Author's Note: I originally stated Harry regained his memory in Chap 15. Since I compressed chapters 11-13, it's happening now. As for my taking two weeks off--well, let's say I got done what I needed. So, here we go.
Further notes at the end:
Chapter Fourteen: A Memory of Pain
"No one has been able to explain the reasons for the displays," the memorial narrator said, "though some have described them as trophies from the colonel's childhood or specific battles during the war."
A large, garishly red locomotive and one passenger car took up much of the floor space to Bill's left. It had been melted by a huge blast of heat. The passenger car was blackened with fire and was riddled with fist-sized holes. Bill thought he heard children screaming. The locomotive had the word Hogwarts clearly printed on it.
"Others have speculated that Colonel Green had simply had a nervous breakdown at the end of his life," the narrator said. Though her tone did not change, she suddenly sounded hateful in Bill's ears. "Those who remained close to him told later historians that the colonel would often speak of seeing the ghosts of those he killed."
On the wall opposite the shattered train Bill saw brooms. Hundreds and hundreds of booms. He could still feel power in them.
Behind him he heard a timid voice ask, "Bill?"
He stumbled again. He couldn't breathe. He heard other voices speaking to him and felt comforting hands on his back and shoulders, but he could not hear the words or accept the comfort. His eyes moved even as his whole body strained against it, until he was looking at the back wall.
It looked initially as if it were covered by a strange wooden paneling. He walked stiff-legged toward the wall, unable to stop himself. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead and his breath came in ragged gasps as he moved closer and closer.
He now stood a foot away from the center of the wall. His hand drifted up until he touched a carved, stylized stick in the middle of the wall. "Yew, eleven inches," he whispered. "Dragon string. Excellent for charms."
He could feel something in it. The feel of it reminded him very much of Naomi. A sense of love and possession. Of terrible, soul-rending loss. It was a wand. It was the wand of someone he once loved. A name. Ginny. Ginevra.
He dropped his hand. He heard a moaning sound—a low keening—but did not realize it came from him. He took a step back. There were other wands around the first. Not one or two. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Not thousands. The wall stretched fifty feet across and teen feet high. It was lined in tens of thousands of wands three or more feet eep. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, side by side and dozens of layers thick.
He became aware of people around him, talking to him. Reaching out for him. Their words were so much noise. He spun away from them. He had to get out. He had to escape from this place. Before he could escape, though, he heard a loud thud, as if a door had closed, followed by concerned cries. In the very center of the room he saw a low-lipped, giant stone bowl covered in hauntingly familiar markings. What looked like water suddenly turned to a silvery vapor, and then the whole room darkened.
"Harry Potter!" an authoritative voice rang out.
Bill froze as a figure appeared in the middle of the darkened room over the bowl. It was a man with dark, curly hair set far back on his balding scalp. He was old, with a bulbous, reddened nose indicative of heavy drinking. His lips were thin and set in a sneer. His uniform was a dark green color with a phoenix emblem.
"Do you recognize me, Harry?" the face said. Around the hall other people stared, stunned into silence. "You should. I'm your brother-in-law, or do you remember that? I found it funny that the wizard who defeated Khan and forced him to flee the planet ended up losing to a squib. Yes, Harry, a squib. The squib son of Antonius Greengrass. Do you know what the pureblood families did to squibs? Father forced me to drop my name to the Muggle-ized Green and removed me from the family scrolls. Daphne and Astoria were obliviated. They never knew about their big brother who was shipped off to America. But I remembered. And I showed them all in the end."
Bill's hands clenched in fists and his eyes blurred.
"How do you like my pensieve, Harry?" Green made a grandiose gesture, sweeping his arm all about. "I designed it myself. I had no magic, but it turns out that pensieves are runic in nature. It is the user's power that activates them. So I was able to leave this one last message for the Forever Mage—the defeater of Voldemort, Hastriastus and Khan. The Lord of Light and Heir of the Four Founders. A gift, Harry, since I knew one way or the other you would return again. After all, you are the Lord of Light who died for our sins and was resurrected. You would most certainly be resurrected again."
The face disappeared, replaced by a figure standing in the middle of the floor. If not for the slight luminescence, she would have appeared perfectly solid and real. She wore casual robes. Her blonde hair hung limply over her shoulders while owlish gray eyes stared into space. She appeared to be in her forties and beautiful, though she could have been older.
"Luna," Bill whispered. He took a step forward.
She was swaying slightly, and Bill couldn't help but take a step toward her. He lifted a hand to her cheek, but of course there was nothing really there. "Luna, Lady Ravenclaw, do you have any last words for your husband?" Green's voice came from somewhere in the shadows.
"I love you, Harry." Her voice was clear and crisp. It filled him with a quiet joy, the first he had felt since waking. This was his wife. This was his Lady Ravenclaw.
A hand appeared in the vision as if from nowhere. It held a gun. There was no hesitation or pause. The moment the barrel leveled onto her temple, the gun fired. The sound of the report was shocking. People across the floor shrieked as the opposite side of Luna's head exploded in a spray of gore, only to have the gore disappear the moment it left the lip of the bowl.
Bill stumbled back and then bent over as if shot himself, a moan drifting from his lips.
"Susan, Lady Hufflepuff, do you have any last words for your husband?"
"Harry will come for us, you bastard!" a woman snarled back.
Harry looked up. It was Susan, his Lady Hufflepuff. Older, a little heavier, but even more beautiful because of it. A faceless figure was holding her in magical bracers. Green's taunting voice said from somewhere off to the side, "I've launched a nuclear missile at Hogwarts. Your children and five thousand refugees are there. Will your husband consign your children and the last members of wizarding kind to death in order to save you, or will he let you die to save them, and then suffer for his choice?"
Susan's shoulders slumped and she stopped fighting as she realized the truth. When the gun came up she turned and faced it so that the bullet went between her eyes to blow out the back of her head.
"Noooo," Bill moaned.
She was gone, replaced by another. "Hermione, Lady Gryffindor, do you have any last words for your husband?"
"You may win this battle, you pathetic worm, but Harry will win the war," Hermione spat. "You'll never destroy our world completely. I've made sure of it!"
Like Susan, she faced the gun that killed her. Bill fell to his knees as Ginny appeared, fighting and kicking and crying wildly in terror. Even older, she was still petite and gorgeous. There were no words exchanged this time. She cried as her executioner fired. Her scream died in a squeak of pain, followed by terrible silence. Her captor let her body fall lifelessly to the ground.
And then there was Daphne. No one held her. She stood of her own accord, chin lifted high despite the tears on her cheeks. "Daphne, Lady Slytherin and dearest sister. Do you have any last words for your husband?"
"Hecate will rend your soul for eternity for this," she said. "I will haunt you till the end of your days. There will never be peace for you."
"But there will be for you, dear sister," Green's voice said as he fired personally.
Silence followed as Daphne folded out of view. A moment later , Green stepped back into the memory. "And the best part of all this, Potter? I sent you those memories at Hogwarts. Somehow you stopped the attack. You were so powerful you single-handedly blocked a twenty megaton nuclear explosion and saved all your kind. All it cost was your soul. I could tell the moment you viewed the memories. I could hear you screaming from here. The whole world heard it, right before you killed yourself in the most powerful magical explosion since Atlantis. All those people at Hogwarts, all of those children, did not die by my hand." His smile looked like the grimace of death itself. "They died by yours.
"You killed your own children, Harry Potter. Not just that—you ended your own race. Your wives said you would win the war, but they were wrong. Even if you come back and see this, know that the war is long since lost. You are the last of your kind, Potter. I've made sure of it. I've slaughtered the whole of your race in the name of purity. Oh, the irony of it. You've been revived into a world where science is more powerful than magic. You're redundant. You're useless. And you are utterly alone. I've won. And every moment you suffer from now until your final death, I will continue to win. So good bye, Harry Potter. Enjoy your life."
Colonel Phillip Green, formerly Phillip Greengrass, faded away and suddenly the lights came back on.
* * *
Naomi had difficulty breathing. When the lights went out, she felt a wave of fear from all the people in the room. Then came the voice and image of Phillip Green, the most hated man in history.
She knew the moment she heard the name who Bill was.
She drifted toward Diana and the other ladies, who stood near Harry with confused, frightened expressions. They too could feel the agony pouring off him just as she could—they had all felt it the moment Bill had spotted the train. Naomi was certain now that he was remembering, and his memories were of a terrible past.
Then came the first woman in the middle of the floor. She was beautiful and ethereal, and she could tell from the moment Harry saw her that he loved her with all his soul. So could the ladies around her. When Green's voice called her Ravenclaw, Mary gasped.
The four deities, Noami remembered. Each of them had taken one. Mary had taken Ravenclaw.
Bill's moan of pain when the woman died brought tears and shouts of alarm not just from the ladies, but from everyone else in the room. Each woman who died was like a blow to Bill, pushing him back and finally to his knees. Five woman, just like the five that hovered near him now. Five women he loved, whom? Green described as his wives.
His kind.
Magic. Wizards. Fairy tale words being spoken as if they were fact by the most feared and hated man in history. She looked back at the wall where she had felt the most powerful spike of emotion and saw sticks.
Just like the stick in Susan's satchel.
Hundreds of thousands of sticks. His kind. Realization blossomed.
One is a mutation. Thousands are a species. "Oh my God," she whispered.
She turned her eyes back to the boy laying prostrate on the floor, shivering with a rage so great that even the women who loved him were afraid. The lights had come back on, and everyone in the room, easily a hundred people, were staring in captivated silence at Bill.
He sat up and Deanna shivered. His eyes were glowing a bright green. "Just like when we woke him," she heard Susan whisper nearby.
Final death. The Lord of Light who died for their sins and was resurrected. Christian symbolism but spoken by Green as if it were established fact. "Bill?" Diana asked.
"My name is Harry Potter," he said in a cold, dead voice.
That voice reverberated through the room like a gong, deepened by unimaginable power. He turned those terrifying eyes on Susan: no, on her satchel. He held out a hand and the wand she carried ripped through the fabric into his waiting hand. He then turned the other way, at the wall filled with the strange brooms.
Again he held out a hand. One of the brooms ripped free from his display case and flew across the room into his hand. Naomi turned back to Beverly and the four security guards surrounding her. There were tears in her eyes; she felt it too.
The rage that had poured out of Harry had gone from red hot to a deep, stunning cold just as powerful and much more terrifying. Ignoring the security officers and the women behind him, he pointed his wand at a far wall.
People instinctively began moving away from the direction he pointed the stick. "Diffindo," he said clearly.
Nearby Beverly and everyone else cried out in alarm as a massive pulse of light emerged from the stick and slammed into the outer wall with the power of a phaser cannon. The wall did not just crack or even explode. If vaporized to its component molecules in a shower of blackened steam, light and smoke. The resulting hole was large enough for their jitney to fly through.
"He's armed," one of the security officers shouted, at this point rather unnecessarily. Ignoring Beverly's cries to drop their weapons, both men raised their phasers and fired at Harry.
He looked at them with those flaring green eyes and a shield appeared in front of him, easily intercepting both phaser beams. He raised his stick and flicked it, sending both men careening against the wall behind Naomi.
"Harry!" Diana called in tears. "Please stop!"
Either he did not hear her, or he ignored her. He walked across the room toward the gaping hole. Terrified people scrambled out of his way and he made no sign of caring. He reached the end and looked down the ten stories. Already a crowd was gathering below, attracted by the explosion.
Naomi knew she should move. She should take control of the situation. However, she was filled with an almost elemental dread in her heart that paralyzed her. Wizards. His kind.
Hundreds of thousands of…wands. It was the only word she could think of.
His kind.
Green had done more than kill millions of victims of the nuclear horror. He had committed genocide. He had wiped out an entire race.
No, she corrected herself as the true impact of the facts hit. He had wiped out an entire species. Her species.
She looked back up. Diana was on her knees crying with her mother holding her, while Katherine, Susan and Mary were also holding each other. Harry did not look back as he put the broom stick between his legs.
It looked so strange. Like something out of an ancient Halloween movie. Until the broom lifted him off the floor. Without looking back, without hesitation, he exploded into the sky and they were all alone.
"Beverly, where are you!" the Prime Minister shouted over his wife's suddenly active communicator
"Jean Luc, I'm here," Beverly said. Her voice was hoarse with unshed tears. "We're going to need some help."
People started screaming again when a figure appeared once more in the bowl. It was the last wife, the one Green called Daphne. She stood flowing silver, looking around the floor until her eyes locked onto the five young women comforting each other. The cries of alarm grew even louder as the beautiful, ethereal figure stepped out of the bowl completely, moving smoothly across the floor as if she were alive, until she knelt down before Susan.
"You are the new Lady Slytherin," the ghost said. Her voice was sheathed in silver just as she was. The sound sparkled, as if coming through a filter of wind chimes. "You are my legacy. I chose to stay behind when the others did not, hoping I would someday see you. I haunted my brother until his end, but with my Harry's return, the Founder lines can continue."
Susan stood up, sobbing but chin held high. "I don't understand."
"It was in the book Ginny's granddaughter gave you," Daphne explained with such a sad, loving smile. "In the names you spoke. I can sense my own magic within you, and so you are the new Lady Slytherin." The ghost of Daphne turned to Katherine. "I sense Hermione's magic in you, brave one, and so you are the new Lady Gryffindor. You, child, look so much like my sister wife Ginny, but I sense Susan Bones' magic within you, and so you are Lady Hufflepuff. And in you, Mary, I sense the magic of my sister wife Luna, and so name you Lady Ravenclaw."
Naomi felt her lip trembling. "What about me?"
Daphne stood and drifted toward the oldest of the five, until she pressed a cold, billowing hand against her cheek. "You, in your own way, are the most important to Harry. While the others continue the magical lines entrusted within his magic, it was you he chose to continue his own family. You are Lady Potter. You are Ginevra's legacy." The ghost drifted back from them. "The wall behind you represents every witch and wizard my brother murdered. The wand picks the wizard, and Phillip collected each wand as a trophy. My wand is on that wall, as are the wands of all the wives of Harry Potter, the Heir of the Four Founders, Lord of Light, Defeater of Voldemort, Hastriastus and Khan, and most beloved husband. They will be your wands now. You will know which ones. Take them, and go to Harry. If he is to survive, he will need you."
She smiled at them all. "I bless you, my sisters. With all my love and the love of those who went before you, I bless you all. May Hecate and Magic keep you always."
With that, the ghostly image of Daphne Slytherin, neé Greengrass, faded into nothingness. Naomi looked over at Susan, who was weeping silently. The two of them shared a very long glance before they stepped together in a hug. In seconds another, then a fourth and finally a fifth pair of arms entered the circle.
"I guess this means we're sisters," Naomi finally said.
"Sister wives," Mary said. She too was weeping. "The notion should be ludicrous, but I just don't seem to mind. I love you all so much. Even you, Naomi, and I don't even know you."
"But we will," Susan promised.
Noami finally broke the hug first and walked to the wall. Museum staff members had made it into the room and were shepherding people out in as orderly a manner as possible. One of the officials saw her touch the wall display and jogged toward her. "Ma'am, you can't touch the display."
"It's not a display," Naomi said. "It's my legacy."
"Ma'am…" the curator said.
Naomi ignored her and laid a hand around the wand Harry was looking at so intensely earlier. It came away from the wall without any effort at all and sent sparks flying high into the air. The curator blinked in surprise, and then felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the First Lady of Earth.
"These sticks belong to their people," Beverly explained to the flustered man. "These are wands. Green stole them from their forebears when he slaughtered them. They are not yours to keep."
Noami did not even hear the conversation. She stared at the wand in wonder before turning to the other girls. Katherine went next, drawn to one particular section of the wall. She placed her hand on one wand and like Naomi's it came away in a shower of sparks. Mary, Susan and Diana followed, each quickly finding their wand.
"You should find yours too, Beverly," Naomi said.
"That's not as important now as you five." She turned toward her security guards, who were picking themselves up without any apparent harm. She nodded one more time before calling her husband. "Jean Luc, this is Beverly again."
"What is happening there?" he demanded. "It's all over the info nets. My press secretary is having a heart attack."
"The most extraordinary thing I ever imagined," she said. "I've just learned that Colonel Green was not slaughtering the victims of World War III radiation, he was committing genocide on a hidden race of humans. And five of their last survivors are in this museum with me now. The last one is riding a broomstick somewhere."
"A broomstick?" A man unshakable in the face of even Borg invasions and exploding supernova stars sounded incredulous.
"Yes, Jean-Luc. I am standing in front of five of the last living witches, while their wizard is flying somewhere in a great deal of pain and confusion. And I would appreciate it if you could get some security to find him before he hurts himself."
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Author's Notes:
I hope everyone had a happy New Year and a happy holiday. To hopefully increase your personal happiness, I present you with a chapter filled with pain. Those who are familiar with ST canon history probably saw something like this coming, especially with my reference to Khan at the beginning. While this is not the end of the story, it is the emotional climax of the first part and carries through the rest of story.
I would like to thank: TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel; Roosterman71; ColPinky; Firehedgehog; OrionTheHunter; Maloran; RexMyno; Gogolu; damon blade; JEKrug01; Skuert; Debbster21; Isis the Sphinx; Sir Trib The Bold; Crys; Jfitzgerald; cruailsama; Maximillian1; Neil; ffn notices; Manus Dei; Obsidius; kb0; Bobboky; immortal7; Midoriryu; rankokunalpha1; SomeGuyFawkes; Tremerid; Sam74au; Wonderbee31; Vyrexuviel; Pointer3109; imgonnadie; The Submarauder; Salamnder Hanzo; Cberbeta; Tilius; idlejim; kada7 and finally DragonFoxx. I appreciate all of your reviews and comments.
Q&A:
Q: Dude could that have been a death eater survivor thatg took deanna or an unspeakable?
A: No, there are no Death Eaters or Unspeakables left. As seen in this last Chapter, Green saw to that.
Q: Also, where exactly did Khan build his power base?
A: There is a series of Quasi-canon books by Greg Cox that detailed the Eugenics Wars. Personally he did such an outstanding job trying to meld true history and ST history that I basically think of those books as canon. He posits that Khan held most of his power centering in India, but that he was just one of several augments. So for the purpose of this story that's where his Empire began.
Q: Will there be any male magic users? Any creatures, etc....
A: I honestly can't answer without giving away plotpoints.
Q: I think that Naomi and the girls are Soul reincarnations of Harry's wives.
A: No, but good guess. In HP and the Four Founders, the girls did not assume the magic of their lines until after the bonds were confirmed with Harry. The magic was distinctive, and each received an increase in power because of it. Hermione BECAME Lady Gryffindor, Luna BECAME Lady Ravenclaw, etc. In this chapter I have the ghost of Daphne refer to feeling Hermione's magic...she is actually referring to the Gryffindor magic that Hermione came into as the matriarch of that line. There is no reincarnation of souls, only a reinfusion of old magic. That said, there is an echo of the original women in that magic, hence the dreams the girls had.
Thank you all again for reading. I truly and deeply appreciate it.