Hey everyone,
Well, it happened again. We're nearing summer and another crazy idea has hit me in the head and won't let me go, making it so that I can't even focus on any other story, not on the chapters for this month or even on editing To Read Into The Universe – though I did get up to chapter 15 before this story started bothering me. Nonetheless, I do think this story has MAJOR potential and look forward to finding out what you think of it.
Let's get started,
A Soul's Future
Chapter 01
A Big Change
27th of September 1995
Grand Staircase, Hogwarts
Harry's POV
Hogwarts. A place where I thought I could be home. Where I met friends and made enemies. Where I had fun, faced challenges and overcame horrors that no one my age should have to go through. Yet even with the horrors of the Third Floor, the terror of the Chamber of Secrets, the horrible effects of the Dementors and the fright and concern caused by the Tournament, I still felt at home. But this year everything has changed.
Voldemort has returned, yet he's laying low and the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, would rather succumb to his own fear than take action and protect his people. And while he may think that his Secretary is making things better are the Slytherins the only ones actually benefitting from her help. And anyone outside of Hogwarts who complains about this actually gets fired and slandered in the Daily Prophet.
I am doing everything I can to just survive, yet I never thought I'd have to do so right from the start of the school year. And the fact that not even the teachers are doing anything, because even they fear the current situation, both reminds me of Second Year and increases the sense of independence that I've been developing since my early youth. Growing up with Muggles like the Dursleys was always a hazard, but I thought I could escape it at Hogwarts.
And both the fact that it's my Fifth Year, during which I will be studying for one of the two most important Wizarding Tests, and that my friends seem to have developed – what Ron actually calls – the Percy Syndrome of thinking that everything they say is right and all my ideas are wrong makes it even harder for me to not just lose my temper with them – again. And the fact that they still count on me and consider me their leader is a fact I no longer believe.
The three of us are now leaving Transfigurations behind, me silently wondering why McGonagall keeps asking Neville, my other close friend who actually seems much better at understanding how I feel, to stay behind every time her class ends, do I yet again ignore how Hermione and Ron are, again, trying to give advice on stuff – and at the same time sounding as if they think me no older than twelve and consider themselves my parents or something.
"Who needs enemies when you have friends like these?" Is a thought that has been running through my mind more often than I care to count this last month, yet then suddenly something kicks that thought out of my mind as a horrible, excruciating sense of pain attacks me from the inside, making me halt in my tracks and try to suppress a grunt of pain. I reach for my waist with my left, but grab my wand with my right and turn around.
And while the pain increases in strength with every second, making my eyes tear and making me grunt, pant and grit my teeth against the pain, do I try to look around, trying to find the source of what I can only assume is some horribly dark curse or spell. Yet I don't see anyone else with their wands out and then another wave hits me from within and I buckle through my knees a bit. Yet I try not to fall completely down.
And only then do I realize that, in their wisdom, Ron and Hermione have actually walked on as they rush back and Ron asks: "Mate, what's going on?" And Hermione makes me want to snarl if another wave of pain hadn't hit me as she said: "What are you waiting for, Harry? We're going to be late for Charms, now let's go." But the wave that hits me along with a new sense of pain breaks through the level of endurance I have been building up for years.
I scream out, no longer caring for what anyone else might think or believe if they see me and drop my wand as I reach for my stomach with both hands, collapsing through my legs and falling down on the staircase I am standing on. I crouch in on myself, barely hearing either Ron, Hermione or anyone else who might be here with me as my whole body and all of my mind focuses inward, on the pain that increases with every second.
My stomach feels to be on fire, my bones feel like they are being forced to stretch around something new, a new sense of magic seems to be forming itself within me and all my other intestines feel as if they are being pushed and reshuffled from within me. All of this is making my blood boil and tears at my nerves all over my front and back and makes me feel as if my skin is being pushed to its very limit from somewhere deep within.
And while I was able to endure a few minutes of Voldemort's Cruciatus, do I now feel like wishing he had done to me what Bellatrix Lestrange did to Neville's parents. I scream and cry, not even caring that others – potentially even Malfoy – can see tears streaming down my face as the pain is just too much for me and I hear Hermione, from a distance, screaming for something. Yet my pain and my own screaming makes me unable to hear for who.
I do hear heels clacking closer and hear other feet taking a few steps, proving that the students are getting out of the way to let someone pass, but I don't care for this. "Just – just let this pain stop. I don't care. I don't care who is doing this. I won't retaliate. Just – let it stop." I think to myself, my throat feeling like it's on fire with how much I am screaming and yelling in pain. And while part of me wonders if I might be begging while screaming, do I just not care.
"Mr. Potter, listen to me." I hear a voice close by and I force myself, through the horrible pain wrecking me up from within, to open my teary eyes just enough to squint through them and see Madam Pomfrey, the school's Healer, hovering over me. "Help me. Put – put an end –." I try to whimper, but then the pain feels like it's trying to reach down to my manhood and ass and this new sense of pain makes me scream out again.
"Mr. Potter, I can't put an end to this pain. It's Destiny's Magic at work. The only thing I can do is knock you out so your body can adjust." I hear the Matron tell me, even though the pain seems to affect my hearing as well as her voice changes volume, sounding from far away at some points and as close by as she actually is at other times. Yet I do register her words and while I think: "Why does Destiny hate me this much?" Do I whisper one word: "Please." And after this does the sweet bliss of fatigue hit me as my world turns dark.
At the same time
Poppy Pomfrey's POV
"Madam Pomfrey, what happened? We were just –." Mss. Granger tries to tell me, but I raise my hand and look around at the students gathered around us, the staircase we are on having actually separated itself from the rest after I arrived and I say: "Let me make one thing clear. I know none of you cast any sort of spell to make Mr. Potter feel this level of pain. No, he was not faking the level of pain he was in, do not even dare to insinuate that."
This makes a few of those around me rub the back of their necks or cringe in a sense of guilt and the fact that most of them are Gryffindors really doesn't sit well with me. I wave my wand and conjure a stretcher before gently levitating Harry Potter, whose body is still twitching and shaking even while his mind is unaware of this, onto it. The staircase then resets itself and I silently thank Hogwarts over the fact that we are only two hallways away from my Wing.
"Mr. Weasley, Mss. Granger, I hereby give you both permission to use magic in hallways. Please help me escort Mr. Potter to my wing. He is going to need a lot of potions when he wakes. Everyone else, I will take ten points from any House that dares to spread this event as anything other than fact. And for those of you curious, let me ask you; would you react any other way if you get picked by Destiny to have a Soul Mate and your body adjusts to it?
If suddenly, at the tender age of fifteen, you grow yourself a womb and child, because your Destined Soul Mate might be on the other side of the world?" And then, because I know these teens and know how easily they tend to disbelief anything they don't see with their own eyes, I cast another spell on Mr. Potter and above him, causing for a transparent medical record to appear above him. And underlined at the bottom are three words Pregnant; one month.
Gasps are heard all around and Granger actually almost drops her wand, yet this makes me notice something. "Pick up that wand, Mss. Granger. Mr. Potter will want that back when he wakes up." And the girl hurriedly picks up the piece of holy wood before anyone else can. I send one last warning glare at the students around me and then leave the staircase, using my wand to make Potter's stretcher float beside me and the other two following me.
And Hogwarts again proves to be loyal to me as the staircase actually separates from the wall again after Mr. Weasley gets off, making a few of the students who tried to follow him step back in fright. "Get back to class. I excused these three, not the rest of you. And don't you dare complain. Act your age, will you?" I snap at the Seventh Year Ravenclaw, who I know Filius was considering to make Head Boy this year, making him cringe back.
I lead Mr. Potter's stretcher into my wing and over to the same bed that he always sleeps on, a bed his Great-Grandfather donated to the Hospital Wing for students of the Great Alliance to rest in when they come here, and Mss. Granger says: "Madam Pomfrey, that – that record can'tbe right. Harry's a boy, he can't be pregnant. It's physically, biologically impossible. He doesn't even have a womb." But to this I ask the girl:
"Why do you think Mr. Potter was in so much pain, Mss. Granger? Destiny's Magic, while being a force that is overpowering in and of itself, helped his body grow one and connected his magic with that of his Soul Mate in order to create the life now growing within him. Now to find out just how far that mate lives." And while the girl turns to her best friend, who shrugs and nods to confirm my words, do I wave my wand again.
Yet the information that I receive from my latest check-up spell confuses and befuddles me and I mutter: "There's no way." And I recast the spell, shockingly enough getting the same results. "How – how is that – how is that possible?" I mutter, feeling slightly out of my element and Mr. Weasley asks: "What's wrong, Ma'am?" And I mutter: "Mr. Potter's soul mate – my spell says he's – that he's not – that he's not on Earth."
"Now that is impossible." Mr. Weasley states, but this time Mss. Granger rolls her eyes and says: "No, it isn't. Muggles have been travelling space since the nineteen-sixties. Neil Armstrong was even the first man on the moon.""Give me a break, Hermione. Even I know there's no oxygen in space. How could he have breathed up there?" Weasley laughs, but Granger retorts: "With a suit that works similar to a Bubblehead charm for underwater."
And this stops the boy's laughing and I think: "That actually makes sense. Though I do wonder how they are able to collect oxygen and keep it within these suits." Yet while I want to marvel over the genius of Muggle technology, I decide this doesn't matter and turn from the slumbering boy, feeling annoyed and concerned that the pain he is in seems to be fighting my stunner, and say:
"Alright, you two, listen up. I will inform Professor Flitwick and tell him you three are excused from his class, but I want you two to do something in return. Mr. Potter won't be waking for the rest of the class hour, perhaps longer, so you don't need to worry. In the meantime, I want you two to inform the Headmaster. I want him to hear the truth, not some student gossip." The two nod and turn around, leaving my wing as I turn to focus on my newest patient.
And while I summon several potions, both a Sleeping Draught to help him sleep through the pain, and several others for later – such as a Calming Draught as I doubt the boy will take the news of him being a new mother lightly – do I mentally go over the last few years. And the memories of everything he's gone through and been forced to deal with anger and annoy me and I think: "He needs help. More than just Albus or Minerva."
And then I remember something, something that happened only two weeks before the Potters were unfortunately struck down. And while I actually forgot about it, do I reach into a pocket I had long since forgotten, touching a simple looking gem broch that is hidden there. "You asked this of me if worst came to worst. I guess I should have used this last year. I suppose this is Destiny telling me I should make up for my mistake." I silently think to myself.
I sigh and sit down, well aware that Mr. Potter will more than likely be my only patient today as, in all of my years of working here, I have come to learn that most accidents and injuries don't come until two weeks into the second month of the school year. Mr. Longbottom was the only patient I had this early in the year since I started in 1983. I can just focus on what needs to happen. And with my hand on my broch and my eyes on my patient, do I start to plan.
What is going on?
Well, I actually wanted to continue this spiel, but the next part concerns a couple of really bad confrontations and I felt it better to have that be a chapter of its own. There will also be more of an explanation as to how Harry could have become pregnant and all in the next chapter. Also Yes, Lea is AGAIN his destined mate. You all know how I think of that pairing and that's one of the reasons this story wouldn't let me go.
A few other things you might want to know about this story. Most of OotP will be ignored, I am planning to deal with Umbridge next chapter, there will be bashing of multiple, predictable, characters, Harry is going to exert his independence and chose his child over everything and everyone else, bar those that truly support him and the prophesy will only play a role up to a certain point, but won't concern Harry for more than a few chapters. Also, there will be a few OC's that will come up from time to time.
Hope you like,
Venquine1990
PS. I will try to make this whole thing less confusing than Jillian Forge Potter and Harry's gender-change in that one.
