Chapter15:
After overcoming his initial shock Harry replied to the elf and told it-
"What do you want?" A curious Harry asked the elf.
"I wanted to talk with you alone sir." The elf respectfully told Harry.
"You can tell me about it now, these people are my family, and I trust them." Harry remarked.
"Harry, I think we can wait here, you go and speak with the elf, it must be something very important to your duty as an heir.
"Are you sure uncle?" Harry asked his uncle to be confirmed.
"I am sure Harry." Shawn assured Harry.
After that, Harry went to the next room to talk with the elf; he was feeling curious about that elf. The elf did not belong to House Sayre; however, Harry could sense that, he had some deep connection with that elf.
"If I am not wrong, then you don't belong to House Sayre?" Harry asked the elf, he was thinking about several probabilities like those that it may be the elf from his maternal family.
"You are right Master Hadrian I don't belong to House Sayre but I do belong to you." The elf calmly informed Harry. The elf's reply made Harry little confused about the whole situation and therefore he again decided to ask the elf. Nevertheless, before he could ask the elf, the elf begun to start talking again.
"My ancestor first came into the Sayre Manor when your Great Great Grandfather Mathew Sayre married to Anna Clayton." The elf replied to Harry.
"However, you were not wearing the symbol of Noble House of Clayton in your cloth." Harry told the elf about his observation.
"Master Hadrian you are very observant, yes I am not wearing the symbol of Noble house of Clayton as my ancestor was come from Anna Sayre nee Clayton's maternal house. When Anna Sayre's mother Sophia Clayton married to Lord Bernard Clayton's younger brother George Clayton, she also brought her loyal house elf with her. Sophia Clayton gifted the elf to her daughter Anna when Anna married to Lord Mathew Sayre."
The name Sophia increased Harry's interest to know about the whole matter.
"What was the paternal house of Sophia Clayton?" An interested Harry asked the elf.
"Before marriage Sophia Clayton was known as Sophia Garrison or Sophia Gaunt." The elf notified Harry.
The revelation shocked Harry. He was deeply inspired by Octavian Sayre and was curious to know about the fate of Sophia Gaunt or Garrison; however, he did not think that he would be related to them to any way possible. He realized that, he was the direct descendant of Octavian Gaunt. Harry also observed that, the elf was only talking with him about the history of Gaunt with Sayre family and did not included Athena, Daphne, and Astoria although they were also direct descendant of Sophia Clayton nee Gaunt.
"I know you are shocked after knowing that, your family had a tie with a deep dark extremist family like Gaunt. However, the maternal Grandfather of Anna Sayre, Octavian Gaunt was very different from rest of his family."
The elf continued it's talking when it saw Harry was silent after learning the truth. Then the elf told Harry how Octavian betrayed by his brother, wife and uncle, how he tried to vanish all the traces of Gaunt family magic from young Sophia and left her in an orphanage before he died. The elf told Harry that, Octavian left a letter for his daughter where he told her about the history of his house and how his own kin betrayed him for power. He also left instruction about how to use his various inventions and how to keep their Gaunt family history a secret.
How Sophia Clayton nee Gaunt got the letter when she turned 11. How she kept her ties with Gaunt family a secret and did not even tell about it even to her husband, she only told her daughter when she turned 15 and instructed her to only tell this family secret to her eldest son and if she had no son then her eldest daughter.
"So, if I am correct then, only one person from each generation of Sayre family knew the truth about our ties with Gaunt. That is why you are not telling this to Aunt Athena, Daphne, and Astoria." Harry realized.
"You are correct in your assumption Master Harry that is why I was not calling you as master when you were with them. Normally the father usually told the secret to his eldest son. However, in your case your father died early therefore, you did not have any clue about it."
The elf confirmed Harry's assumption.
"Can I share this information with my family?" Harry asked.
"You can do it Master Harry; however you have to be careful about telling your secret, If any of your relatives comes to know the secret from you then he/she can share it with anybody. I will request you to tell the secret to any of your relatives only if he/she is a parselmouth.
"Why such importance you are giving to parseltongue ability?" Harry was surprised to hear the importance of parseltongue.
"As you know Master Hadrian parseltongue was a common trait for the House of Gaunt. Even though Master Octavian tried to clear any trace of Gaunt family magic from young Sophia, however some tiny part of the family remained in her. That was parseltongue but after performing the ritual, the parseltongue trait became a recessive trait instead of dominant trait.
Because of that, Anna Sayre nee Clayton was not a parselmouth and among her two sons and one daughter only the eldest son was a parselmouth. Graham Sayre the eldest son of Anna Sayre and father of your Grandfather John Sayre was a successful lord and he was fascinated by Octavian Gaunt's ideology and thought process. Graham Sayre had two sons and neither of them had the gift of parseltongue and your father did not have the gift.
If you share your secrets with a fellow parseltongue family member then there is a probability that, He/she will better understand the need of keeping the secrecy of your family." The elf told him.
"I understand that." Harry commented.
"Now, please come with me Master Hadrian I want to show you something." After saying that, the elf took him into a secret room.
After observing the room one word uttered from Harry's mouth and that was-
"Wow".
After observing the stunning look in the face of Harry, the elf commented-
"Master, Hadrian now I think you understand why it is necessary to keep the whole thing as a secret."
Harry finally got back himself together and nodded his head in affirmative.
"Elf, I think you and your ancestors fulfilled your duty properly. By the way what is your name?" Harry asked the elf for the final time.
"Master is very kind with his remarks and please pardons me for not telling you my name. My name is Elda, the proud house elf from the Most Ancient House of Gaunt." The elf gave its identity to Harry.
Harry returned to Greengrass and told them the elf came to the family with Anna Sayre nee Clayton. However, he did not tell them completely about Gaunt family affair. Harry was thinking about the all the new revelation, he was feeling determined to speed up the research related to his Great Great Great Grandfather Octavian's work.
He was also thinking about whether he should share secret with his family. However, at the end he decided that, he would not share the secret with anyone for now. His thought process was disrupted when he saw Daphne was observing him curiously.
"You are looking lost after returning from the Manor, What happened?" Daphne asked her cousin.
"Nothing, I was just thinking about something. Now, you tell me are you ready for flying challenge in the afternoon?" Harry challenged his cousin in a teasing tone.
"Daphne Greengrass is always ready for the challenge." Daphne smiled after saying that.
"I know, that is why I will enjoy when I will beat you." Harry teased his cousin.
"We will see that, but, Harry I want to thank you for giving me the official recognition of House Sayre, it mean a lot to me." Daphne thanked her cousin.
"No need to thank me, Daphne, I only carries out my house duties. You, Tori, Aunt Athena, and Uncle Shawn are now my only living family; therefore, I am also feeling good after including you all officially in the Sayre family." Harry gave his cousin a friendly hug after saying that. Astoria saw that, also joined in the hug.
Athena and Shawn observed that from distance and they were happy after observing the bonding among the kids. They hoped that, the happiness they saw in the face of the kids would never change in the future. Nevertheless, they did not know a storm was coming to shake all of their life.
Daphne had a good evening with Harry and Astoria even though she badly lost in flying challenge to Harry. She was decent on the broom; but Harry was something else in the broom. It seemed like her cousin had talent in every possible field. They also practiced some of the spells together for their upcoming duel.
However, despite all of that sometimes, when she was alone, she felt a fare. That fear came from a secret that she kept, hidden from everyone. She did not know how to tell that secret to her parents. Sometimes, she thought, if her family came to k now about her secret then they would distance themselves from her.
Deep in her heart, she knew that, her family loved her so much and they would never abandon her. However, she was worried about outside reaction. She had political ambition; she wanted to break political monopoly of dark side in the Slytherin house.
She dreamed about playing important role in integrating whole wizarding UK regardless of their blood status under a cultural identity that would be based on rich wizarding heritage of UK but at the same time would be free from bigotry. Daphne realized that, if people came to know about her secret then it would be almost impossible for her to do that. People would find her secret contradictory with her political belief.
Her secret would bring unwanted attention from all section of the society on not only her but also on her family. Various rumors would develop if people came to know that. His father political leadership would be shaken in wizengamot.
"Why that happened to me, people will blame me for something that I don't have any control." Daphne sadly told herself
Next day, Harry along with Shawn and Daphne went to ministry of the magic. They came here to finalize the noble house status for the house of Sayre. Shawn told Harry that, Harry should not expect any opposition from Dark faction of the wizengamot as they wanted to show solidarity among Purebloods when came to honor the families that had ancient past.
As expected, Ancient House of Sayre upgraded to Ancient and Noble House of Sayre as Sayre family vault was third largest in the whole country.
However, some light faction member commented on Pureblood privilege. Harry mostly ignored them as he found them irritating. He was closely observing the reaction from dark faction members. They mostly congratulated House Sayre and gave emphasis on how Purebloods should be united against the ongoing cultural assault on their wizarding culture. They also remarked that, it was unlikely that, the newer member of wizarding UK would ever learn to respect the rich wizarding heritage of that country.
Shawn was leaving the wizengamot but he bumped into Lucius Malfoy.
"Shawn, it is good to see you, with young Hadrian and Daphne." Lucius smirked at Shawn.
"Lucius, it is good to see you too, however, I have some emergency therefore, I have to leave now." Shawn was clearly not interested in talking with Malfoy Sr.
Nevertheless, Lucius had another idea.
"What is the hurry Shawn, I understand you are nervous about young Daphne and Hadrian's upcoming honor duel but don't worry I will tell Draco and young Lilith to go easy on Daphne and Hadrian during the duel. I still don't understand why House Greengrass and Sayre still believe that, we can integrate Mudbloods into our culture." Lucius was trying to get a reaction from Shawn and therefore, he taunted him.
Shawn was feeling deeply irritated by Lucius's behavior, Lucius was wasting his valuable time.
"I am confident about Hadrian and Daphne's ability to crush their opponent in the duel. It should be you not me who should feel nervous now. I am sure young Draco will be humiliated in the honor duel.
I already explained the reason behind of our political position. We believe integrating the new bloods in our culture is the only realistic approach for our cultural revival. On the other hand, your approach is unrealistic, cruel and it will result in death of numerous wizards and witches." Shawn told Lucius in a serious tone.
"One should be always prepared to sacrifice himself/herself to protect his/her culture. No amount of economic prosperity can compensate the cultural loss." Lucius totally ignored Shawn's remark on honor duel and gave his opinion only on importance wizarding culture.
"While I agree with you on importance of protecting wizarding culture I also feel there is a better way to protect it that does not involved killing innocents." Shawn strongly told his belief to Lucius.
"It seems like we have to agree to disagree for now, we should not bore young Daphne & Hadrian with political talks. I will see you later." Lucius suddenly ended the conversation and left the wizengamot.
Shawn cursed Malfoy Sr. under his breath and then he too left the wizengamot for the house.
Harry and Daphne spent rest of their holidays with their family happily and returned to Hogwarts after that. Harry was not so much surprised when he heard about dueling tournament. He was expecting some moves from Moody and Dumbledore. However, he would never give them any reason to suspect him.
He was giving more concentration to the upcoming honor duel. He knew that, Lilith Moon did not stand a chance in front of him. However, he was thinking about how much force he should give behind his spells against Moon.
He was little concern about Daphne as he felt his cousin was hiding something and it was starting to affect her. Harry strongly believed that his cousin would beat Malfoy handily even though he was sure that, Malfoy would try to apply some nasty spells against Daphne from his family magic.
First to 3rd year Slytherin was very much excited to see the honor duel. Four Purebloods from four famous Pureblood families would participate in the duel and it was enough to create excitement among the junior Slytherins.
Fourth to fifth year Slytherin were mostly annoyed as they were thinking four first year students were getting too much attention then they deserved.
However, the senior Slytherins were observing the development very closely. They wanted to understand larger political implication of that duel in pureblood community. They also found the power struggle between Dark and neutral factions very interesting for the future directions of their house.
Rest of the Hogwarts houses heard some rumors about the duel but they did not know the details. Slytherin was determined to keep the honor duel thing as secret as possible because they did not wanted to show any rift among their house members to outsiders. The head of other houses were also not interested to share the information about honor duel to the students of other houses.
On the morning of honor, dueling day rest of the Hogwarts houses noticed something was different in Slytherin table. Especially, the junior students were very much excited about something. On the other hand, Harry and Daphne was mostly clam about the upcoming event. Tracy and Blaise were encouraging their friends for the upcoming duels. Draco was little nervous and Moon was very nervous about the duel.
Both Harry and Daphne went to ROR to practice for the duels with Tracy and Blaise. Then, they returned Slytherin common room, there they saw Shawn and Athena and little Astoria were already present and waiting for them. They also saw Lord, Lady Malfoy and Lord, Lady Moon among the person who came to watch the duel. Horace Slughorn, Alistair moody was also present.
However, Dumbledore and other head of the houses still did not arrived at the Slytherin common room. Harry assumed they would come just before the start of the duels. Harry and Daphne went to Shawn and Athena to talk with them.
"How you are both feeling now?" Athena asked Daphne and Harry. Concern was evident in her voice.
"We are fine mother, we will win the duels." Daphne confidently assured her mother.
"I know both of you will do well, against your opponents I n the duels. However, I just wanted to say do not take any unnecessary risk in order to humiliate them." Shawn cautioned them.
"We will keep that in our mind Uncle Shawn." Harry tried to assure his uncle.
"Best of luck sister and you too cousin harry." Astoria wished them for the duels.
"Thanks Astoria that is so sweet of you." Harry commented.
Both Harry and Daphne wanted to talk more with their family, However they had to conclude their conversation as they saw Dumbledore was coming with other three head of houses. Quirrell was also present there with others.
"I want to see clean and fair duels among the participant of these two duels. Therefore, no unforgivable and life-threatening curses are not allowed in that honor duels. The first one who will be able to catch his / her's opponent's wand will be declared as winner of the duel. Professor Moody will operate this duel.
"The first duel will happen between Hadrian Sayre of House Sayre and Lilith Moon of House Moon. Please both of you come to the dueling area." Moody instructed.
Both Harry and Moon came to the dueling areas for the dueling.
"Now, both of you bow to your opponent and start the duel." Moody ordered them.
Both Harry and Lilith bowed to each other and the duels between them begin.
Moon attacked first in the duel. She casted a stunning spell towards Harry in the hope of catching Harry off guard. Harry was somewhat impressed by his opponent's ability. It was an effective spell and her casting skill was decent for a first year student. However, it was obviously not enough for the Harry. He swiftly just side stepped from the direction of the spell, he did not even bothered to cast a shield charm.
Harry could see disbelief in the eyes of Lilith Moon. The same look was evident in the eyes of junior Slytherins. Senior Slytherins were watching Harry very closely; many of them were giving Harry a second look.
On the other hand, Harry could see the proud smile in the faces of his family and friends. Harry was determined to humiliate Moon in front of everyone for insulting his family and friends. In next five minutes Lilith casted every spells at Harry that she ever practiced. Harry did not even casted a single spell during the whole period.
His super reflex was allowing him to move faster from the directions of the spells. Lilith moon was getting desperate, she even tried to cast some dark curses, but her every effort was unsuccessful. She was getting very frustrated and did not know what to do next.
Soon everyone realized that, Harry was actually playing with Moon. The junior Slytherins got bored. They were expecting an exciting dueling match but they were hugely disappointed by the performance of Lilith Moon.
"Harry please end the duel in next five minutes, I have some pending works in the home, so do it quickly." Harry's Aunt told him. He could easily detect her pride for him and her insult for the Moon in those words.
Harry decided to end the duel, but he decided that, he would give Moon some lessons, before he would end the duel. He quickly casted a different variety of Agumanti spell and a strong flow of water came out from Harry's wand and it moved very quickly towards her. Lilith Moon did not even had time to react and soon she was hit by a strong flow of water that not only misbalanced her but also made her wet from head to toe. Harry did not wait to see the result of his spell as he sent a disarming and freezing charm simultaneously towards her.
Lilith Moon soon lost her wand, her whole body except her face was covered with ice, and that prevented her to move. She essentially became a living statue who was standing awkwardly at that moment.
Harry was able to catch her wand easily after that. Harry was feeling happy after the ending of the duel. He did not only win the duel but he was also able to humiliate his opponent badly. After his Aunt ordered him to end the duel, he only took one minute to end that duel.
For few moments, everyone was silent then Alistair broke the silence.
"The winner of this honor duel is Hadrian Sayre." Moody declared Harry as the winner of the duel.
Soon the crowd broke into applause; they were clearly impressed with Harry's skill. They could not believe their eyes; they n ever thought that, an 11 years old student would show that level of magical skill.
Moody was giving Harry a second look. For few seconds he even considered to include Hadrian in the suspect list but he soon dismiss thought. Yes, Harry was very talented may be once in the century type talented boy. However, at the end of the Day he was still a first year student.
All the head of houses and other professors were also surprised after seeing Harry's skill. Both Minerva and Flitwick decided to give tasks that are more challenging to Harry in their upcoming advanced Transfiguration and Charms classes.
Albus was convinced that, one day this boy would suppress him in terms of magical power and political strength. He was just hoping that for Hadrian would not go dark when he would become that much powerful.
Shawn and Athena on the other hand were proud of Harry's performance. Shawn was glad after seeing the humiliated face of Lord and Lady Moon and worried look on the face of Lord and Lady Malfoy.
"Mr. Sayre please releases Ms. Moon from your charms and gives her wand back to her." Moody told to Harry. Harry released her from his charms and gave her wand back. Moon was looking deeply embarrassed for losing such way to Harry.
She quickly came and apologized to Harry for insulting his mother. She also uttered a sorry to Athena for badmouthing about her.
After that, Harry went to meet with his family and his friends.
"I am really proud of you Harry; you showed good amount of skills in the duels." Athena commented.
"I also agree with Athena, you were really impressive in the duel against the Moon girl and you did not take any unnecessary risks to do that." Shawn also praised Harry.
"Thanks Uncle Shawn and Aunt Athena." Harry hugged his Uncle and Aunt after thanking them. He was glad to have Shawn and Athena as his Uncle and Aunt in the new universe. His life in his home universe would have been many times better if Vernon, Petunia was even half-decent to him compared to Shawn and Athena.
"I am proud of you cousin Harry." After saying that, Astoria also hugged Harry. Harry was also feeling happy after seeing the smile in her cute face.
"Good work Harry, you should see the face of Parkinson and Nott they were horrified to see how easily Moon got beaten by you." Blaise remarked.
"Yes, Parkinson would have cried if you continued the duel with Moon little longer." Tracy directed her finger at Parkinson after saying that.
"You literally played with Moon for first five minutes. I really love the frustrated look on Moon's face." Daphne also joined the conversation n with Harry.
"Thanks guys, I am happy that I don't let my family and friend s down in the duel and Daphne please be ruthless with Draco I really want to see the face of Lucius Malfoy when you will destroy the Malfoy jr. in the duel."
"I am promising to you all, after the duels Malfoy will curse himself for insulting our family." Daphne told her friends, she had a wicked grin in her face when she was telling that.
"Now the second honor duel of today will be occurred between Daphne Greengrass from House Greengrass and Draco Malfoy from the House Malfoy. This duel will be operated by Prof. Quirrell." Dumbledore announced.
"Duelers please come here and bow to each other." Quirrell instructed Daphne and Draco.
Draco and Daphne bowed to each other. In that duel Daphne decided to go offensive she casted a modified cutting curse at Draco, Draco was able to raise a shield but it was too late for him and he got hit by that cutting curse. Draco saw small amount of blood coming from his skin after Daphne hit him.
Seeing his own blood definitely made Draco more nervous. His spells became poorly casted, weak, and lacked accuracy. Draco was sweating heavily as he realized that defeat was imminent for him. Draco gathered his remaining willpower and shouted-
"Serpensotia." A medium sized snake appeared and it was moving towards Daphne. Harry could hear that the snake was annoyed for being summoned out of no where. However, what Harry noticed that was the look in Daphne's face, she was not scared of the snake. It seemed like as if she could hear the snake. Harry told himself. Suddenly he gave more attention to facial expression of Daphne, it looked like she was going to say something but Harry guessed his cousin would not talk with the snake in English but it would be in other language.
"So Daphne was hiding that ability from everyone and she was feeling restless because she was afraid about people's reaction when they came to know about her ability." Harry told himself.
Harry Sayre was shocked after realizing what was Daphne's secret, Daphne Greengrass was a parselmouth just like him.
Chapter end.
When I first started to write this story, I never thought this story would get so much love from you people.
I know I am not a decent writer, but still you people have a heart to overlook that and read this story and give it your valuable reviews.
I am very lucky that, I get readers like you people who are very patient and thoughtful. Your every words of encouragement inspire me to write more. Your every constructive criticism helped me to do better next time.
Because of your love for this story get 300+ reviews, 400 fav. stories, and over 500 people listed this story in their alert list.
I also like to say thanks to the reviewers of previous story .
In next chapter:
Aftermath of the duel.
Harry's conversation with Daphne
Flying session.
Like previously, I will give more hints about next chapter to reviewers of this chapter.