I encourage reviews of any type.

A/N: Just a heads up, yes there will be a seperate book for each 'year.' It's most likely to end at the sixth book though...the Deus ex Machina thingy with DH would not work well with this series at all. (and I hate the book, killing the Dark Lord off with a first year spell and all but that's irrelevant...really).

Harry Potter and the Breath of Life

"He was a brilliant man, absolutely brilliant. I would have been honoured to be his Headmaster when he attended, and I fancy myself being able to change his poor choices. He contributed so much to the Wizarding folk, our current knowledge of Dementors, our medicines, the elusive Liberito Maximus spell. I hear he was a Ravenclaw, makes sense if you ask me. What doesn't make sense is what would cause a man to snap like that, to just abandon his country! No one would have ever imagined him a madman, his research with Flamel notwithstanding, searching for immortality. Thaddeus had us all fooled and I can say with absolute certainty that I'm glad he's locked away in Azkaban. He might not have warranted the Kiss but the universe is not a toy!" -Armando Dippet, Headmaster of Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry


"There's no reason to forbid the Forest this time, Albus," Minerva McGonnagall stated thickly, throwing leaves of parchment onto his deak only to scatter to the floor. "There's nothing there! The lake is the same, no Grindylows, no merpeople, no squid, nothing!" With a heavy sigh, the woman slumped into one of the over stuffed chairs that littered his office. "I don't understand what has happened..."

Albus Dumbledore just stared at his wand blankly. The year hadn't even officially started yet and it was already falling to pieces. The Forbidden Forest was discovered by Hagrid to be devoid of all creatures except the Thestrals. No Acromantula, no centaurs, no Bowtruckles...it was as if someone had packed up all of the magical creatures and carried them off over night. Filius Flitwick had been the one to discover the absence of any sign of life from the lake and Severus had noted that the Whomping Willow was completely still, like an ordinary tree.

And worse of all, was Hogwarts herself. Or itself now.

There were no murmurs from the lingering intelligence in the castle wards, no warmth. The paintings had all ceased to function, the ghosts had gone. At the very least the moving staircases and vanishing doors had remained but now the movement felt mechanical rather than cheerfully random. There was no welcoming pulses of magic from the castle, the former Headmasters were trapped into silence within their portraits and Fawkes...

He choked back a sob.

Minerva must have heard it anyway for she took her hand away from her face to give him a pitying look. "He'll make it through, Albus. He has to."

He simply nodded, mind elsewhere. He hadn't believed it to be a literal mention, when he had found it in the records only available to the Headmaster. Records comparing the castle to that of a living, breathing thing. That strange room that reacted to the desires of students, things unexplained about the castle were chalked up to one item.

The Heart of Hogwarts.

He had assumed that the Founders had simply put some complex warding into motion, much like they did with the Sorting Hat and had disregarded all mentions of the fifth, a being of light, in its creation. Was he being foolish?

Stay Out Mortal! Ever since that day, that ringing yell had stayed with him. Dumbledore had never questioned himself so much, not even during the wars he'd lived through, than he did after that failed attempt at Legilimency.

Overnight.

Merlin, this had all happened overnight, it could only be a greater being. Incarnate.

The only conclusion Dumbledore could come up with was this: Harry was playing with some dangerous fire and he would have to be watched. Was it the 'power the Dark Lord knows not' or something else entirely? A sudden frightening thought struck him. If Harry really did gain the attention of the Greater Beings, did the prophecy even affect him anymore?

A moment later, he discarded the thought. Nonsense, it had to.

It had to.

Overnight...Hogwarts had died.

"Albus." He looked up, too troubled to put a twinkle in his eyes. "It's time for the Welcoming Feast." And with a groan, he stood up.

He was feeling so very, very old and yet at the same time, like an infant being dangled over the edge of a ravine, with sharpened stakes at the bottom. If he wiggled too much, Fate might just decide to let him fall.


It was a dark and damp place, with water dripping freely down the walls to pool into dark puddles on the ground. The air was heavy with a musk of mildew and long decayed bodies, bones littered the floor with not one complete skeleton in sight. A giant statue of an ugly, wild looking man dominated the vision while numerous snake motifs adorned the walls. An unnatural chill in the air was slowly covering several large pipes in the room with a black frost and every so often, a vaguely human shaped shimmer in the air would flit about.

This was the Chamber of Secrets.

And while Salazar Slytherin may have built the place, this Dead Zone belonged to the Incarnate of Death.

"As charming as ever," someone murmured, voice echoing off the stone walls. "I haven't been here in half of forever, it seems."

"What would you have me do?" Another spoke clearly, mechanically as if their mind was detached from their mouth, uncaring of what was being said. Unusual, for someone so young sounding.

"A warning, I think..." There was a rustle of fabric as the speaker shrugged. "Kill something, just don't touch Potter."


"And how was your summer, Potter?"

Harry glanced over at Zabini and gave the boy a wry smile. "Nothing exciting happened other than getting to know my only relative worth anything." There were some nods from the ones who "knew" where Harry went at Christmas last year but in reality he had been talking about Constanze's portrait. Just about every other day, he had gone to talk to her, getting to know the Ergussons, why they fell out of grace and more about his father.

They hadn't been happy conversations.

James had been a blockhead, an impulsive Gryffindor to the bone. Not wanting to hurt any feelings, he waited until after asking Lily to marry him to break the news to Constanze and formally break off the engagement...with a letter. Constanze married someone else and was unfortunately killed by her new husband but not before she got the bastard who offed her, end of story.

There had been times he wished he could bring his parents back to life if only to give his father a good kick in the balls for being such a git. A sudden, bizarre thought popped into his mind: Could you get divorced post-humously?

There was mental snickering.

"Oh!" He smacked his open palm with a fist. "And there was this really weird house elf that tried to make me withdraw from Hogwarts."

Malfoy did a double take. "What!?"

Harry raised an eyebrow as he took a bite of his food. "It's true, ugliest thing I've seen in my life and it kept going on how I must not go because 'bad things be happening.'" He raised his voice at the end in an approximation of Dobby's squeal.

"What kind of bad things?"

Harry opened his mouth in Parkinson's direction and then closed it, blushing. "I don't know actually, he never said..." --Although we have a pretty good idea...--

Further conversation was cut off by the arrival of Dumbledore who had been strangely absent for a good portion of the Welcoming Feast. Well, all of it actually, a realization that raised Harry's eyebrows again. The old man looked tired and worn, as if the flouresent blue and purple robes he was wearing weighed several hundred stones. Even his pointy hat was not so pointy as the top was bent over pathetically and half-moon glasses slightly lopsided.

"Why does the Headmaster look as if he's been run over by a giant?" Greengrass' question was a good one and no one on the Slytherin table had an answer. In spite of himself, Harry snuck a glance over to the Gryffindor table to see how Hermione was taking the sight of her authority figure looking so vulnerable. And ,to his astonishment, she didn't even notice, calmly reading a book instead. As she looked up, Harry turned back to his plate , mind whiring.

What the fuck? Hermione adores Dumbledore!

--Maybe she found a new role model over the summer?--

Like who?

--What book is she reading?--

Harry swept his gaze over the Gryffindor table nonchalantly. No good, can't see it. Come to think of it, this wasn't the only thing that had changed. Hermione used to just barely tolerate Draco, tensing her jaw and forcing herself to keep quiet every time he used the word 'mudblood.' But on the train...nothing of the sort had happened, like they were one happy trio. I need answers.

"Welcome students," Dumbledore's weary rumble washed over all of them. "To another year, or your first, at Hogwarts. This year I am sorry to say that the Forbidden Forest...is no longer forbidden." Students blinked, especially the older ones. The befuddled looks on their faces giving their thoughts away. Was this a joke? "I would advise caution but many of the Forest's dangers have been removed. The list of contraband items has grown, see Filch for the entire list." And he sat down. The professors all had strained expressions of false cheer on their faces and it was making everyone just a little nervous.


A dark flash of something moving swiftly...a harsh whisper in a voice he recognized..."Kill something!"


Harry reeled in his seat as his scar began to ache, clutching the edge of the table with white knuckles. Was that Thana?

--I'm...not sure...--

The feeling of wrongness in the castle seemed to increase with the sudden silence in the Great Hall. Which was why when Percy Weasley, pompous ass, burst into the Great Hall screaming, everyone jumped nearly a foot out of their skin. The professors and Dumbledore leapt to their feet but Harry, confusing vision still on his mind, bolted in the direction the red head had come from. Some people were yelling for him to come back but his inner Gryffindor was urging him onwards. He couldn't die, not unless he drew the sword slapping against his back invisibly, so what did he have to worry about?

--...besides pain...-- his whisper reminded in a strangely subdued voice. Harry just winced, remembering Voldemort's Crucio from last year.

An anguished wail echoed throughout the halls and Harry took a sharp left towards it and came upon Filch and Mrs. Norris.

Or what he thought was Mrs. Norris.

It was kind of hard to tell.

Most of it was just a red mass of torn flesh with the cream coloured rib cage arcing out of it gracefully. Someone had taken the time and effort to carefully pluck the half-Kneazle's eyes out and imbed them in the heart like a macabre little face staring wide eyed out into the world. The bones were arranged in the perfect image of a broken heart, valentine style and on the wall, in blood lettering was a short note: There is always room for improvement.

And it was signed with the crimson picture of a sickle.

Harry couldn't think as he stood there, just staring at that symbol in numbing horror.

Filch saw him there and his eyes immediately traveled to Harry's scar. "You!" The old squib screeched with a cigar-stained voice, trembling finger pointing. "You did this! You monster!"

The boy snapped out of it, turned with a cold look on his face. He would never take well to being blamed for things that weren't his fault.

Monster, his mind whispered and he remembered being unable to move as Hermione died.

Freak, it whispered again and he remembered looks of fear, just when he finally did what was asked of him.

That almost forgotten anger welled up violently. "Then why the fuck would I come back, squib?" he nearly snarled. "Keep that finger to yourself before I tear it off!"

A hand landed on Harry's shoulder and he very nearly yanked it off. "Harry..." It was Hermione. "Calm down. He's just scared and grieving." The girl kept repeating her words in his ear and slowly, bit by bit, he relaxed but wasn't yet ready to feel regret for what he said. Snorting, he turned his back on the caretaker and stopped dead at the sight of that red headed girl from the train station. She was standing further down the hallway, still clutching that book tightly and still staring at him.

A weak guttering of his anger sent him a step forward. "Stop staring at me!"

The strange girl's eyes flickered over to an empty patch of space and then back to him as she nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, Harry Potter." And then she walked away with Harry's green eyes trying to bore a hole into her head. Sighing, he tilted his head and was vaguely aware of Draco's arrival and Hermione's low explanation of the scene.

This year is going to suck, really, really bad. He thought bitterly.

--Tell us about it--

Attending Hogwarts suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea, after all.


She watched in thinly veiled amusement as a wispy, blonde girl with large grey-blue eyes and a vacant smile on her face approached Harry, who just blinked up at her Ravenclaw robes. They were in the library, him having insisted on looking up any and all references to sickles.

"You can see them, can't you?" She asked him with an equally vacant voice. "Of course, they're hiding away from the Ausprites in the castle right now."

The poor boy just blinked again. "Pardon?"

The strange girl stepped closer and Hermione bit the end of her quill, trying not to laugh. He would know if she did. With a swift motion, the girl stole Harry's glasses right off his nose and leaned in so close that they were almost kissing. His face blushed in an interesting way, literally flushing from neck up. "What-what the bloody hell are you doing!?"

The girl just smiled, having found what she was looking for in his eyes, and handed his glasses back. "There, there, it's nothing to be ashamed of. We might even be able to go Snorkack hunting together sometime. Oh, I almost forgot my name."

Harry looked like he was about to fall over out of his chair. She was still quite close, now that Hermione took notice of it. The green eyed boy was obviously feeling off-kilter but he wasn't pushing the blonde away and that made Hermione's chest tighten with disappointment.

"You mean, forgot to tell me your name?"

"Hm?" The grey-blue eyes refocused momentarily. "Oh, no, I meant forget it. I'm Luna Lovegood, by the way, Harry Potter."

"Um...hi?"

Luna smiled wider and lifted her eyes to the boy's scar. "Good bye." After she was gone, Harry turned to Hermione with a perplexed look on his face.

"Did you get any of that?"

She couldn't help herself, she laughed at him. He pouted childishly and turned back to the book, muttering about 'bloody barmy witches' as he did so. Hermione felt a small pang, in times like this she wished she had been sorted into Slytherin or was able to be resorted. Summer had been a time for her to think about the first chapter of her abnormal life and watching her parents walk on eggshells around her after that Christmas...She had friends now that had no problem with her study habits. They liked Hermione for what made her Hermione (mostly) unlike her own House.

Dying was the best thing to have happened to her.

And she had her master, Harry, to thank for it.


Questions, questions, questions...what's going on? Well, I know, but I'd like to hear what you think. And is it Snorkrack or Snorkack?