scintillating briefly like some low-flying aurora before leaving the night as still and quiet as it had been previously, the whipping winds of the hills drowning out the faint low humming of the device's power at work.
The windows of Gryffindor tower were unkind to the tired students of the house. The panes of glass seemed positively impatient for the dawn, and took the very first sliver of light as a signal to begin streaming radiance into the beds and eyes of the sleeping Gryffindors. Harry tried in vain to block out the encroaching dawn with pillows, blankets, anything, but the damage was already done, and finally he sat up, defeated.
"Erm? Wuzzat?" Ron's body murmured from somewhere beneath a pile of blankets. Harry froze, one arm in his robes, but his friend remained asleep. Lucky git, Harry thought to himself as he finished dressing and descended to the common room.
"Morning, Harry," Hermione said from one of the tables near the fire. Harry waved back at her silently, one arm occupied by digging the sleep out of his eyes. He let out a cavernous yawn and sank into the chair across from her.
"How are you even awake?" he asked. "It feels like dawn just got up early to play a trick on us and is already back asleep."
Hermione smiled slightly, finishing a sentence at the bottom of a crowded-looking scroll before rolling it up gingerly. "I was just up early to finish an assignment for class; it was too noisy last night to get it done. Congratulations, again, by the way."
"Thanks," Harry said. "I feel bad about Cedric though. He looks like he had a pretty rough time of it."
"Do you think the second task will be any easier?"
"Oh, definitely," Harry said with a wave of his hand. "Mermaids are going to steal Ron, but this time I know exactly where they'll be holding him and I won't have to stress myself out trying to figure anything out. I should probably give Diggory a heads-up, though, he's the one who told me about it the first go-around."
"Back up a second," Hermione said, raising one eyebrow. "Mermaids are going to steal Ron?"
"Yup," he said with a nod. "They hide him at the bottom of the lake, I need to figure out a way to breathe underwater long enough to save them."
"And?" Hermione pressed, looking interested at the prospect of learning some new piece of magic.
"Gillyweed," he replied. "Neville's got a book on magical plants, he's going to be the one that tells me about it. Dobby can steal me some from Snape's office."
Hermione's lips became pursed at this. Harry shrugged.
"Well, I'll pay him if that's what he wants, but it's not like he doesn't owe me a few favors, is it?"
Hermione said nothing, but her expression softened. After a few seconds, she spoke up again.
"So are you going to talk to Dumbledore today?"
"If I can find him," Harry said. "I'm not sure what the gargoyle's answering to these days."
"Well, I'm glad you're letting him into the loop," Hermione said. "Hopefully he'll have some ideas about how we can capitalize on this."
"Hopefully he can get an Auror out to where Wormtail's got Voldemort now and put an end to him," Harry said grimly. He knew it was impossible of course. With all of his Horcruxes still in place Voldemort was outside the reach of any true death.
"I hope so," Hermione said in agreement, waving to Harry before ducking out of the common room on her way to the Great Hall.
Harry tried his best, but was unable to catch so much as a glimpse of Dumbledore for the first half of his day. At lunch, he spotted him at the staff table, and even got a small wave out of him, but he was surrounded by other professors and Harry was unable to approach. And, of course, when he tried to follow the headmaster out of the Great Hall, he found that the old man had somehow outpaced and evaded him. He wondered if there were some passages even the Marauder's Map didn't show. Then again, Dumbledore was one of the people who could Apparate into and out of Hogwarts. Harry had a soft chuckle at the thought of Dumbledore utilizing his great powers as headmaster to zip around the castle more efficiently.
It wasn't until that night that Harry got another chance. He raced out of his last class for the day, heading towards the spiral staircase that led to Dumbledore's tower. He stopped at the gargoyle, panting and out of breath. The halls were still fairly unpopulated, as many of the other classes were still in session.
"Um…lemon drop?" he asked, somewhat uncertainly. The gargoyle remained unmoving and impassive.
"Oh! Um…Cockroach Cluster?" The gargoyle, if anything, looked more bored than it had previously.
"Chocolate Frog?" Harry asked, almost apologetically. With a faint grinding sound, the gargoyle slid sideways to reveal the stairway up to the Headmaster's chamber. Harry rushed forward, but he stopped himself with his foot up on the first step, his mind racing. Was this really the correct choice?
Here he was, on his way to see the man he believed was going to help him, going to fix all of the wizarding world's problems and set everything right, and he was listing off candy names like a child. Harry retracted his foot from the step and leaned back against the opposite wall, eying the stairway to the headmaster's office almost distrustfully. To use the knowledge and advantage Harry had gained to its fullest extent would require difficult choices and, more than likely, a severe effort at unifying aspects of the wizarding world that seemed intent on ripping each other to pieces. Dumbledore was a vocal proponent of the unity of wizards, but how much had he accomplished?
As an educator, certainly, no doubt countless witches and wizards had passed out from Hogwarts' doors into the wider world with their minds more tolerant for the presence of Dumbledore, but molding future generations was well outside of Harry's available options at this point. And, Harry knew, Dumbledore's last best hope for the wizarding world involved setting himself up to be killed. Did the headmaster have the stomach to live through what was to come? Was there room for Dumbledore's brand of true selflessness in this fight, in this war? Harry knew that he would do anything at all to protect his friends, even if it meant laying down his own life. Would he be willing to lay down their lives as well? He knew Dumbledore would frown upon it, but in his heart he knew that the answer was yes. The situation was too dire, and too precarious, for mere sentiment to ruin all hope.
No, Harry was going to have to take the lead here. Like being the Auror he always hoped he would be, except this time flanked by enemies on all sides. He hoped that Dumbledore would understand, that the two of them could one day come to even terms about this. If Harry was successful, after all, it would be unnecessary for Dumbledore to die. Even Snape, Harry thought with extremely mixed feelings, could be saved.
"Um…never mind," he said to the gargoyle, who stared back at him accusingly.
"Oh, come off it," he hissed, and the gargoyle slowly slid back into place, shutting him off from the stairway to the headmaster's office and leaving him alone in the rapidly darkening hallway. Heaving a heavy sigh, as though he could simply shrug off the immense weight he had just shouldered for himself, he dug his Invisibility Cloak out of his bag. It was getting late, and there was no sense running into someone in the halls that could ask him awkward questions.
All the light seemed blue and gray, the color washed out of the world as Harry made his way through Hogwarts' winding hallways. He wondered if Filch was lurking about, or if Mrs. Norris was going to drop down on him from some hidden alcove. As if on cue, he heard footsteps approaching rapidly from around a corner. Stumbling to back up, the Invisibility Cloak actually fell back from his head, just as Artemius wheeled around the corner and came face to face with his floating head.
"You!" the Unspeakable hissed angrily, reaching for his wand. Not waiting to think of a reply, Harry pulled the cloak up over his head and took off down the hall, sprinting away from the wizard as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Stupefy!" Artemius shouted, a red bolt passing dangerously close to Harry's legs. "Stupefy! Stupefy!"
Harry wheeled around a corner, the wall shuddering as another of Artemius' spells rammed into it. His mind was full of panic. He could just imagine the Ministry confiscating the Cloak, carting him off to answer a million questions he didn't have time to explain, and all the while Voldemort would be getting stronger, not to mention whatever else he was supposed to be preparing for. He just hoped that he had told Dumbledore enough for him to be able to carry on without him. But he himself was a Horcrux…Voldemort would be invincible if he was imprisoned in the Ministry while the Dark Lord was running free.
"I need a way out of this…" he thought frantically to himself. "I need to escape!"
And there it was. As he rounded another corner, there was a familiar door set into the stone of the wall, where it had never been before. Harry recognized it immediately, even in his panicked state, and threw himself mightily against the heavy door, pushing it open and slamming it shut behind him.
"I REALLY NEED him not to get in here!" he shouted aloud to the Room of Requirement. The Room, of course, offered no reply, but there was no black-cloaked Unspeakable banging down the door behind him, so for the moment at least, Harry felt he was safe, and ventured into the room a little more. What he saw made his mouth fall open slightly.
On a raised dais, in the center of the room, stood a vertical circle of metal. The edge of the ring was inscribed with many symbols, evenly spaced, seven of which glowed with a faint radiance. The collection of glyphs seemed oddly familiar to Harry, as though he had read about them once before, long ago, and was only now reminded that he had ever seen them at all. He realized they must be buried in the memories and information Merlin had placed inside his mind. He looked around for some other device or indication, but the Room remained empty except for the gate. Harry stepped forward, his steps sounding without echo in the still room. He was nearly ten feet away from the standing circle when Merlin snapped into view, the image of his person snapping together with a soft noise that sent Harry leaping backwards.
"Don't bloody do that!" he shouted, angry with himself for being so bowled over.
"Greetings," Merlin said. His voice sounded strange, somewhat tinny. "If you are here, that means that humanity has come a long way, stepped to the very threshold of its destiny in the universe."
"What?" Harry said, puzzled, but Merlin didn't even stop to acknowledge that he had spoken.
"Your entry into this chamber means that your genetic code has advanced to a level that allows you to interact with our technology on a useful level. Perhaps your people have already begun colonizing other worlds."
"Wait a minute," Harry said, stepping forward while Merlin turned to gesture at the Stargate. As he raised his arm to point at the metal circle, Harry tried to touch him on the shoulder, and gave a knowing smile when his hand passed right through the image of Merlin.
"This gateway connects directly to Yggdrasil, the last great construction of the Ancients, in the last days before our departure from this plane. In it you will find knowledge, defenses against those who would threaten you, vessels to carry you from star to star, and all the collected secrets of the Ancients."
"This room was placed here by none other than I, Merlin. I allowed it to grow within the structure and magic of your great school, to observe and mimic your strange powers, and to await the time when one with the proper genetic advancement would enter and claim their place as the Heir of the Ancients."
Harry took a step towards the gate as the outer circle began spinning. He stared at the empty space in the center of the ring, trying to see anything like the strange pathway he had witnessed in the Death Chamber.
"Please step away from the gateway now," the Merlin hologram intoned.
"What?" Harry whipped his head around as the gate fully activated.
The burst of energy from the gate nearly knocked Harry off his feet. A great blue burst of bright light, like a plume of water after a meteor impact, was flung out of the gate, suspended for a split second in space before it collided back with the ring and formed a glowing, whirling, watery screen that stretched across what had only seconds before been empty space. Harry steadied himself, clenching and unclenching his fists nervously. In the Death Chamber the portal had merely formed a bridge way stretching into empty space. This was something entirely different. He stepped towards the gateway, tensed to jump away at any moment if another torrent of energy were to rocket out of the circle. He stopped when he was standing just over a foot away from the standing water. Reaching out with one hand, he traced along the cold liquid, marveling that his hand came back dry.
"I can't believe I'm going to do this again," Harry said, remembering his interminable trek through the vast darkness of time. Theoretically this gate would simply be sending him to another place, but would the experience be similar? He certainly didn't remember enjoying his little trip through the land of the dead.
"The Wraith. The Ori. The Goa'uld. Beware these threats to you and to your people. Use the knowledge we have given you, but do not allow yourselves to be consumed by it. Power is a dangerous thing, and those with power bear the responsibility of the effects that power will inevitably produce. Be mindful of this, and act not without thinking. Good luck." The merlin image snapped off like a light with a soft –snap-, leaving Harry alone by the luminescent pool of the Stargate.
"I guess there's no sense in postponing things, is there?" Harry said, tracing his hand back across the watery surface of the gate, watching as the ripples upset the surface of what could not possibly be water. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself for a moment, then stepped cleanly through the gate, disappearing from the Room of Requirement altogether. After a few seconds, the blue light from the gate vanished as the liquid surface dissipated cleanly, leaving no evidence that Harry Potter was ever in the room at all.