Oops, it seems that I have misled some people with one of my comments in the last chapters. When I said that there was two more chapter to go, I was referring to my Halloween deadline: that I will get chapter twenty-four posted on Halloween. Dark Angel itself will go on for…Oh, perhaps another twenty chapters, perhaps not.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
::Mindspeech::
-Parseltongue-
Chapter Twenty-Three: Founders Four
In one of Hogwarts' most notorious chambers, a figure appeared suddenly. The only sign of his presence was the brief byplay of rainbow lights around the figure before he faded back into the obscurity of the shadows that filled the chamber.
Safe in the Chamber of Secrets, Harry allowed his relaxed smile to turn into a frown. Moony had hit a little close to home (Harry silently resolved to avoid Moody until he was allowed to lie again) and now Harry had to fly all the way back to the tower, risking even more sightings, since every type of teleportation was strictly prohibited into tower or close to it and walking through the halls was just asking to be caught by a prefect or teacher.
Godric, at least, had gotten his wards right and some very nasty ones enforced the Gryffindor Founder's rules around his office. Salazar's own method of creating passageways in Hogwarts through Parseltongue passwords wouldn't work either; they were only possible in the areas that Salazar had helped to build: therefore not any of the other Founder's offices or the immediate area around those rooms. The one loophole was that, while things like Apparation to the tower was impossible, things like Dissapparation from the tower were possible, even if Apparation and Dissaparation in particular were impossible in Hogwarts. Ergo, Evan's quick escape.
Ah, well…It was a slight annoyance and nothing more. Harry had, after all, escaped unharmed with the Sorting Hat. He'd even managed to have an interesting conversation, if you didn't count the risk involved and the information that Moody now had. He'd have to tell Ginny and Draco to be careful around Moody…
"So that's where you are!"
Harry jumped, startled, before turning to face the voice. Ginny Weasley was standing in front of him, hands on her hips, looking exactly like an annoyed Helga Hufflepuff and, to a lesser extent, Molly Weasley.
"Um…Hi, Ginny…What a surprise…?"
"Itold you…We told you to tell us before you started going off and doing things on your own!" Ginny snapped.
"I wasn't…I mean I was but…" Nobody could corner Salazar Slytherin like Helga Hufflepuff could. Motherly peacemaker she might have been but her righteous fury was even harder to deflect than even Godric's.
"I've been looking for you all night! I'm going to be exhausted all day tomorrow. It's bad enough that I have to relearn all this basic magic and pretend that I'm having a hard time, now I'll have to worry about falling asleep, too! And all because you decided to do some stupid, reckless, Gryffindorish thing but you had to be all Slytherinish about it too and go without telling anyone!"
"I wasn't doing anything Gryffindorish!" Harry protested.
Ginny raised an eyebrow,
"So breaking into the Headmaster's office isn't reckless and Gryffindorish?"
"I've done it a million times before," Harry muttered mutinously.
"When you were best friends with the owner of the office!"
"But it was mostly during prank wars and if Godric had caught me he would have done things a million times worse than Dumbledore could dream of!" Harry protested, "Anyways, how did you know I was here?"
"Hogwarts told me," Ginny said simply and a little smugly, "You forget, I'm the Founder with the closest ties to the castle."
"Then how did you get down here? Not even Hogwarts could let you into a part of the school that I made by myself."
"Do you honestly think that after living with you for a couple years, some of us might have learned a simple Parseltongue word or two like the one you always use for a password?"
Harry's eyes narrowed,
"I thought that you didn't know I was a Parseltongue until you were ready to kick me out of the school?"
Ginny frowned and touched her head,
"Yes but…We'd known you were a Parseltongue for years. Hadn't we…? You never told us so we didn't mention it…"
"Then why did you get so upset when you found out? I was fired when that got out! Parseltongue was a symbol of dark wizards and as soon as you found out that I was a Parseltongue and dark, you kicked me out of the school!"
"Yes but…"
"And," Harry continued, pouncing on a discrepancy that had been bothering him for a while, "You said that you all regretted banishing me the second that I left. But I heard from Fawkes that you tried to get rid of my House even after that."
Ginny paled,
"But…That doesn't make any sense. We did but we couldn'thave!" She looked at Harry imploringly, "None of that really happened. I mean, only one version of events could have happened. How can I remember things that didn't really happen?"
Harry, too, was confused. Was she lying to him? But she wasn't; he could tell…Couldn't he? And what was the other option, that it was their memories that were lying instead? Which was reality, which series of events had actually happened and which events hadn't? The darkness was pressing in, shadows growing thicker, suffocating…
Ginny suddenly collapsed and Harry moved forwards quickly. He couldn't prevent her from hitting the ground, but he somewhat cushioned the fall and made sure that her head didn't hit the hard stone floor. And still the shadows were closing in, enhanced by the way that he didn't know if the person that he was holding in his arms was on his side or not. Was she a distraction, a burden, an ally, a friend, a foe?
Out of some innate reflex, Harry shouted a spell. Instantly, the entire chamber was lit with a bright, white light, blinding him. A silver creature stood in front of him but the light was so intense that he couldn't make out what it was. The form seemed to be shifting…was it a stag? A lion? A phoenix? A serpent? A wolf? It was all these forms and more, shifting, changing, and radiating a constant glow of blinding white.
Harry turned away, half blinded. And there, on the wall behind him and the unconscious girl lying beside him, there was a shadow, improbable amongst the bright light, sharply contrasting the whiteness with grey. It appeared to be coming from Ginny, reflecting the way she laid. And yet there was something grossly deformed about it. It was undulating, writhing in pain. It bulged and stretched and finally shifted into something quite different.
It was difficult to describe the creature whose shadow appeared on the wall. The face that sneered out at him from the wall was skull-like but the skull of some sort of animal with a longer head than a humans'. The teeth were sharp and the eye sockets were empty, allowing bright patches of light to shine through them. The creature's body was something a little like a thestral and a little like a dragon, with bat-like wings and a series of sharp spikes or horns starting at the top of it's head and spreading down it's neck. The tail seemed flexible and ended in a wicked-looking barb.
A second later, the shadow shrank down to a small, childlike humanoid shape. What appeared to be wings spread wide and it took off along the wall in some bizarre mix of running, crawling, and flying. Slightly unsettled, Harry ran after it, shouting spells as he went.
"Cassesium! Obrigesco constrinxi!" A silver and then bright blue spell flew towards the shadow but both dissolved when they hit the stone wall.
"Subsistere!" The binding spell met the same fate as the other two. Nothing seemed to hit the shadow. In frustration, Harry shouted a Parseltongue spell but it, too, had no effect. The shadow was now far ahead of him and he knew that there was little hope in continuing his efforts. Still, he kept running after it, shouting every spell that came to mind. The light of Harry's Patronus was less here; there were shadows on the wall, cast from the giant snake pillars. The creature that Harry was chasing ran into one of these shadows and disappeared.
The reincarnated Founder ran over to the shadow and examined it. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that shadow and he was quite sure that the shadow that he was chasing was gone. He hissed a curse in Parseltongue and turned to head back to where he had left Ginny.
When he got back, his Patronus was standing guard over the Hufflepuff founder and the Sorting Hat that had fallen to the ground beside her. The bright light was now less fierce and he could see that its shape had settled on a lion's form. Harry gave the Patronus a contemplative look before bending to pick up the hat and putting it in his magically expanded pocket. He ran a quick diagnostic spell on his friend and then turned to the Patronus.
"Can you take Ginny back to her dorm unseen?" Harry asked it.
The lion seemed to be thinking about it and then nodded, immediately shifting into the form of a thestral. The wizard put Ginny on the Patronus's back, slightly disturbed that his Patronus could take the form of a thestral. A Patronus usually took the form symbolic of a person's protector whereas thestrals symbolized only death…it wasn't a very good reflection of his mental state. A lion or a stag he understood, and a phoenix or a snake was also logical. But he was sure that it wasn't normal to have more than one or two Patronuses.
There was a blur of silver and the Patronus and its burden disappeared.
Harry stared after it for a second and then turned back to what he had been doing before the interruption. He pulled the green stone out of his pocket. For just a split second, the ghostly image of Salazar Slytherin appeared in front of him but it quickly flickered out of existence.
"Huh, you are getting stronger," Harry said. He turned the stone over in his hands, watching the light inside swirl. Then, holding the gem tightly, he concentrated; focusing on certain memories…He focused strongly on Evan Harrison, his life in the past, his brief appearance to the first years on the Hogwarts Express, and his recent meeting with Moody. He could feel the memories flowing into the stone like a pensive; the memories remained in his head but copies were transmitted to the green stone in his hands.
When this was done, Harry took the Sorting Hat out of his pocket and dropped the ensouled stone into it. He took a nearly identical stone out of his pocket, this one attached to a long string. This he hung around his own neck, tucking the stone under his robes, well out of sight.
::Took you long enough,:: a voice in his mind muttered.
::I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be seen,:: Harry explained apologetically.
::And yet after all that preparation you were still caught.::
::Yeah, well…The best laid plans often go awry and all that rot. Do you have enough strength?::
The was a pause as the other seemed to be trying to gauge the answer,
::I think so. You gave me some magic with the memories, so I think that I have enough to start using it soon.::
::How about tomorrow? I was thinking about giving 'Rick and Ginny their stones soon.::
::Right.::
There was a pause and then Harry 'spoke',
::What should I call you? Are you comfortable with being called Evan…or would you prefer Silverfang or Salazar?::
::Evan's fine. It's good to get used to a new name as much as possible, even if you've already done half the work by giving me those memories…But you already knew I'd say all that, anyway.::
Harry shrugged,
::It's still polite to ask…and it's not like we're the same person any more.::
::True. You've lived some seventeen years since you made me and I've been stuck in an unchanging world for about a thousand years.::
The words stung slightly and Harry wasn't sure which of them the pain was coming from. Possibly both of them.
Harry changed the topic,
::So, Dumbledore can't get you out of there, right?:: Experimentally, he turned over the hat and was satisfied when the stone didn't fall out. He reached into the hat and felt only air and fabric.
::If you can't, then he definitely can't.:: Evan said smugly::I thought you might have been able to, since you're me, but it seems otherwise, doesn't it?::
::Well, lets get you back to the tower, then. I need to sleep and you need to concentrate on saving up magic.::
Harry headed back to the Headmaster's office, keeping a sharp eye out for Moody. He was tensed and ready to flee at the smallest movement but the trip back to the Headmaster's Office was completely uneventful.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The next day was surprisingly normal, considering the events of the previous night. Helga didn't mention (didn't, in fact, seem to remember) said events and Harry didn't mention them.
After classes, they met as usual in the Room of Requirements and Harry presented the other two with the ensouled gems.
"These are for you," He said simply, passing Ginny a pair of yellow gems and Draco a pair of red ones. As with Harry's own green gems, one of them had a string attached while the other was a glowing stone; both were about the size of a galleon.
"How do we use them?" Draco asked curiously.
"Well…" A ghostly figure appeared at his side.
"Like this," Evan said bluntly.
Draco jumped about a foot in the air,
"There are two of you?!"
Harry grinned,
"For all purposes, I now have a twin. Please treat him as such."
Draco buried his face in his hands and muttered something. Harry distinctly heard the word 'doomed'.
"So this is Godric's reincarnation, huh?" Evan asked, peering at Draco curiously, "Doesn't look much like him, does he? And you'd be Helga?"
"Ginny," She corrected him, "That's my name now."
"Ah."
"You don't look like a ghost. I mean, I can see through you and all but you've got…color."
"That's 'cause he's not," Harry said at the same time as Evan said, "That's because I'm not."
They eyed each other for a second, silently communicating and then Evan spoke up,
"I'm what used to be called a 'spirit'. I was made from Salazar's impression in the Marauder's Rulebook. Pretty soon, you won't even be able to see through me. I just don't have enough magic yet."
"Then these stones…" Draco started.
"Hold Stripe and Goldenclaw, yes," Harry said, "I'm holding onto Talon for the moment."
Ginny inspected her stones carefully,
"What are we supposed to do with these?"
"You put them in something and then that object takes on magical properties according to your wishes. The primary stone, that is," Harry explained, "That's the one that has the spirit in it. The secondary, the one with the string, is just a copy of the primary and is supposed be worn on your person at all times. That way, you can communicate with your corresponding spirits. You can transfigure it into a ring, bracelet, wand-holder, belt…Just about anything as long as the jewel remains unchanged. Anything else, you have to find out for yourself; ensouled objects can be very different, depending on the spirit inside them."
The other two took a minute to think about this.
"So, where'd you put yours, Sal?" Draco asked.
Both Evan and Harry smirked,
"Not telling."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The Hallways of Hogwarts were always packed between classes and today seemed particularly bad. It seemed that someone had gotten bright pink gook all over a portion of the hall (possibly a bad magical reaction in charms?) and Filch had roped off a big section so that student's didn't get in it and track it everywhere. As it was, passing students could hear him shouting threats and curses as he waged war against the mystery gook. The gook seemed to be wining.
Harry took this in a he headed down the hall towards his next class, Transfiguration, idly wondering if going out of his way along a secret passageway would make him get there faster. He had just gotten past the bit of passageway that had been narrowed by Filch's boundary when he noticed a large stack of books coming towards him in the opposing flow of students.
Blue eyes peered from around the books and, for a brief second, they met his. The giant pile of books clattered to the floor. Unperturbed, Luna knelt and started gathering them again, while around her people pushed and shoved. Her eyes never left Harry's and Harry watched her calmly. He didn't go over and offer his help. Stalemate.
Luna picked up the last of her books, hesitated slightly, and was pushed along by the flow of students. Harry walked past her in the opposite direction.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Evan wasn't so sure that he liked existing.
The real Harry had never really grieved the loss of the friends that he'd had when he was in the past. He had always just covered up his 'Evan' persona with 'Harry' and 'Salazar' and he was still doing so. But Evan shared Harry's memories of the past; more than that, 'Evan' was who he was now.
This was the existence that he had agreed on back when he was still 'Silverfang'; he couldn't refuse these memories now that he had them. He had a role to play and a job that he had been entrusted with to concentrate on, emotional instability or no. And it wasn't fair to think that Harry was shoving all the responsibility on him; Harry had a lot of things to cope with too.
"Who are you?" A voice snapped from behind him. Evan rolled his eyes. It just figured that he'd be caught by a teacher his first night on patrol. Like creator, like creation or whatever the direct translation of 'like father, like son' would be in his situation.
He turned around and had his suspicions confirmed. Not Alastor Moody but Severus Snape was standing behind him. Evan scowled. How unfair was it that he had to deal with this? Harry had gotten off easy with just Moody; Evan was the one who had to face his once-friend…and with the memories of both the friendship and betrayal so fresh!
"Who are you?" Snape repeated.
It would be so easy to lie…Start over, try and forge a new friendship. Maybe it would turn out better? Lily, James, and Sirius were all dead and Remus was far, far away. Even if he went to the werewolf, Remus wouldn't remember him until Harry finally faced his fears and unlocked Remus' memories of Evan. Severus was right in front of him. Right there but infinitely far. He gathered his resolve.
"My name's Evan," He snapped, "And we've met! Thanks for being such a bastard to my brother." Sarcasm and venom dripped from his voice. And he disappeared.
He reappeared in an empty classroom three floors down. He slumped against the wall, fighting for control over his troubled emotions.
Sighing, he grabbed the pendant that he wore, identical in every way to Harry's except that it didn't actually exist; the real thing was in the Sorting Hat, on one of the shelves in the Headmaster's office.
::It's Evan,:: He said shortly::I need to report to you a significant encounter…::
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Seen Luna lately?" Harry asked Ginny casually over lunch.
"I had ancient runes with her," Ginny said, "Why, did something happen?"
"Well, I've been keeping an eye on her," Harry said casually, "She is the reincarnation of one of my past life's best friends. I only saw her briefly yesterday; was she acting strange today?"
"No but her birthday was yesterday. I've been keeping an eye on her but she seems normal," Ginny shrugged, "Maybe we've got to wait another year."
"I don't think so," Harry said.
"What do you mean?"
Draco came over and sat down next to Ginny,
"What're you talking about?"
"Sal was about to tell me about Luna,weren't you, Sal?"
"What? What about Luna?"
Harry was saved from having to answer by a puff of blue smoke in the direction of the Gryffindor table. Draco and Ginny glanced accusingly at each other and then at Harry, who ignored them and leaned back to watch the show.
When the smoke had cleared, all of Gryffindor was standing on their chairs or their table (the food and plates had been cleared away with the prank). Each had a lightning-bolt shaped scar on their forehead, large glasses in imitation of Harry's own, and held either a broomstick or a wand. Several also had an owl perched on one of their shoulders.
As one, they took a deep breath and then burst into song (1):
"Born in St. Mungoes like any of you guys
But don't be fooled by this disguise
Looks like his father with his mother's eyes
Born on a broomstick to conquer the skies
Harry, Harry Potter, born to do Great Things!
His mum and dad heard he was wanted dead
So they took little Harry and away they fled
But Voldie found him and his parents' blood was shed
And Harry got away a curse scar on his head
Harry, Harry Potter, hero of the wizarding world!
Went to live with muggles so I heard tell,
From what I heard it sounds like hell
With what he had he did pretty well
Then he was sent to Hogwarts to learn for a spell
Harry, Harry Potter, exploring the bizarre!
Got himself in Gryffindor, now that's a laugh
I've said it before, that hat must be daft
Either that or it must'a been drunk
A snake with the lions, who would have thunk
Harry, Harry Potter, a Slytherin in Gryffindor!
Voldie couldn't kill Harry, boy did he try
But he couldn't get one up one the Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Die
Possession and basilisks and Death Eaters, oh my!
For a student, Harry's a pretty tough guy!
Harry, Harry Potter, brave against the odds!
He defeated Voldie when he was only one
Faced him countless times and still he won
And his adventures have just begun
I'd hate to see the chaos when all his fun is done
Harry, Harry Potter, he's the Boy-Who-Lived!"
The Gryffindors bowed and then seemed to come to themselves. Most of them looked around in confusion or turned bright red, sometimes both. Those with quicker wits jumped down from the table or desk, horrified. The others followed suit. Harry applauded and soon the whole Hall was clapping as well.
"Shame on you," Harry said lazily, "Using a Dark spell like that."
"It was only classified as Dark recently," Luna shrugged, "After I learned it. That makes it perfectly legal, in my book." Ginny and Draco jumped, not having noticed the girl's presence behind them.
"Youdo know that I don't like publicity?" Harry asked somewhat rhetorically, "So if you're trying to get on my good side, you're going about it the wrong way."
"Harry doesn't but Sal flourishes in it. It amuses him," Luna said simply.
"Harry doesn't," Harry agreed, "And I'm Harry."
Luna looked at him skeptically,
"Sure you are. You're as much one as the other. You're either, neither, and both. And, anyways, you haven't walked away or disappeared yet so I must be getting somewhere."
"Re'na?" Ginny asked, finally getting her voice back.
"Hello, Stripe," Luna said calmly.
Ginny jumped up and hugged her friend.
Harry looked away, digging through the pocket of his discarded robe (he figured that if anyone could get away with ignoring school dress code, it was him, and he should flaunt the fact shamelessly). His whole arm up to his shoulder was inside the magically expanded pocket before he finally found what he was looking for.
"Here," He handed a pair of blue gems to Luna, "I'm sure you know what these are and how to use them."
"How useful!" the blond exclaimed, turning the stones over in her palms, "I'll be sure to find a good place for them."
"And this," Harry handed Luna Rowena's wand, "The other two decided to leave their wands with me incase someone found them using or in possession of them. But I'm sure that you'd rather have a wand that is specially attuned to you. Anyways, very few people should know what your current wand looks like."
"It's true that I don't have any close friends or family as Luna," Luna agreed, still admiring the play of light inside the gems.
"That's not true!" Ginny protested, angrily, "You have us now!"
Luna looked at her with the vaguely surprised expression that was usual to see on the Ravenclaw outcast.
"Thank you."
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
(1) Sung (roughly) to the tune of the Ballad of Davy Crocket (which, by the way, I don't happen to own)
Okay, one more chapter! I have roughly five hours to work on it and, oh…Six thousand more words to write? I've so much to do…
And, again, don't worry, Dark Angel has several more chapters to go until completion.