Chapter 3: Undercurrents

While Harry Potter was being abducted on the back of a centaur, wounded and unconscious, in the castle nearby another abduction of a different kind was being uncovered. Current Headmistress Minerva McGonagall sat in front of a kidnapped magical portrait, repeating her last question at the former Headmaster portrayed in it, questioning him under the duress of their allegiance to the current head of the school.

"I asked, what have you done, Albus?"

Dumbledore's likeness sagged against the edge of the golden frame. "That night, when I suddenly remembered exactly where Lily and James had been hiding, it became clear Voldemort had struck. I asked Fawkes for his help and we landed in their drawing room, where James was ... dead. Sprawled on the floor, looking up at me ... silently accusing me for not doing enough to protect his family.

"Fawkes and I walked up the stairs, searching for Lord Voldemort. We found part of the roof had collapsed and I fell to my knees, searching for the boy who should be alive, or else I would have to search for young Longbottom instead. Alas, I had no memory of where they lived, so I believed Alice and Frank to be safe at that point in time.

"When clearing the debris I ... touched her. I felt unworthy of her touch. Lily's bruised and rigid hand had an extended index finger, accusing me for my failure, yet there was nothing I could do. Fawkes had flown a few yards and perched himself on an overturned cot, which I proceeded to lift and then we found him, Harry Potter, bleeding profusely from a deep cut on his forehead.

"The prophecy had been enacted, at least partially. Please understand, Minerva! That prophecy gave us hope, because once Voldemort acted on it, it became our only means of defence against him! However, there is one magical event I witnessed at Godric's Hollow that I have kept a guarded secret until today."

"Albus, I'm loosing my patience!" snarled McGonagall.

"I see... Please bear with me, Headmistress. The ultimate goal of a Horcrux is but to enslave one's fractured soul to this realm and survive the death of one's body. It does not make one immortal, it simply prevents one from passing over to the next great adventure. That being said, I believe that despite Lily Potter's willing sacrifice allowing for prophecy to be served by marking Harry as an equal to Voldemort, magic went a step further in making them equal. It gave baby Harry a Horcrux of his own."

McGonagall went still and remained silent for several moments, until her lips thinned and she took a deep breath. "The boy has a Horcrux of his own and you decided not to tell him?" she yelled. "Damn it Albus! How could you? What else have you been hiding from all of us?"

"Many things, I'm afraid to say, Minerva."

"How? How could those foul things have been created by accident? And how is it Harry has been living with a fractured soul all this time?"

"To answer your first question, I must again hypothesize. I believe baby Harry was directly hit with the Killing Curse that night, right on his forehead," the portrait of Dumbledore traced a lightning bolt on his own face. "However prophecy and old magic, a sacrifice of love, disturbed that event and redirected the curse back at the caster. The moment Harry killed Lord Voldemort, however, magic crafted a Horcrux for him as well."

"If that's the case, Harry could have survived anything thrown at him? Is that why you were so confident that in the end, once he had mastered the Hallows, it wouldn't matter if he was killed by the Killing Curse or slain by the steel of a sword?"

The former Headmaster was elated at the current Head's quick thinking, despite the unrestrained anger she showed him. "Indeed, however if he had suffered death prior to his becoming Master of Death, he would have become less than a ghost, mere shadow and vapour, not the strong soul that chose to return to this plane of existence.

"Now in answer to your second question, which I'm obligated to answer by the charms placed upon my canvas, it pains me to admit I always believed Harry had no problems or difficulties in life, even with a fractured soul. Withholding the prophecy from him was an old man's mistake, I told him once, and perhaps hiding this truth was yet another ... perhaps he was living a half-life, struggling to understand why he never felt complete. If he has tried to ... quit life ... since I refuse to use the proper wording, I confess to have failed him, yet again."

"What object became Harry's Horcrux? Show it to me so we can search for him. I need to think about your motives and deal with the fact that, in the end, you may have saved us all through your keen intellect and faith in magic itself."

Dumbledore's likeness complied as expected, "Place the Sorting Hat on your head and ask it to deliver Puff, the Magic Dragon."

Raising an eyebrow, Minerva summoned the Sorting Hat into the room and put it on, instructing it as told, and was rewarded with a soft object bouncing over the tight bun she kept her hair in. Reaching for it, she found herself holding a small, blue stuffed dragon. "This was in Harry's cot that awful night?"

A nod from the painting confirmed it. "Minerva, please exercise extreme caution around that object. Horcruxi are aberrations of nature, they defile something sacred and cannot be undone, only destroyed. If Harry becomes aware of it, he will lose his mind, of that I am certain."

"Poppycock, Albus! If anything has destroyed his mind it was Death itself. You haven't seen him. His eyes are dead, he wandered the castle like a ghost, visiting the places people died... No, there must be something I can do for him, I owe him that much." McGonagall stood up and squeezed the toy dragon, making it release a puff of smoke, and set out to find a way to reunite a shattered soul despite Dumbledore's assertion that it cannot be done.

Unfortunately, she had to find the missing part first, the part inside Harry Potter himself before he decided to finish what he tried to accomplish in the castle, unaware that even if he killed his body, he still couldn't be free.

High above the Forbidden Forest, Luna and Raisin flew in circles, the Thestral sniffing the air to find the same scent the witch had shown it in a piece of cloth before being attacked by slender and accurate arrows. It caught a thread of its prey and dove towards the earth, with its rider squealing in delight, faster than a Quidditch player after a loose Quaffle.

The forest was large, and being magical, large could be any measure of length, which proved to be true in the hours ahead. Luna's body ached all over, she was still on potions to knit nerves and regrow soft tissue, particularly cartilage that was destroyed by curses, of the Unforgivable variety as well as others. "Where are you, Harry? What was so interesting about you that the Eternal Herds have spirited you away?"

Raisin gurgled a response, but she simply hugged the magical creature tighter and rested her pounding head against the scaly neck, taking comfort from the coolness of its skin. Fifteen minutes later, the Thestral landed and began to feast on the carcass of some dead beast on the ground, giving Luna time to dismount and scan her surroundings.

"This will take longer than the mating dance of the Jauntyful Goldjugglers," she spoke to the trees, tilting her had upwards to the sky and closing her eyes. "Others will come... Yes, they will eventually come for him."

Earlier that day, inside Longbottom Manor, Hermione sat uncomfortably across a tea table from the obnoxious Augusta Longbottom, considering where she could find flesh and blood belonging to her missing friend Harry.

"What exactly does that spell do, ma'am?" she asked in the meantime.

"These charms were created for herding particularly valuable creatures, such as dragons, griffins, or even packs of Crups. The practice was to save some blood and flesh from the newborns, and use it to chase after them if one or more were stolen or escaped the fields."

"Oh... Quite useful. Why was it banned, then?"

Neville answered instead of his grandmother. "Because the Wizengamot deemed the spell to be detrimental to the freedoms of wizards and witches. Aurors were using blood and hairs found in Muggle Hunting grounds to guide them straight to some of the most prominent members of society at the time."

She couldn't really notice it, but Hermione's hair puffed up and her eyes almost blazed with anger. The weeks spent raging against her narrow-minded parents and trying to find herself at the bottom of a bottle of wine had loosened the trademark self-control she displayed while in school. "Muggle Hunting? Are you saying they banned a legal spell that was used to bring criminals to justice because they were tracking down purebloods guilty of murdering innocents?!"

"Calm yourself Madame Granger!" Augusta said and shoved a cup of tea under the young witch's nose. "For someone vaunted to be the smartest witch of the times, you certainly haven't displayed much of an intelligence so far."

Hermione sputtered and Neville placed a hand on hers, quietly asking her to hold her temper.

"Why do you concern yourself with matters of the past, when present and future should be your sole focus? Have you learned nothing from your struggle against the Dark Lord? Are you learning nothing from the fact one of your brothers in wands is terribly distressed because someone though he knew best, much like yourself?"

"I do not appreciate your veiled insinuation regarding Professor Dumbledore, Madame Longbottom. He did what had to be done and so did I!" Hermione replied and dropped the cup of tea.

"Do you not consider yourself to be a hypocrite, then? You rage against my kind and yet you treated your own blood no different than what the Knights of Walpurgis regarded them as. Did you not consider your mother and father simple Muggles, inferior beasts incapable of making decisions on their own? Beings so simple and defenceless that you, a witch, had to step in and care for them as you intend to do with House-Elves?"

"That information was held in strict confidence," Hermione snarled and looked sideways at Neville, demanding an explanation.

"Look not at the Head of Longbottom for clarifications, I do have many sources of information merely a pinch of Floo Powder away," the matriarch said and sipped from her cup, never removing her aged eyes from the angry Muggleborn. "Clarify yourself then, young lady. Do you know best about early nineteen-hundreds politics and the reasons for Muggle Hunting? Do you have all the facts or do your primary inclinations blind you to reality?" the elder witch insisted, straightening her posture and looking as formidable as she was during the Battle of Hogwarts. "I was there. I saw the Muggle blossom and triumph over their limitations, and I saw their greed to obtain anything and everything that exists in the world. I saw their desire to take magic for themselves."

Hermione sat back startled.

"The Muggle expansionists pushed into wizarding lands, and we retreated. They built and ploughed over magically powerful places, and we let them. They dirtied the winds and the waters, and killed the sprites of the forests, and we let them. When they started killing witches and wizards again, torturing them to gain our magic, we let them. Secrecy was more important than the lives of those of us foolish enough to be caught by Muggles.

"Albus has always thought he knows best. He followed the trend of the times and, reacting to how his own family was affected by them, wrote essay after essay detailing how to cull and control the Muggle hordes," Augusta continued and smiled at the attentive look her grandson had on his face, for once able to focus on something other than chlorophyll. "Do not doubt this, Madame Granger, the fact remains that his plans resulted in a war that killed roughly forty million Muggles by the end of the second decade of the twentieth century, and nonetheless we only acknowledge him as the wizard who vanquished his dear friend Grindelwald."

Sipping the last of her tea and charming another batch, Augusta continued her history lesson, "He had turned against his own ideals much earlier, of course, due yet again to a tragedy within the Dumbledore family. If anything, that loathsome witch Skeeter has for once written more than a partial truth with her acidic quill. Like you, Madame Granger, the wizard you defend so vehemently expected his dogma to be followed without contest, and created more havoc through half-measures and magnanimous attitudes than any Dark Lord could have ever created on his own."

"Why I've never--"

"And perhaps Muriel was right, in that you are just a skinny-ankled Muggle playing witch, after all," the old matriarch told Hermione as she looked deep into her eyes.

Hermione felt as if the Longbottom Matriarch had been using Legilimency on her, and yet she had no involuntary recollections nor the tell-tale sensation of a foreign presence in her mind. She turned her eyes away after a long moment of silence, downing the rest of her tea in one single swallow. "Obliviating my parents was but my lesser concern. Harry and I had to use every magic at our disposal, Madame Longbottom, and I have performed magic no skinny-ankled Muggle playing witch could ever hope to do while hunting for the anchors that kept the Dark Lord alive."

"Unforgivables as well?" Augusta asked with a knowing smirk. "For one who believes so strongly in justice, you certainly discard the concept quite easily to accomplish your own goals. In the end, what separates you from a Death Eater?"

"I did what's right, I-- I--" she started but cut herself short. "I need a drink..."

"Have I chinked that armour of righteousness yet, Madame Granger?" Augusta provoked, refilling her cup with steaming Darjeeling yet again. Her hand shook heavily and Neville was quick to take over and pour for her. He looked disapprovingly at his grandmother but she stared back at him with that familiar authoritarian look he'd seen his whole life.

"I'll contact Hogwarts to find flesh and blood of my friend. It's likely Madame Pomfrey has kept samples from her most frequent visitor," he told Hermione and left the room, abandoning the witches to their intense quarrelling.

Harry regained consciousness and immediately regretted breathing. The sharp pain reminded him of his encounter with the strange centaur and the interrupted meeting with Dobby, his faithful friend who'd known freedom in a way he never would. He remembered the centaur knocking his wand away, which likely destroyed the Death Stick's allegiance to him, and as he rubbed his hands, Harry realized he'd lost the Resurrection Stone as well.

"Damn centaurs," he hissed and stifled a cry of pain at the effort of rolling over. "They could've left me some dignity," he grumbled after finding himself nude. His chest was marred by a dark-red yet dry wound, where the arrow he'd been shot with had buried itself, and he mentally tallied another scar to his collection.

The clearing he woke in was warm, with thick, wild grass and blossoming flowers here and there. Sunshine fell at an angle, indicating it was probably late in the afternoon, and he saw birds flying around, feeding on seeds and insects. With another grunt, Harry raised his torso on his hands and crouched to stand up, startling a meandering red fox who ran away for the safety of the trees.

He heard tell-tale sounds of galloping and assumed a defensive stance, scanning the edge of the clearing and finally realized he wore no eyeglasses. "What the...?"

Pushing that question for later, he pressed a hand to his chest as a stabbing pain rocked him again, deciding to sit down and regain his breath. No sooner had he sat on the ground that the origin of the galloping revealed itself.

"Stand up, human!" the bearded centaur commanded from the shadow of the forest.

"Why?"

Chiron smiled darkly and his braided beard twitched. "Because I say so, human. It is not your place to question me, Chiron of Pilio, Ancient of the Eternal Herd, Bringer of Knowledge."

Harry snorted. "Great, another arsehole full of himself. Where are my clothes, centaur?"

Three arrows zoomed an inch from his face, two more coming to fall between his legs as soon as he finished his question. Harry flinched but remained seated, rubbing his chest and keeping an eye on the only visible enemy twenty yards away.

"What must you hide beneath clothes, human? Are you so dishonest and untruthful that you must pretend to be something else?" Chiron said and started to approach the naked man.

"Er... It's more of a warmth and comfort matter rather than pretending. Sure, you've got fur, but I'm a hairless ape," replied Harry, amused at the look of confusion on Chiron's face.

"You dare to mock me? You dare to make fun of an ancient being that honours your lowly existence with my mere presence?"

"You shot me! All I wanted was to talk to someone, anyone who'd tell me about true freedom, about what it's like to feel free, to be truly free ... because I thought only death sets you free," he trailed off, falling to his left side and moaning. His chest hurt and breathing had become progressively more difficult.

Chiron towered over Harry and twirled beard braids around his finger, "I did as required. Your constant trespassing of the forest and the destiny bestowed upon you by the stars demanded the highest honours for your sacrifice. Yet here you are, alive in death, dead in life."

"If you're so damn old, how come you're speaking modern English?" Harry asked mockingly, trying to get a rise out of the stuck-up centaur. He might be hurting, disarmed and naked, but he still had some wits to fight with now that he'd decided to stay alive. All he needed now was an opening to run back into the forest and find his way to Hogwarts.

"Ridiculous humans and their small minds. Why, how, when, where, what. Must you question everything and anything? I am Chiron. I am Knowledge," the centaur answered. "I am the origin and the ending of all that was, is and will be known. I bring meaning to the heavens and give wisdom to the worthy. I show truth to the blind and speak wonders to the deaf."

"And all I want is a fucking straight answer. You'd love to chat with Dumbledore, were he still alive."

"Albus Dumbledore was an honourable human. Not very bright, but honourable nonetheless."

Startled, Harry rolled over and rested on his back, knowing the centaur could smash his skull with a hoof if he wanted. But Chiron didn't seem too inclined in killing him, in fact, if Harry didn't know better, he would risk guessing the creature had taken an interest in him. What's more, his hand should be broken and his chest should be bleeding. "How long have I been here?"

"Time is irrelevant, distance is inconsequential. What matter these to the eternal stars and the ever-dancing planets above us? What matter these for the child who crossed the mirror?"

Cursing the centaurs and their stupid fixation with riddles and astronomy, Harry closed his eyes and fell into an easy slumber. The ground was warm and comfortable, and although his chest hurt with every breath he took, the instinctive knowledge that Chiron had already tried to kill him once and wouldn't attempt the deed twice was enough to make him surrender to oblivion.

Somehow, forces stronger than human desire or centaur divining had spurred an unstoppable current of events for which neither species had received clear warning.

Notes:

1.- I don't know what exactly happened at Godrics Hollow, and running over several possibilities, I chose one for this tale. The Fidelius was cast and the Secret Keeper chosen, but Dumbledore retained no knowledge of who it was. When Voldemort was blown apart, the charm broke, and the secret was revealed to all who had previous knowledge.
2.- Dumbledore kept secrets even after death. He didn't lie to Harry when he told him he had a choice to cross over or to return to life after Voldemort hit him with an Avada Kedavra, because the choice was really his, however had he chosen to move on, Harry's Horcrux would've prevented it.
3.- Shortest possible chapter, because this story is supposed to run fast and show but the most important events in the post-Voldemort life of Harry Potter and his friends.