Disclaimer: Usually I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but I find myself not really interested in doing so this time as it is very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I am not making any money off of this story or any of the other stories I have written.
AN: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 33: The Sad, Sad Truth; Harry's Origins
The day of Harry's eighteenth birthday found Harry floating about the courtyard lying on his back on his broom with his wings hanging down on either side of the broom as Wolfstar lazily circled him in flight mode after a busy two weeks of lessons, missions, and brewing more potions. The majority of their troops were currently out taking care of various assignments while Harry had been given two days off and he'd taken advantage of the practically empty estate to fly his broom (something he'd not done for a while).
His thoughts had eventually turned inwards, after spending a few hours speeding about above the desert, reflecting on the past; something he'd not done for several months. He couldn't help but wonder what was happening in his former world, if those he'd gone to Hogwarts with were making lives for themselves. If his friends (and former friends) were missing him as much (or as little in a few cases) as he missed them. He even found himself trying to imagine what might have happened to Voldemort, Dumbledore, and all of the others who'd been after his money and fame (or just wanted him dead) once the news of his disappearance reached the general public.
Harry also wondered if Sirius had truly died or if he was still on the run from the ministry; since it had been an older, time traveling Sirius that had sent him away and not the Sirius from his own timeline. Though, that meant that at some point after the older Sirius had sent him off, the younger Sirius would have had to go back in time in order to be there to send him on his way. His thoughts were interrupted at that point as a voice called up to him from below.
"Aren't you worried about falling off?" Cathy demanded as she walked out into the courtyard, placed her hands on her hips, and pursed her lips as she stared up at Harry in exasperation.
"No, not really; even if I did I could easily catch myself with my wings before I hit the ground."
"Stubborn, smarty-pants," Cathy huffed with a slight smile. "Why don't you come down and come keep me company for a bit. We've not spent much time together since you returned and that's after you'd been gallivanting about space for more than half a year."
"Yes mother!" Harry cheekily called back as he flipped off his broom and dropped to the ground, his wings catching him at the last second so he landed lightly on his feet. He then took a moment to snag his outer shirt from the tree he'd hung it on while he'd been flying and slipped it back on over his wings.
"Cheeky little brat."
Harry laughed as Wolfstar reverted to suit mode and dropped down to his shoulder holding his broom in his shrunken hands. Harry accepted the broom and tucked it under his arm as he followed Cathy into the house. They ended up in the music room where Cathy demanded Harry dance with her for a couple of songs before they sat down to play checkers while the radio continued to play in the background. Wolfstar left them to their game so he could play about the piano; the soft pinging of random notes ringing out at the oddest moments and clashing with the music on the radio.
"So, what was it that drove you to float lazily about the courtyard?" Cathy asked as they set up the board for their fourth game.
"Most everyone is out on missions right now, so I took the opportunity to do some casual flying. It was nice to feel the wind on my face and after I while I got to thinking about all the times I'd spent on my broom which led to thinking about my old life. It was peaceful enough and I had nothing better to do so I kicked back and let myself actually think about that life and wonder what is happening to the people I knew."
"You weren't torturing yourself with 'what if's', were you?"
"No… not exactly. I was just letting my mind wander and contemplate what might have changed since I was thrown out of that world. It was the first time that thinking of my old world didn't hurt quite so bad and for once I could think of the good times without bruising my heart. I think it has a lot to do with truly accepting this world as my home now along with the acceptance that I found with you, my brothers, and the friends I've made here. I've also long since stopped resenting my godfather for sending me away without even asking me if I wanted to be sent away."
"I think I understand," Cathy murmured with a tender smile. "Anyone in particular you were thinking about?"
"Yeah… I was mostly thinking about my friends… Hermione, Hedwig, and Dobby as well as some who could have been my friends like Neville, Katie, Alicia, Angelina, and Oliver."
"There are an awful lot of girls on that short list," Cathy teased.
"Those were the only girls I really interacted with that weren't avid fans of the B.W.L.; Hermione being almost like a sister and one of my first ever friends and Katie, Alicia, and Angelina were my teammates on our house team along with Oliver and another two boys. The only reason there aren't more boys on that list was because I didn't list the three Weasley boys that I once thought were my friends. It doesn't hurt quite so much to think of the Weasleys now as it did in the beginning but I'm still confused about what to think about what I learned about their family."
"B.W.L.? What does that stand for?"
"The Boy-Who-Lived, it's what the wizarding world called me."
"Ah… you've spoken of that before I just didn't recognize the acronym. That name bothers you quite a bit, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, it does; to me it was silly to make me a hero or a celebrity because my mother sacrificed her life for mine and for some reason whatever she did helped to vanquish the darkest wizards of that time. I mean, what could I have possibly done? I was still in diapers at the time for crying out loud. But mostly I hated it because it meant no one saw Harry and all I ever wanted to be was Just Harry – not the freak my relatives thought me, not the hero the wizards wanted me to be, and not the rich, single celebrity the rabid fans all sought to claim."
"I find it kind of ironic that you enjoy performing and garnering attention while on the stage so much given how you felt about your unwanted fame."
"Ah… but that is a completely different kettle of fish, sister dear," Harry drawled dramatically as he captured yet another one of her checkers. "When I was in the ring, it was all me. The crowd loved me for what I did and was doing, not what they thought I did as a baby. It's the same reason I loved playing Quidditch in front of the entire school; it was a skill and a talent that was all me."
"So you are saying it is important for you to be given credit for the things you know you can do instead of what people think you have done?"
"Exactly!"
"Then why don't you believe yourself to be a hero? I know you've saved lives and have stepped up to fight a war that had nothing to do with you."
"I didn't do those things because I was trying to be a hero; I did them because they were the right thing to do and because I couldn't just stand aside when I knew I could make a difference. Plus my brothers needed to be protected from themselves a time or two."
"Most heroes are ordinary men and women who unhesitatingly did the right thing and risked their lives for another or to make a difference. Is it really all that bad that people see you as a hero for the risks you've taken to save their lives? Modesty is all well and good but don't dismiss everything you've done for others; it cheapens what you have done and gives the impression that you regret saving or helping them."
"I never actually thought of it that way," Harry replied quietly as he fiddled with the checker he'd just kinged for Cathy.
"That's because you were looking at it from only one side of the coin. You don't have to care what the world at large thinks but respect the feelings of those who gained something special through your sacrifices. And no I'm not talking about those who seek to profit from your actions; I'm talking about those whose lives you've saved and those who you've freed."
"I might be able to do that," Harry stated after giving Cathy's advice serious consideration. "You'll remind me if I forget again?"
"You bet I will."
"Thank you, Cathy."
"Enough of the serious matters now… You mentioned a bunch of names earlier but two of them seemed kind of different and a little odd for names. Who were Hedwig and Dobby?"
"Hedwig was an intelligent and beautiful snowy owl. She was my first companion, my first true birthday gift, and the first and only pet I've ever truly had since I don't consider the snakes pets even if they sometimes act like it. Not that Hedwig ever acted like a pet either; she was more of a friend and confidant as I often confided in her when I was feeling down or troubled. In return, she often treated me like I was her chick."
"And the Dobby person you mentioned?"
"Actually, he's not a person either; he was a house elf and house elves are rather intelligent magical beings that only appear humanoid. He was rather crazy, more than a little obsessive, and extremely excitable; he nearly killed me a couple of times in his enthusiasm in trying to protect me. He kinda grew on me after a while though; once he stopped trying to save my life that is."
Cathy chuckled over that before asking, "What other magical and mythical creatures did you come across?"
"Ah… there have been many. I'd met several centaurs, even had one save my life and allow me to ride on his back; the other centaurs got angry over that but I liked Firenze because he didn't seem as stuffy as the other centaurs nor as vague when speaking. I've seen unicorns, winged horses, mermaids, a sphinx, five different types of dragons…"
"Dragons? As in; giant as a house, eat you in one bite, fire-breathing dragons?"
"Yes, yes, and yes. The first one was a newly hatched baby named Norbert; I helped smuggle him out of the castle shortly after he was born. The other four were fully grown adult females complete with a nest of eggs each. Though, I could have done without the up close and personal encounter with the Hungarian Horntail; I still have the scars on my shoulder from where she nailed me with her spiked tail."
"I'd ask why you were bothering a nesting mother but I don't think I really want to know. What else have you encountered?"
"It wasn't by my choice that I faced her," Harry muttered with a grimace. "I'm just glad I walked or rather flew away in one relative piece when it was over. As for other creatures… let's see there was a huge basilisk, a hippogriff named Buckbeak that Hermione and I saved from an unjust execution, a number of annoying and dangerous critters that we studied in classes or met on the grounds (things like pixies, grindylows, boggarts, bowtruckles, and talking, man-eating spiders the size of a car), and a phoenix."
"You've mentioned a phoenix before… the one you said you thought had something to do with why you ended up with wings?"
"Yes… the very same; he belonged to the headmaster of the school."
"What does one name a phoenix?"
Harry opened his mouth to reply only to hesitate as he'd always been more than a little afraid to speak Fawkes's name out loud. He was still silently debating on whether or not to name the phoenix when Cathy spoke again.
"Is there something wrong, Harry? Or did you just forget what his name was?"
"No, I still remember what his name was but… it's childish really. I've sorta been afraid to speak his name out loud because I feared saying his name would call him and he would take me back to my old world. Yeah, I might have wanted to go back at one point but I didn't want to be taken to the man who was the biggest reason my godfather sent me away in the first place. Kinda silly, really, since I doubt magic could reach across dimensions so easily or far more wizards would be traveling between worlds."
"I don't think it's childish to fear being whisked away without your permission; especially considering it had already happened once. Has the phoenix ever shown up before just because you called his name?"
"Not precisely; but he did show up when I really needed help to fight the basilisk. And they do have the ability to travel most any where. House elves do too but no matter how many times I called Dobby's name, he never responded so my fear is probably unfounded anyway. I don't know if the headmaster named him or if he came with the name or what; but I was told his name was Fawkes and he seemed to respond to it."
"Fawkes?"
"Yeah; ironic really because Guy Fawkes was the name of one of those who sought to dispose of King James the First and if I remember rightly he was caught inside of a room full of gunpowder and explosives and phoenixes are birds long associated with fire because of their ability to be reborn out of their ashes. They also have the ability to travel through flames."
"Phoenixes sound like amazing creatures."
"They really are. My wand actually has the tail feather of a phoenix inside of it. In fact, it was at the end of my fourth year that I learned it is actually one of Fawkes's tail feathers inside of my wand. Kind of neat knowing I got to meet the phoenix that freely gave up a part of himself just so my wand could be made."
"I can see how that would make your wand something special above and beyond the fact that it allows you to do magic," Cathy wistfully murmured. "I would have loved to have had a chance to meet mythical creatures like unicorns, winged horses, mermaids, and phoenixes."
"Merfolk aren't all they're cracked up to be," Harry dryly countered. "They look nothing like fiction paints them and they can be quite vicious. Their voices sound like a hundred dying cats running their claws down a chalkboard while caterwauling in disharmony and could easily deafen someone if they listened to it long enough. Though they sound like normal humans under the water."
"What about the magical horses?"
Harry was about to answer only for the oh so familiar sound of phoenix music to start filling the room, growing louder as the seconds ticked by and Harry's eyes widened as he immediately realized what that meant; he'd called the phoenix to his side because he'd stupidly called the bird by name. He had a split second to breathe out a strangled, "Oh, fuck me," before a burst of flames appearing directly over the table sent Cathy dropping to the floor with a short scream. Harry on the other hand was frozen in shock in his seat as he stared at the familiar but unfamiliar phoenix that had appeared in the air above the table where Harry and Cathy were sitting.
"Fawkes…?" Harry asked with a tremulous voice as he took in the swan-like bird with feathers that were almost pure white with red and yellow-gold tips; bar the phoenix's crest, which was still a solid, vibrant red.
The bird trilled an affirmative and Harry jumped up out of his chair and scrambled back so fast that he knocked the chair over in his haste to put space between him and the bird. Cathy slowly rose up onto her feet as she stared at the bird with wide eyes before glancing beyond it to meet Harry's frightened eyes. The phoenix then gave a second trill as he swept towards Harry, clutched Harry's shoulder in his claws, and flashed Harry out of the Winner Estate with a second explosion of flames leaving behind a panic stricken Cathy and a soon to be frantic Wolfstar.
"Damn it, Fawkes! How could you!? Take me back to my family you overgrown pigeon!" Harry cried as he was dropped on the hard, dusty floor of a darkened room.
Fawkes squawked indignantly at the insult and pecked Harry sharply on the head before he took to the air and trilled several irritated notes before falling silent. Harry cursed several more times, tears of frustration falling from his eyes over the pain he felt at being torn away from his family without any warning. He should have known better than to carelessly throw about Fawkes's name (stupidly calling it out a total of three times without a care – which only would have strengthened the call because three was a magically significant number in summoning).
He calmed down a few minutes later as Fawkes began singing a sad song that was filled with just a thread of hope and comfort. Once he was calmer, Harry finally realized that no one had greeted him though someone must have surely heard his arrival given how loudly he'd been cursing and yelling. Pushing his irritation and trepidation to the back of his mind, Harry frowned and pulled out his wand so he could better see where he'd ended up.
He only grew more confused when he discovered the room that he'd thought he'd landed in was actually the cave where he, Hermione, and Ron had once met up with Sirius during their first visit to Hogsmeade after he'd completed the first task of the Tournament. Furrowing his brow, Harry glanced about the small cave and then looked to where Fawkes was standing on the ground just a few feet away; the phoenix having fallen silent the moment Harry was no longer in a state of fury filled panic.
"Why did you bring me back here Fawkes? Why this cave?"
In response, the phoenix took flight once more and headed towards the entrance and Harry reluctantly followed, dowsing the light of his wand when the cave began growing lighter as the fading afternoon sun filtered in through the mouth of the cave. The moment Harry's eyes landed on the valley below as he stepped clear of the cave he sucked in a sharp breath and staggered back a step as if he'd been punched hard in the stomach. This time it was tears of grief and disbelief that filled his eyes as he took in the broken ruins of what had once been Hogsmeade Village. Just beyond the village, stood Hogwarts castle looking cold and neglected – a large section of the once great castle nothing but rubble as if some huge giant had stepped on one side of it.
"What happened, Fawkes?" Harry asked as the phoenix lightly landed on his shoulder once more.
Fawkes gave a sad trill and buried his head beneath his wing as he wept; his healing tears soaking both of them as the bird grieved. Swallowing thickly, knowing that phoenixes don't cry lightly (their tears were too precious to waste on trivial emotions); Harry woodenly began making his way down from the cave down the meandering back trail (the main trail currently unsafe to use due to extensive damage). As he reached the outskirts of the former village, the first building he should have come to was the Shrieking Shack but all that remained of the former 'haunted' house was a large, blackened crater. Harry stared at the place where the shack had once stood for a long minute before he let his feet carry him towards the main street of the small town.
Everywhere he looked, Harry could see the tumbled down, burnt out shells of what used to be homes and businesses; the magical wards woven over them just enough to save them from the ravages of time (and he knew it had been years since the destruction first happened because nature had been trying to reclaim the surrounding land) but not enough to protect them from what ever had destroyed them. He felt something twist in his gut as he drew even with the ruins that had once been the Three Broomsticks before he tore his eyes away and glanced at the other shops that were now nothing more than burnt timbers and broken stones.
It was all gone; all of the shops and stores, the cafes and pubs, and the houses of the witches and wizards that had once claimed Hogsmeade as their home had been utterly destroyed. Well… all except one lone building that was sitting just on the outskirts of town right beside the road leading up to the castle; a building that Harry didn't recall ever seeing before.
Picking his way carefully towards the only building still standing in the valley (not counting the castle – which looked like it could collapse at any minute), Harry wondered again what had happened. Oh he knew what it looked like had happened but that didn't tell him who had destroyed the small town or what had happened to those who'd once lived there. Nor did it tell him what had happened to the castle; a castle that had stood virtually unmolested for over a thousand years and that he knew should have stood unbroken for a thousand more. Upon reaching the front of the building, Harry blinked in surprise as he took in the slightly charred sign that hung over top of the shop's door as well as the amusingly childish slogan and odd notice posted on the door.
Potter's Pranks
Perfectly pugnacious pranks from the proud purveyors of pure pandemonium
Weasleys, Dumbledores, and Death Eaters are not welcome and will be hexed
on sight; no questions asked.
Letting out a weak chuckle, Harry cautiously stepped up on the covered porch and peered through the glass door to see what was inside. On a whim he dropped his hand to the handle and gave it an experimental turn only to find it locked. He then received the shock of a lifetime as two familiar voices called out to him.
"Oy, we're closed; can't ya tell?"
"If we were open don't you think the door would be, well, open?"
"Fred? George?" Harry croaked in hope and confusion as he shook the hand of the door again.
"Hey! Cut that out!"
"Do it again and we'll hex you."
Not wanting to get hexed, Harry knocked loudly on the door and called out the twins' names a second time. He waited a moment and knocked a second time when there was no response. Two minutes later, when he still hadn't heard a reply to his calls and knocks, Harry tried the handle again.
"You need to stop that!"
"Yeah, don't you know it's rude to fondle another guy's knob?"
Harry couldn't help but choke out a pained laugh at the crude innuendo; it was so like the twins to sink to using crude humor. He pounded on the door this time as his shook the handle for a forth time.
"Okay, you are a persistent little bugger."
"Which means you are in desperate need of a pranking…"
"Or you are one of our employees who lost their key again…"
"In which case, you should know to use the password…"
"Unless you want to be hexed?"
"Yeah… you might look good in green boils, magenta hair, and black lip-gloss."
"Password? What would you use for a pass…? Don't tell me you used the Map's password," Harry murmured to himself as he tapped his wand to the door and stated, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
"Good to hear you are keeping your priorities straight, Mr. Potter."
"Glad to see the rumors of your untimely death were a bit premature, little buddy."
"Come on in… if we're not here, we'll be here when it's time to open the shop."
"Help yourself to whatever you need; lord knows you've helped us more than we know."
Harry opened the door the instant he heard the lock releasing and dashed inside expecting to see a grinning Fred and George only to find nothing but shelf upon shelf of dust covered merchandise. There wasn't even a single footprint marring the dust on the floor aside from those that Harry had made as he walked in. Spinning around in a circle, Harry felt a wave of grief hit him as he realized that the voices he'd heard must have been nothing but a charm on the door.
"Damn it, Fred and George… I really could have used a friendly face right about now. I wonder how the charms on the door knew it was me though."
Shaking his head, Harry browsed through the shelves to take in the various pranks for sale and chuckled over the more creative ones. He was also puzzled as to who owned the shop and why it was named Potter's Pranks of all things (since as far as he knew he was the only Potter still living). Eventually, he ended up on the top floor of the two story building (not counting the basement where he'd found a workroom and a fully stocked potions lab) which appeared to have been someone's apartment. The matching outfits scattered haphazardly throughout the rooms led him to believe that it was the twins who'd been living there at some point. Sighing, Harry dropped down onto a dust covered couch and dropped his head in his hands as he allowed his grief over his missing friends (and his now absent family back home) to wash over him.
"Oy! How rude!"
"We see how it is now…"
"We gave you a place to run to…"
"But you can't even be bothered to say hello…"
"Before you make yourself at home!"
"Fred? George? Where are you?" Harry asked as he jumped back to his feet, nearly dislodging the phoenix now sleeping on his shoulder.
"Right behind you, little brother," both twins said.
Harry spun around with a smile already forming on his lips only to gasp in shock as he discovered that it had been a magical portrait addressing him and not the actual twins. "Oh… you… you're a painting. Where are the real yous?"
"We're dead, Harry. True magical portraits only come to life once the wizard has died," one twin sadly replied.
"What happened? How did you die? When did you die? Where is everyone else? Who owns Potter's Pranks?"
"Boy, for someone who made himself pretty scarce for who knows how many years, he sure does have a boat load of questions, doesn't he, Fred?"
"That he does George… and he hasn't even gone and explained why he looks like someone tried sucking all of the life out of him. Do you think he met up with a succubus at some point?"
"That or he thought he needed to be lighter to play Quidditch properly and tried one of them new fangled diets."
"Please guys… I've been gone for three years and things are confusing enough as it is… I had no way of contacting anyone or I would have. Damn it…" Harry cursed as he suddenly glared up at the twins. "It's your damn family that owes me an explanation!"
"You are our family… we disowned the Weasleys as did Bill, Charlie, and Percy after we found out what our former parents and siblings had done and tried to do."
"All five of us took the name Potter once they declared you dead and we never once looked back."
"And Harry, you were gone for close to twenty years before we died. It's been far longer than that since we did die."
"How is that possible? I only left three years ago and Fawkes can't travel through time," Harry demanded as he glanced between the sleeping phoenix and the portrait several times.
"You found Fawkes? Is that him?"
"Oh, he's almost gone completely white, poor old chap. Did you know he vanished just days after you did?"
"Dumbledore was rightly pissed – thought you'd somehow stolen the phoenix from him after you got yourself out from under his thumb."
"We tried to find you for years after you first disappeared; we'd wanted to thank you for the million galleons you'd left at Gringotts for us."
"Why did you leave us the money if you thought we were in on what our former family did?"
"I didn't leave you any money and I didn't escape. Sirius sent me away to save me from Dumbledore which means he's the one that probably left you the money in my name. That means he must have thought the two of you were true friends. Wish he'd have told me that in the letter he left me so I would have known I'd had at least had two more true friends other than Hermione these past three years."
"Ah… guess that means we both have loads to catch up on."
"How much time do you have? Because the story is long and ugly."
"I don't know… I have to find a way to get home. I found me a real family in the world that Sirius sent me to and I don't want them to think I abandoned them after being phoenix-napped right out of our house."
"What do you mean by world?"
"Sirius said he was sending me to a new world because our world wasn't safe for me. Fawkes brought me back because I accidentally summoned him. Cathy and my brothers are probably going spare right about now trying to figure out a way to come and get me."
"Uh… Harry, I hate to break it to you… but there is no magic that could send you to a new world. There is only one world."
"But Sirius said…"
"He either lied to keep you from coming back or he mistakenly thought he was sending you somewhere else."
"But I was only gone for three years… if he just sent me somewhere else in the world; wouldn't only three years have passed for you as well as for me?"
"Not necessarily… he could have sent you into the future… cause now that I think about it you look about the same as you did before you left (if we ignore the hair and your mismatched eyes); only you're skinnier and it makes you look even younger than usual."
"You think I look young right now? You should have seen me when I first ended up wherever it was I ended up. I looked like a fucking six year old!"
"Sounds like Sirius really messed up big time. What year is it anyway?"
"Um… don't know… it was one-ninety-six A.C. where I was just an hour earlier."
"In English?"
"They mark the years differently there… or is it here? Are you certain it's not possible to travel between dimensions or something?" Harry asked with a hint of pleading in his tone.
"If it was possible, don't you think more witches and wizards would have been doing it?" both twins declared as they unknowingly echoed Harry's earlier comment to Cathy.
Harry dropped down onto the coffee table in front of the couch and once more buried his face in his hands as he tried to absorb what he'd just learned. Out of all the possible things Sirius could have done to send Harry somewhere safe he never once imagined that it had been to some distant future… that the ruins of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts (and who knows how many other magical villages and towns) had been sitting unnoticed for the past three years.
"I think we broke him, Fred."
"I think you might be right, George."
"Where did all the wizards go? I've been using magic like crazy for the last three years and in front of muggles for the last year. Why hasn't anyone tried to arrest me for breaking the statute of secrecy? Why didn't I get a letter from the Ministry about underage magic before my seventeenth birthday like I did the summer before my second year?" Harry asked tightly as he lifted his head up just enough to peer at the portrait from over the top of his glasses; finally allowing himself to take in how much older both twins appeared when compared to his last memory of them from his fourth year. Both of them looked to be in their mid-thirties with more than a few stress lines marring their faces alongside the more numerous laugh lines.
"Because by the time we died there wasn't much left standing here in Britain aside from Hogwarts; everything else had been abandoned, destroyed, or buried completely. Voldemort… after you vanished the world went mad and it was one long, brutal war. People were dying left and right and no one wanted to work together because we didn't know who to trust after Dumbledore went mad… or rather madder after you disappeared. The barmy old goat went and broke Grindelwald out of Nurmengard and the two of them attempted to take over the world before Voldemort could gain control of everything. The three of them laid waste to nearly half of Europe before the muggles stepped in and began eradicating every single magical they came across – including the creatures and beings," George explained solemnly in the longest speech Harry had ever heard him give without double teaming with Fred.
"The muggles actually killed all three of them and most of their followers in a huge bombing that completely sank Azkaban Island where they'd been fighting to take control of the dementors. Wiped out the dementors at the same time," Fred added just as seriously. "The scattered magicals from Britain, Ireland, and Western Europe who'd survived up to that point came here to Hogwarts for sanctuary since the other European schools had been destroyed by Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Voldemort. We were sold out after two years by a bunch of disgruntled squibs and one stupid, greedy wizard. A bunch of us were caught by the muggles and eventually put to death for 'crimes against humanity' because we'd been born with magic. Anyone who managed to escape capture went underground and either died of old age and starvation or were later caught and killed as well; we don't rightly know because we died when Hogwarts fell."
"There might be one or two places still standing if they had half decent wards; like our shop here and Gringotts Bank in Diagon Alley. Part of Hogwarts should still be standing but we wouldn't know for sure stuck as we are here in the shop due to the muggles dropping several bombs on the castle and on Hogsmeade. The wards diffused much of the blast but the castle still took quite a bit of damage because the giants that Voldemort had unleashed on the castle just a couple years after you vanished had weakened the structure in several places before they were chased off or killed. It was a terrible time," George finished wearily.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there to fight beside you guys," Harry choked out as he wiped the tears from his face. "The village was completely ruined aside from this building but most of Hogwarts still stands from what I saw when I first got here. Why haven't the muggles taken over the lands surrounding Hogsmeade and the castle grounds? It's all so desolate and empty of everything."
"Don't know… maybe they forgot about it once they figured they killed us all off."
"That or whoever led them here was executed with the rest of us and magic wouldn't let them back in without someone to lead the way."
There were several long minutes of silence before Harry stood up and addressed the portrait one last time, "I have to go guys. If this really is the same world… I have to find a way to get back to my family before they worry themselves sick."
"Please take us with you, Harry."
"We're tired of hanging around here all by ourselves."
"We're tired of laughing at our own jokes too."
"We've heard them all so many times now that they just aren't that funny any more."
"You should pack up the store and take everything with you as well."
"S'not doing us any good just sitting there."
"As the only living partner of Potter's Pranks it all belongs to you anyway."
"I suppose I can spare a few hours to pack up a few things up though I don't know how good all the pranks are since they've been sitting for who knows how long," Harry replied as he stared up at the pleading faces of the twins and gave them a tight smile. "And how could I leave you behind when I have at least one brother who would appreciate your humor?"
"All of our packaging had top of the line preservation charms on them so they should all be as good as the day they were first packaged; unless the magic has faded."
"You should probably at least visit the castle and see if there's anything salvageable up there too. The library may or may not have survived the raid as Flitwick, Pince, and a few of the other staff warded it and several other rooms the moment we realized we were under attack."
"I don't know if I could face the castle right now, but I'll think about it. Do you know if anyone escaped?"
"Yeah, we got a bunch of people out through the secret passageway on the third floor; Fred and I went down buying McGonagall, Sirius, and Remus time to get a bunch of people out."
"Couldn't say whether or not any of them made it out of Hogsmeade but our best fighters went with them; including Hermione, Neville, Viktor, Fleur, and our three older brothers."
"Do you know where they would have gone?
"Not a clue, mate; we'd asked them not to tell us in case we were captured. Didn't want there to be even the slightest chance that we'd betray them if the muggles had gotten it into their heads to torture us for the information."
"Oh," Harry replied with more than a little disappointment as he climbed up onto the couch and pulled their portrait down from the wall before carrying them downstairs with him so he could pack up the shop as requested (hoping the twins would be able to help him dismantle any traps they'd left about the shop).
It took Harry six hours to clear away all of the dust, undue the defensive wards, charm the dozens of crates he'd dug out of the basement with expansion charms, and pack up everything that could be salvaged from the shop, the twins' apartment above, and the workshop below. He then pulled out Moody's old trunk and piled the numerous crates into the empty seventh compartment before he shrunk the trunk and tucked it into his pocket and moved Fred and George's portrait into his supply trunk. He then headed back out into the village where he dug through the ruins of the other stores; the twins having managed to talk him into checking to see if anything useful had survived the destruction intact.
That was how he'd managed to collect another couple of dozen cases of old wizarding alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, several thousand books, and several dozen crates of parchment, quills, and ink. There were also countless crates of the more common potion ingredients, a couple thousand yards of magically manufactured fabrics (such as magically grown cotton, bicorn wool, dragon hide, and acromantula silk), numerous boxes of wizarding clothes (most notably robes), and near to five hundred pounds of preserved magical candies and sweets. There would have been far more if the wards on the other stores hadn't started failing at some point. And that wasn't even taking into consideration what was potentially preserved in the private homes and apartments since Harry didn't bother digging through those ruins.
It was nearly two o'clock in the morning by that time and Harry worried about what was happening back at the estate with his brothers. He would have asked Fawkes to take him home but the phoenix still hadn't woken back up and he didn't have any way of getting home by himself because his broom and Wolfstar had been left behind when Fawkes phoenix-napped him. He didn't even have his laptop with him because the command trunk was currently sitting in Wolfstar's cockpit and for some reason Harry couldn't even sense Zero in the back of his mind; yet another reason why he'd thought he'd been taken back to a different world.
So, Harry reluctantly headed up to the castle to pass the time until Fawkes woke because he couldn't sleep and didn't want to just stand around doing nothing. If the grounds of the castle looked cold and depressing it was nothing to how desolate the inside of the castle appeared. All but three of the portraits that had once hung throughout the halls and stairways of the castle (not counting the ones that had been protected in those areas that had been sealed off and protected with wards) had all been burned, ripped to shreds, or smashed to bits and their occupants had either fled to other frames in different buildings or were destroyed.
Those still in one piece with the subjects still active were the Fat Lady, Sir Cadogan, and a forest that held a single rather shy unicorn; Harry moved those portraits into his trunk with the twins (at their request and because he felt the unicorn would be lonely if left behind). Additionally, all but a single suit of armor, every last statue, and all but a dozen tapestries had been destroyed; the armor melted into slag, beaten flat, or shot so full of holes their enchantments failed, the statues shattered beyond repair (Harry had tried fixing more than one), and the tapestries nothing more than ash piled on the floor and soot outlines on the walls (even the surviving pieces of woven art were more than a little singed around the edges).
The kitchen was a complete mess as were eighty percent of the hallways, storerooms, classrooms, the Great Hall, and two of the four common rooms and dorms (Slytherin's buried beneath the damaged section of the castle and Hufflepuff's vandalized). None of the many secret passages and shortcuts were working either, not even those that appeared to have escaped the destruction. Gryffindor Tower, Ravenclaw Tower, the library, Filch's office, the infirmary, the potions lab, Snape's office, and the headmaster's office were the only places that seemed to have survived the widespread vandalism and that was only because they had been locked up tighter than a nunnery facing a horde of barbarians set on pillaging.
The sun rose and an entire day passed by without Harry even noticing as he packed up every last book (using the pack spell), gathered up all of the working portraits, salvaged a handful of potions and potion ingredients (from the infirmary), and gathered up useful magical items and equipment that had survived the passing of time in the protected areas. He also collected anything that looked like it might have pertinent information about what had happened since the day Sirius had sent him into what he now knew was the future and not another world. The headmaster's office had been a veritable treasure trove of books, magical gadgets, intact portraits, and information; the most startling being the fact that the sorting hat was still in one piece and still fully functional (it had greeted him by name before going dormant once more).
The portraits of the former headmaster and headmistresses joined those in Harry's trunk minus Dumbledore's; which Harry had torched the moment it opened its mouth and addressed Harry as 'my boy'. Harry probably could have learned a lot from the man but he just couldn't stomach the sight of the ancient wizard or the sound of his grandfatherly voice after having read through part of what the man planned for him and learning that the man had allowed and encouraged Snape to do what he did. The bearded manipulator and closet dark lord had left behind more than three dozen highly detailed hand-written journals and thousands of meticulously cataloged memories (along with his pensieve) anyway; so it wasn't like all of the man's knowledge had been lost.
The only rooms that Harry didn't bother exploring were Snape's office and the potions lab (because of the four years worth of memories of the horrifying detentions he'd suffered through in those two rooms). Not even the high likelihood of finding useable potion ingredients or rare potions enabled him to put aside his fear and disgust. His memories of the humiliation and pain that Snape had foisted upon him were still far too fresh in his mind and the emotional wounds far too raw for him to face (especially when he was completely alone and faced with the place where it had happened).
Those dark and terrible memories were some of the few things he'd never spoken of except in passing on a small handful of occasions. It was also the one subject that his brothers had not pushed him to discuss; his reaction to learning that they'd read his medical file and Dumbledore's journals detailing what had been done to him physically during those detentions had been negative enough that they hadn't wished to force him to deal with that part of his past. His near breaking after the incident that triggered his desperate escape from Luxembourg Castle had only reinforced the need for them to allow Harry to come to terms with those particular memories in his own time.
By the time Harry had finished clearing out the headmaster's office (the last room he'd ventured into to), it was fast approaching midnight once more and Harry was feeling completely exhausted so he crashed up in his old dorm for old time's sake. He woke up around noon the next day and discovered that Fawkes had left him sometime after he'd fallen asleep. Frustrated that his ride back to the Winner Estate had ditched him and needing something to occupy his time, Harry slipped down to the Chamber of Secrets to see if the bones of the basilisk were still there and found the magically preserved carcass fully intact (aside from the broken fang and the hole in its mouth and head where Harry had stabbed it) due to the advanced wards protecting the hidden subterranean chamber.
Thinking his brothers and the Maganac might wish to see it, he loaded the entire beast into the box he'd brought for the skull he'd hoped to salvage from the skeleton. He explored the chamber for a couple of hours but there was nothing else down there aside from the basilisk's nest (no hidden library, no secret study, and no concealed lab filled with archaic tomes, rare potion projects, or ancient secrets). He had just spent an hour and a half climbing up the pipes to reach the bathroom entrance when Fawkes appeared once more and led him on a merry chase through the castle.
He'd been determined to order the bird to take him back home but the phoenix had other ideas as it eventually led Harry to a rather magical room that he might have used to teach an illicit club forbidden spells during his fifth year if he'd stayed in his proper time. The room that came into existence had actually been used as a command center at one point and had a wealth of information above and beyond what he'd found in the staff offices or had been told by the portraits about what had happened after he'd left; there were even a decade or two's worth of old newspapers stacked up along one wall.
He ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and all evening carefully boxing it all up. As he worked, he silently wondered what he was going to do with all of the crap he'd gathered over the past two and a half days. After he sealed and put away the last box, Harry took a moment to make himself something to eat and shared some fruit with Fawkes before he grabbed a sleeping bag and pillow (who'd refused to take him home when he asked). He then lay on his back inside the recently emptied room and stared up at the ceiling for several hours as he tried to process everything he'd learned until exhaustion claimed him once more.
Harry was up an hour before sunrise the next morning despite the fact that he still felt rather tired. He knew he'd wasted enough time though and he had to find a way to either get himself home or get a message to one of his brothers so that they could come pick him up. After fixing himself a light breakfast that he once again shared with Fawkes (who had again refused to take him home), he left the castle and made his way outside to wander over the school grounds as the sun rose. As he walked, his thoughts returned to his current predicament.
He was too far to portkey and he didn't know any good midway points that would be safe to jump to. He'd never bothered to learn how to apparate, since there was no one who could put him back to rights if he splinched himself. Fawkes still wasn't inclined to help him (the phoenix in question once again sleeping on his shoulder) and there were no other towns within walking distance (at least not that he knew of and he really didn't feel like trudging through untold wilds just to find one). A trip down into his trunk to pick the brains of the portraits saw him learning the advanced version of the Patronus Spell that could be used to send secure messages.
It took him two hours to get the spell right but the moment he did he gave his message to the glowing stag and watched it streak off into the sky and prayed that it would reach his brothers and still have enough magic to pass along his message.
AN: Even though I knew from the moment I wrote the first chapter that this was where I going with the story, this chapter was very hard for me to write. And I don't mean hard in the sense that it was difficult to write, because it wasn't; I mean that it was hard in that it hurt to write the history of the wizarding world without Harry. Some of you may have even suspected that I was headed in this direction if you had recognized the 'gold sand' that appeared after the device broke in the prologue.
There is still quite a bit that has been left unsaid that will come up in the next chapter or in a few chapters down the road; so if your questions about the wizarding world or a specific individual's fate wasn't answered here, it will be addressed later. That will include how Harry ended up being thrown through time instead of thrown into a new world; though, if you think about, even if he's on the same earth as he was born on, he was still thrown into a new world since the world is nothing like how he remembered it.
In the mean time, I thought you should know that approximately half of the story has been posted now. There are still roughly thirty chapters waiting for me to edit and post them while I'm working on the final two/three chapters of the story. Tying up loose ends is always a pain but necessary I suppose.
Anyway… the next chapter will have the pilots' reactions to Harry being bird-napped out of the Winner Estate and will have more information on the state of the wizarding world. Don't know when I'll be posting it but it should be fairly soon (like no later than this weekend). It will also be the last chapter I post until after Christmas as I need to finish up the next chapter of Haunted, finish up with the edits to WWYR1, and get the first chapter of WWYR2 ready for posting. Once that is done, I'll resume posting on this story (so either the 25th or the 26th). ~ Jenn