AN: I will post the next chapter of Mark of the Reaper in a day or two. It will take a bit longer to post because the chapter is over 6K in rough draft, so it'll probably be over 7k after I edit it.
AN: I will be keeping up this posting schedule until this version of the story is complete. I will post a chapter for this story and then a chapter for the Mark of the Reaper, and so on.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland, 9/5/1975, 17:30
It was D.A.D.A tutoring day and more than half of the fifth and seventh-year students had shown up for tutoring, and most of them were here voluntarily.
Harry wasn't really surprised that he had too many pupils to fit into his assigned classroom. Up until a few years ago, the school had a new defence professor every year and many of them were incompetent at best
He had decided to lead the large group of students to the seventh-floor corridor as the room of requirements was the only room except for the great hall that would fit this many students comfortably.
Harry brought the group of students to a stop in front of the tapestry of Barnabus and began pacing back and forth while asking for the room he had used when he taught the D.A in his timeline.
The students watched on in confusion as their professor paced in front of the blank stretch of wall across from the tapestry before a door materialized with a soft 'pop' on his third pass much to their surprise.
The door opened into a large training room that looked like a combination of a classroom and a dueling chamber.
On one side of the room, there were rows of cushions arranged on the floor in front of a slightly raised platform where he could give lectures if desired. Behind the raised platform was a large window letting in the golden light from the setting sun. Off to one side of the classroom side of the room were bookshelves filled with defence texts.
Harry was a bit disappointed to see that most of the dark detectors he remembered from his timeline didn't appear in the room. When Harry thought about it, he realized that Moody must have left them behind in his timeline, and that hadn't happened yet.
To the left of the door leading into the room, there was a massive dueling chamber that was lit by seven large brass chandeliers hanging on thick iron chains from the vaulted ceiling overhead. Each chandelier was filled with hundreds of candles, casting the room in a warm orange glow.
The room was quite a bit different than his D.A classroom but then again there were quite a bit more students here than there were in his D.A classes.
Once the students had all stepped through the door, Harry instructed them to go to the dueling section of the room and then partner off.
He decided to start with the basics tonight which meant that he had them take turns practicing the disarming charm on each other.
Harry instructed the seventh years to silently cast the same spell that the fifth years were casting so it would be easier to work with two different year groups, and not hold the upper-year students back.
Harry was currently walking around the room and correcting the students' wand movements or helping them to improve their aim. In short, Harry was having a serious case of D.A Deja Vu.
It was on his way through the fifth-year students that he about tripped over his own feet.
He was brought up short as he spotted his mother amongst a cluster of Gryffindor students, she was paired with a dark-haired girl named Marlene. This group was comprised mostly of girls, though he did see Remus Lupin among them, paired with a pretty blonde girl.
Harry knew that he would run into her eventually as she was in the same year as Sirius and the other marauders. Still, it was a shock to see her standing before him and very much alive.
She had long auburn hair and stood a little over five feet tall, but the thing that caught his attention were her eyes. She had the same emerald green eyes as he did. She looked just like she did in Snape's pensieve memories and Harry had to force himself not to stare at her any longer than he already had.
Harry continued to make his way through the group of fifth years making helping a struggling student or two as he went.
It seemed that most of the students had the basics of this spell down. A few fifth-years had issues with their aim or were a bit sloppy with their wand movements but thankfully both problems were easy enough to correct.
Harry's focus was pulled back to his mother and her partner when the latter's wand flew at him. Lily had succeeded in disarming her opponent, but she wasn't fast enough to catch Marlene's wand as it flew by her head.
Harry snatched the wand out of the air on reflex and calmed his mind to ready himself for the conversation ahead before making his way over to them.
Once he reached the two girls, Harry handed the wand to its owner before speaking.
"Good spell work Miss..." Harry said questioningly
He'd caught himself doing this a lot since traveling to this timeline. It was tiring to know somebody's name but still have to wait for them to introduce themselves so as not to raise suspicion about how he knew their name.
"Evans, Professor. I'm Lily Evans and this is Marlene McKinnon. How did you catch that so easily?" Lily asked, talking very fast.
Harry's first impression was that his mother reminded him of Hermione. Harry remembered his bushy-haired friend used to talk very fast when she was excited or dying to know something very much like his mother was doing now. Pushing those thoughts aside Harry focused on answering Lily's question.
"It's a pleasure to meet you both, and the answer to your question, Miss Evans, I have fast reflexes," Harry said as the two girls turned to face him.
"Why did her wand almost take my head off?" Lily asked, looking at him curiously.
"You overpowered the spell. If you cast the spell correctly, Miss Mckinnon's wand will fly right into your hand. As you just saw, if you use too much power, the spell will turn her wand into a dangerous projectile," Harry answered.
"So this spell requires finesse?" Marlene asked with interest.
"It depends on the situation. If you intentionally overpower the spell, you can send your opponent flying into a wall. That can be useful in a life or death situation but I would prefer you don't hurl each other across the room," Harry explained, causing Marlene to snigger.
"I want you to try to disarm Miss Mckinnon again but this time, try and use a little less power when you cast," Harry instructed.
Harry watched Lily go through the wand motions before clearly incanting, "expelliarmus."
Harry nodded approvingly when a red beam of light flee from the tip of her wand and struck Marlene in the chest, causing Marlene's wand to fly from her hand.
Thankfully, the wand was flying much slower than it was a moment ago and Lily was able to deftly snatch it out of the air.
"See, nothing to it. Well done, Moss Evans," Harry beamed before he started to move on to see if other students needed assistance.
Harry was stopped in his tracks as Lily called his name.
"Professor Black, you look very familiar to me. Are you related to the Evans family by any chance?" Lily exclaimed, blurting out her question at that same rapid-fire pace as a moment ago.
"I don't know any of my family, I was born an orphan. Why do you ask?" Harry questioned, forcing his face to appear perplexed.
"It's your eyes, you have the same color eyes as my father, and it looks like you have his nose as well. If I didn't know any better I'd swear you were my brother," Lily answered, blushing a bit at the absurdity of that statement.
"Well I can honestly tell you that I have no siblings and I don't know any Evans, present company excluded," Harry said, feeling a bit alarmed that she had picked up on their similarities so easily.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Professor," Lily said sheepishly
"Think nothing of it, Miss Evans. It was nice meeting you and you as well, Miss McKinnon," Harry said kindly before making his way over to a large group of seventh years.
He had not technically lied to her after all he hadn't met anyone from the Evans family in this time period. Petunia didn't count as she was a Dursley for his entire life and he couldn't very well meet himself.
Talk about awkward, his mother had picked up on their similarities in less than a minute, this was going to be even harder working at the school than he thought.
He was just lucky Andromeda had insisted that he grow his hair out long, and it was now long enough to tie back at the base of his neck, or James potter might have picked up on the similarities between them as well.
Then a horrifying thought hit him, Sirius knew that he went by Evans before he and Andromeda wed.
Even worse was the fact that Sirius loved to hear his own voice and couldn't keep a secret to save his life.
If Lily ever asked the boy about him, Sirius would throw him under the bus for a chocolate frog card.
Harry wished he could obliviate the boy, but he knew that would cause big problems if Lord Black ever caught wind of it.
No. For now, he would just have to hope Sirius and Lily didn't get along.
Harry had been told so many times that his mother and father didn't start dating until their sixth year and he prayed that his coming back in time didn't change that dynamic.
Clearing his thoughts, Harry made his way through the pairs of seventh years, having to make a quick detour to avoid Bertha Jorkins who seemed to love harassing him whenever she saw him.
Harry found another pair that were struggling with nonverbal casting and made his way over to them.
The first girl Harry easily recognized as Neville Longbottom's mother Alice Longbottom. Though currently, she went by the name Alice Vaisey.
Harry had only met Alice once in his future. It was during the Christmas of ninety-six and at that time she had been essentially brain-dead from overexposure to the cruciatus curse courtesy of his sister-in-law.
Her partner was a blonde named Mary McDonald, who Harry was pretty sure was a fifth-year.
Harry had never met Mary but he did remember reading about her in a letter he had found at Grimmauld Place. The letter was quite special to him because it was written to his Godfather in his mother's handwriting just a few months before she died.
In the letter, it mentioned that Mary McDonald had been killed by death eaters in the summer of nineteen eighty-one.
Harry had seen Mary casting the spell verbally without any problems earlier in the evening so He assumed that she was trying to learn to cast nonverbally a bit early.
Harry had no problem with her learning nonverbal spellcasting a year early, so he didn't comment.
"What seems to be the trouble?" Harry asked kindly as the two girls noticed him standing there.
"Nonverbal casting, sir," Alice said softly.
"The professors never properly explain how to do that, do they?" Harry chuckled.
"No sir, I never have gotten the hang of it," Alice answered, giving him a shy smile.
Harry gave them the same tips he had given Sirius, both girls' eyes lighting up the longer he spoke. Alice asked a question or two to clarify something while Mary remained silent, paying close attention as he explained the different techniques to achieve nonverbal casting.
"Thank you, Professor Black, I've been struggling with nonverbal casting since last year and it's expected for our N.E.W.Ts," Alice told him softly.
"I had problems learning it as well. If you think too hard on the incantation, you forget the intent behind the spell which is far more important than the words," Harry explained.
Harry watched Mary flick her wand and smiled widely as Alice's wand was pulled out of her hand.
"Excellent, Miss McDonald," Harry praised as she handed Alice her wand.
Alice took her turn and was rewarded when Mary's wand shot out of her hand like a missile and Alice was just barely able to duck under it before it could hit her in the face.
Harry hastily cast a summoning charm to prevent the wand from hitting Bertha Jorkins in the back and easily caught it as it flew towards him.
"You may want to pit a bit less power into the spell," Harry advised as he offered Mary her wand back.
"Yes sir," Alice nodded, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment.
"You both seem to be on the right track, keep practicing and I'll be back to check on you in a bit," Harry said and got nods of agreement from both girls.
Harry moved on through the pairs of practicing students, looking for more struggling pupils as he moved towards where the Marauders were practicing not far from Lily and Marlene.
As Harry prepared to tell them off for messing around when they were supposed to be practicing the disarming charm, Harry wondered why Sirius was even here tonight.
Harry watched Sirius cast the disarming charm at a Slytherin boy on the other side of the room. The spell hit the boy in the back, sending his wand flying out of his hand, much to his and his partner's confusion.
'I will make sure Sirius gets a few duelling sessions with Andi over Christmas for disrupting my classes,' Harry thought vindictively as he cleared his throat to get Sirius' attention.
/C.o.t.R\
Finally, the session was over! That whole lesson was a bit of a roller coaster on his emotions and he was not looking forward to next Thursday.
Right now he wanted something to take his mind off of the encounter with a teenage version of his mother. He had been putting off a trip into the Chamber of Secrets for far too long so he figured he might as well do it tonight.
Checking the time and seeing it was still pretty early, Harry made up his mind and left the room of requirement.
Harry began walking down the corridor and stepped onto the grand staircase. The trip to the second floor was uneventful and he was soon stepping onto the second-floor corridor, heading toward the girls' bathroom.
Harry caught sight of his mother and Severus Snape chatting in an alcove on the third floor, he shook his head and disappeared down the hallway before he was noticed by either of them.
Even after seeing Snape's memories of his and Lily's friendship, Harry still found it difficult to accept. He had never met two people with less in common than Snape and his mother and wondered how she could be friends with that snarky greasy-haired bastard.
Arriving in the corridor that the bathroom was located on, Harry was pleased to find the corridor empty and even happier to find the loo was Myrtle-free.
Harry quickly opened the tunnel and dropped himself into the pipe.
After an exhilarating high-speed slide down the miles-long pipe, Harry shot out of the pipe at the bottom. Casting a cushioning charm as he flew through the air, Harry gently landed on the uneven cave floor.
With a flick of his wand, a sphere of gentle white light appeared above him and illuminated the tunnel.
"This place is just as filthy as I remember," Harry muttered to himself as he looked around noticing the floor was almost completely covered in the bones of small animals.
Harry cast an overpowered vanishing charm at the floor, vanishing the animal bones that littered the floor. He also vanished the green slime from his robes before he set off down the tunnel.
Harry strolled at a leisurely pace through the tunnel, the orb of light he had created floating along ahead of him to illuminate his path. As he walked, Harry cast overpowered repairing spells on any cracks that he saw in the ceiling of the tunnel.
Even at his slow pace, it didn't take very long to reach the dingy metal door with twin serpents set into it. Just like the other two times he had come here, Harry felt like the serpents' emerald eyes staring back at him.
"Scourgify," Harry muttered as he pointed his wand at the chamber's entrance.
The spell hit the door, vanishing a thousand years' worth of crud that had built up in the blink of an eye.
Now the door was spotless and had a shiny silvery luster to it and the emerald snake eyes sparkled in the light cast by the orb floating near the tunnel ceiling.
§Open§, Harry commanded to the door after he was satisfied it was properly clean.
Once the massive swung open, Harry entered the pitch-black chamber proper, the sound of his boots echoing eerily around the cavernous room.
§Light§, Harry commanded in parseltongue, causing the torches mounted in brackets along the walls to instantly flare to life in vibrant green flames.
It seemed that Salazar Slytherin used parseltongue for everything in this chamber, go figure.
Once the room filled with light Harry went about finding the secrets this chamber was Named for.
The fact that a Basilisk was once here did not count as a secret, the legend specifically stated the chamber housed a monster so everyone who read Hogwarts a History knew about the guardian. No there was definitely more here than a giant snake.
Walking along the wall on the right side of the chamber, Harry cast the same detection spells he used for finding the curse on the Defense post. He scanned the walls for any trace of magical protections and it didn't take him long to find a blue trace with his detection spell, which meant that it had touched concealment enchantments.
Canceling the spell he studied that stretch of wall, it was about a third of the way down the right side of the chamber, it was covered in grime and mildew from the high humidity in this room.
Harry cast another cleaning charm on the wall which had the marble that was underneath all the crud almost gleaming in the green torchlight, he could now make out an image of a snake formed in the swirling patterns of the Marble itself.
Smiling at the simplicity of the idea of concealing the spot in the marble itself, Harry placed his palm flat on the wall of the serpent design.
§Open§, Harry hissed, speaking poke in parseltongue once again.
Harry felt his heart soar when her heard the sound of stone grinding against stone. Harry watched as a crack formed on the wall in front of him near the floor and traveled up the wall like a super accelerated fault line. The crack began veering to the right until it began to head back to the floor forming an arch around the serpent design on the wall.
Harry realized the crack had formed a medium-sized arch-style doorway, with a door made of marble that had no handle.
Hesitantly, Harry reached out with his left hand and pushed the door. He felt the slightest sensation similar to a minor electric shock before the door smoothly opened.
Peering inside by the light from the chamber shining in, Harry saw that there was a small pile of raw gold and three bookcases that were about chest height and three feet wide
On the wall across from him hung a sword, a pair of silver daggers, and a shield. On the wall to the right was a painting of a beautiful young woman but other than that, it was just a bare stone room, resembling a vault more than anything else.
Chuckling to himsrlf, Harry cast another spell to vanish all the dust before stepping into the room. Once he entered the room, he cast a lumos spell and made his way over to the bookshelves.
Harry began studying the spines of the books as he gave them a once-over. He wasn't that interested in the gold as he was wealthy enough as it was but the books could be very useful.
His hopes soon fell as he discovered that they were written in Latin or some other language he couldn't decipher.
Picking up the closest book he could reach he cast the translation spell on it, only for it the book to slam shut and fly from his hand back into the shelf.
It would seem that Salazar Slytherin made sure his books couldn't be read by just anyone. The founder probably enchanted them to resist magic being cast on them to prevent being copied or destroyed meaning he would not be able to read most of these unless he learned to read Latin.
Harry knew if he tried to remove an enchantment from a book, he took the chance of accidentally destroying it. The vellum pages were a thousand years old and far too delicate to risk the usual enchantment-breaking methods.
Harry tried a few more books at random with similar results and decided it best to leave it alone for the time being.
He next inspected the weapons on the wall, the sword was just a common medieval-period broadsword and looked to have been crafted by a muggle blacksmith. The shield was also just a common shield of the time-period and looked to have been made by a muggle craftsman and Harry couldn't sense magic in either item.
However, when Harry picked up one of the daggers and unsheathed it he was surprised to see it that was goblin-forged silver. The dagger was very ornate with small emeralds set into the hilt. The blade was about seven inches long slender, and deadly With the word 'Slytherin' etched in lde English letters running down its length similar to The Sword of Gryffindor. The handle seemed to be wrapped in Basilisk hide as the material had the same poisonous green hue as the Snake Harry had fought when he was twelve. The scabbard was made out of basilisk hide as well and Harry had to admit it was a beautiful piece.
Sheathing the dagger and taking the matching dagger from the wall, Harry slid them both into the pockets of his robes.
Harry walked over to the last item in the room. It was a life-sized painting, the frame looked to be three feet by six feet with an ornately gilded frame.
The portrait depicted a tiny woman standing on a Scottish moor. The first thing that Harry noticed about her was that she looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. She had jet-black hair delicate features and Emerald green eyes that reminded him strongly of his own. The ebony-haired woman was wearing a white, old fashion full-length dress and holding a wand in her left hand. She seemed to be looking out over the moor with a shy smile playing on her lips as if she was waiting for something.
Glancing away from the woman, Harry noticed a placard pinned to the bottom of the frame.
Cecily Slytherin née Peverell
This must have been Slytherin's wife. It was known by very few that Slytherin had a son and two daughters but no one seemed to know anything about his wife.
One of his daughters married into the Gaunt line which was Tom Marvolo Riddle's Ancestors and the reason that he could claim to be the heir of Slytherin. The Gaunt line had been one of the most heavily blood-purist families in Wizarding History and was well known for mental instability and sometimes madness and they had passed on both to Voldemort.
However, his muggle father seemed to have jumpstarted the Gaunt family magic and 'Tom Riddle' was far more intelligent than any Gaunt had been in centuries. So there is something to be said for mixing the bloodlines every so often with muggles or muggle-borns.
Slytherin's son Salvador became a monster destroying muggle settlements and slaughtering any muggle who crossed his path. He would kidnap muggle-borns wiping out their whole families and then would drop the child at the gates of Hogwarts, he believed magicals had a right to the magical children that were sired by muggles. He had orphaned hundreds of muggle-borns before he was finally stopped.
This was the main reason for all the talk of Slytherin House being the house for dark wizards and blood purists.
There was nothing ever heard about the youngest daughter though it was thought that she died young but who really knew, this all happened over a Millenium ago, after all.
The only reason Harry knew any of this was the D.o.M archives had a very detailed history of Salazar Slytherin. When Harry was trying to look up the origins of parseltongue, he stumbled across the centuries-old scrolls on the founder detailing some of Salazar's research into parseltongue.
Harry was still unsure if magic could be cast with parseltongue and whether there would be any difference in the magic cast, he had never found the time to experiment with it.
Harry had another thought that maybe his mother might have been descended from the Peverells, obviously not this one but the main family in general.
His mother might not be a complete muggle-born after all. Her eyes looked so much like Cecily Peverell's it was startling.
Wizards were known to pass certain genetic traits such as the Blacks with their grey eyes, Potters with their unruly hair, Weasleys with red Hair, and so on.
This could also mean that his mother and father could have been very distantly related if Harry's theory was correct.
He now knew the reason the Gaunts could claim a connection to the Peverells, and Harry now understood what that connection was.
Deciding he had been in here long enough, Harry stepped back into the main chamber and began searching the rest of the walls. After an hour of searching the walls along both sides of the chamber, he hadn't found anything. Now there was only one place left he could search, The statue where the snake rested.
Pulling out the tiny Comet 260 from his pocket, Harry unshrank it before mounting the broom. Gently kicking off, Harry flew up to the mouth of the statue which was still open from his last visit here.
He only ever used this broom for short flights as it was slow and didn't handle very well. He usually used his Nimbus if he was worried about having to manoeuvre but it was perfect for what he was doing here tonight.
The opening was about four feet in diameter and he flew slowly into the tunnel. About a hundred feet in, the tunnel opened to a large low-ceiling chamber with nothing but animal bones and dust.
Sighing when he realized that all that was here was a basilisk den, Harry decided to call it a day.
Turning around in the large room, Harry flew back down the tunnel and out of the statue.
He gracefully touched down on the floor of the main chamber and made his way back to the treasure room.
Removing a shrunken trunk from the mokeskin pouch around his neck, Harry resized it and began loading the books bookshelves and all into it. Once the books were packed, Harry re-shrunk the trunk and stowed it in the mokeskinpouch.
Harry decided to leave the gold so he would be able to shrink the trunk (Gold had a lot of mass after all). Once he stepped into the chamber proper, he sealed the door, scooped his Comet off of the floor, and began his trek out of the Chamber of secrets.
/C.o.t.R\
Evans Farm, County of Durham, England, 9/5/1975, 22:39
Well, it turns out the chamber exploration was not a complete bust, after putting the children to bed, Harry had shown Andromeda the books he brought back.
Andromeda could read Latin just fine, she said that most of the books were on animal breeding and herbology. Apparently, Salazar Slytherin was a basilisk breeder before he helped found Hogwarts, so that kind of made sense.
"Any books on spells?" Harry asked hopefully.
"Not really, that whole shelf there has different tomes on enchanting," Andromeda said as she pointed to the shelf on the far right.
"Not something I have much experience with, what else?" Harry asked with interest.
"Well there are quite a few books on potions and runes but there doesn't seem to be anything on combat magic," Andromeda told him distractedly as she continued to read the titles on the spine of the books.
Damn. he was hoping to find some ancient trove of forgotten magics that would surprise his enemies and give him an edge over Voldemort.
Harry strolled by the shelf on the far left looking at the spines hoping at least one would have words he could understand. It was on the bottom-most row that he found just that.
Serpent Battle Magicks
Taking the book out of the shelf, Harry immediately noticed that the book had no author and really wasn't very thick. It was leatherbound and looked to be handwritten in fine gold-colored ink.
As Harry pulled the book from the case, it immediately caught Andi's attention
"What are you doing with at one, I can't even read it?" Andi asked him somewhat confused, to her, it just looked like a bunch of S-shaped squiggles.
"I can read this one fine, can't you?" Harry asked her in surprise.
"No it looks like a bunch of squiggles to me, ooooh now I get it. That book is written in Parseltongue. What's it called?" Andromeda asked him excitedly.
"Serpent Battle Magicks," Harry said with a malicious grin as he realized he had found exactly what he was looking for.
AN: This story will not change much from the original minus a few details here and there. For the most part, I was happy with the original story I just thought it felt a bit rushed.