So...sorry to disappoint you guys, but my Elden Ring crossover has to go on the backburner. Every iteration I have been trying so far has been fighting me, so I need to take a step back for a time. Hopefully, I can return to it sooner rather than later.

However, it means I have returned to an earlier story idea that I've been wrestling with for a while, specifically a crossover with The Legend of Drizzt. And with it, a Harry/Vierna pairing. To make it work, I decided to make it another reincarnation fic, along similar lines to Mycoreincarnation, but set during Year 4. I'm probably going to be playing very loose and fast with the lore of Forgotten Realms, but hey, hopefully, it'll be a rollicking good yarn regardless.

EDIT: I became a little dissatisfied with the story, partly because I realised, being set too soon, just before the events of Book 4, caused some pacing issues. Honestly, the main reason why I attempted this was to allow Vierna to kick some Death Eater arse during the Quidditch World Cup, but that has to be abandoned. I'm working on a new version. Hopefully, it'll be better...

SHADOW RENAISSANCE (ORIGINAL)

CHAPTER 1:

AWAKENING

Treachery was ever the way of the Drow.

He'd known this, even before he'd reluctantly accepted that bald peacock's invitation and joined his little band, albeit on a freelance basis. The Drow may not have the monopoly on treachery, nor were they the only ones to raise it to an artform, but their sheer obsession with treachery and advancement through the same was mind-boggling. And he'd made the mistake of going to Lake Donigarten to fish.

He'd come fishing to think things over. He'd whiled away many a day at Calimport and Waterdeep, simply indulging in fishing. It was relaxing, calming. It took his mind off matters, like his family's betrayal, his lover's spurning of him, even as she quickened with his babe, his making himself known in the dangerous world of mercenary work.

The most recent matter he needed his mind distracted from involved a woman. One of many in this misandristic shithole of a city, but she was special, so he thought. But she had learned who he was…and more to the point, what he was. And what he thought had been growing had been promptly severed, no matter what that bald peacock may have believed.

He was rolled onto his back, the paralysing dart plucked from his body. He could move, but with an effort of will that couldn't do much. "Iblith," hissed a familiar voice, even as the mask he stole from his family was plucked from his face. It was placed by his greatest treasure, right near his legs. Which gave him an idea. He was dying, but he'd be damned if his greatest possessions would fall into the hands of this treacherous bastard.

"Ah, Dinin," he rasped. "I should've known you wanted payback for that spanking I gave you. Did Malice rub ointment on your arse?" A vicious boot to his ribs, and he coughed, before cackling hoarsely. "Oh right, Drow Matrons don't go in for the whole maternal feelings thing. Then again, neither did my mother, so we're in good company, you and I."

"Joke and prattle all you want, human. The use of your tongue is all you have left, and soon, it won't even be that."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But it still burns, doesn't it? That you got your arse handed to you by a human? You do know that bald peacock won't be happy that you killed me."

"That arrogant sellsword will never know. And neither will my sister. As far as they are concerned, you were killed by members of House DeVir."

"…A pretext for war, not that you needed any," he rasped in realisation. Then, after a moment, he said, "I'd berate you for your lack of honour, for your cowardice…but honestly, in your position, I would have done the same thing. But there are different kinds of honour. Those I send into the Raven Queen's embrace are those who deserve it. But you…you disgust me, Dinin Do'urden."

"A sellsword, and a human, dares to lecture me? I get enough lectures, and from those who are my betters."

"Not a lecture, a lesson. And here's one last one from me. You ever heard of the song of Crusader? Of course not, you're a Drow. Song has it that in a lake elsewhere in the Underdark, Lalibela, demigoddess of the Nixies, awaits with a holy sword, awaiting a worthy master."

"Is there a point to this?"

"Just one. Weapons in lakes seem to be a thing in songs. I wonder how many exist at the bottom of Lake Donigarten? I mean, you have the corpses of Matron Mothers of old sunk down there, with all sorts of treasures…well, let's add to their number!"

With a supreme effort of will, he kicked out, barely overcoming the poison. Dinin leapt out of the way, only to realise belatedly that he wasn't the target. The items near his victim's feet were. A mask and a bow-like harp. They sailed into the lake, and soon sank.

"…What have you done?!" Dinin demanded.

"Why ask me what you already know? I denied you your prizes. And if you need to know why…well, I thought a Drow of all people would be familiar with spite." With that, he spat in his soon-to-be-killer's face, as a final indignity. "Lolth ssinssrickla! Your bitch of a goddess laughs at you, usstan'sargh wael! She laughs at you all! And I laugh with her for once!"

A blade stabbed through his throat, and he was choking on his blood, cutting off his laughter. His eyes closed for the final time. As the void claimed his other senses, a single name remained on his lips, mouthed weakly.

Vierna…

"I think he's coming around."

What those words, barely heard on the edge of consciousness, heralded was pain. Oh, there had been pain in the nightmare, but localised, and more sharper than the dull but all-pervading throb he currently felt. Like a dragon chewed him up and spat him out. Or crapped him out.

There was considerable disorientation within him, and for many, many reasons. He couldn't quite remember who he was, but that was less due to a lack of memories and more of a surfeit of them, as if dream and reality had merged together, and he wasn't sure which was which. So he was somewhat confused when someone asked, "Mr Potter, can you hear me?"

He decided to go with the safe answer. He said, "Yeah, I can hear you," before he devolved into a series of coughs. Ugh, why was his throat so sore and raspy? Hell, why did it hurt to breathe?

"Here. Drink this carefully." A glass was gently pressed to his lips, and he sipped it. Water. "The healing potions we used dehydrate you somewhat," explained the unfamiliar voice. "Do you remember what happened to you beforehand?"

Harry Potter (or at least that's what he answered to now) shook his head, and opened his eyes gingerly, wincing a little at the light. The man sitting next to him was blonde, and somewhat stocky, and Harry had his glasses handed to him. He seemed to be in a hospital room…but not any Muggle one the Dursleys had grudgingly taken him to, or the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts. "Who are you? Where am I?"

"…I am Healer Tonks, Ted Tonks," the man said. "In Muggle terms, I'm a doctor. Actually, I'm a Muggleborn myself. And you're currently at St Mungo's, a wizarding hospital in London."

"Hospital?" Harry blinked, before frowning. He came to think about how he might have ended up here, but he could fathom a few guesses.

It had been the end of his worst year at Hogwarts yet. There was the escape of Sirius Black from Azkaban, the man who betrayed his parents, something the adults kept from Harry. Only, that wasn't the truth, which was that Sirius had been framed by the real traitor, Peter Pettigrew. And then, there were the Dementors stationed around the school, repeatedly mind-raping him. That's where the nightmares originally came from, along with weird dreams. Along with hearing his mother screaming for Voldemort to spare Harry, he kept seeing parts of these nightmares.

And that was without going into the more mundane dramas at Hogwarts. Snape showing his hate-boner more than before, Draco deliberately getting Hagrid and Buckbeak into trouble, Ron and Hermione clashing over their pets, the Firebolt saga, Trelawney being a drunken drama queen…ugh, what a year. Harry enjoyed adventure, enjoyed excitement…but now, he was finding it beginning to pall.

He remembered being on the Hogwarts Express…and he remembered being picked up by Vernon Dursley at King's Cross. When Vernon gave him grief, Harry brought up Sirius. That was pretty much the last clear memory he had…as Harry.

He did relay this last known memory to Tonks, who frowned. He seemed to consider something carefully, before nodding. "I…don't know how to say this gently, I'll be honest. But…you should know, you were in a bad way. The investigation is still ongoing, but when you were brought back to your aunt and uncle's home, there was apparently an altercation. Your uncle denies it, but I personally think he at least assaulted you severely. Your owl broke free during the struggle, I believe, given his injuries, that your uncle intended to kill her. But she flew off, and managed to get help, showing up to your friend, Miss Granger. She called 999, and thankfully, had learned of an extension we have for wizards and witches. Your uncle was taken into custody, and you were brought here."

Of course it was Vernon, that fat bastard. Harry winced from a fresh stab of pain. "How bad was it?"

"Bad. It was touch and go for a while. If you were in a Muggle hospital, you'd be in there for weeks if not months by this point. Plenty of broken bones. Your uncle claimed that you fell down the stairs, and then attacked him when he tried to help, which is bollocks if you ask me. I know how your injuries would be inflicted, I've seen them often enough. You've been unconscious for a few days too. We've been healing you as best as we can, and doing so discreetly. Honestly, if that uncle of yours did this to you, and you seem so unsurprised by it, I have to wonder why Dumbledore sent you there. Anyway, we've managed to keep this out of the papers for now."

Harry nodded, only to glance over at an adjacent bed in the room. It was occupied, by a dark-skinned woman, though he couldn't tell much more. "What about her?"

"Weird one, that one. Xenophilus Lovegood and his daughter brought her in. This ward is for those who need some degree of discretion. Not quite privacy, or you'd have your own room, though Rita Skeeter and her fellow muckrakers have a nasty habit of knowing how to infiltrate them. Probably by bribing the staff," Tonks said.

"Okay…so, am I safe here?" Harry asked.

"For a given value of safe," Tonks said. "Now, I'm going to administer a few tests, okay? Diagnostic Charms are brilliant, but it helps to be sure."

He then had Harry do some basic tests, presumably to test for concussion or other brain damage. Satisfied, Tonks nodded. "Good. Aside from minor memory loss, you're doing well. Better than Lockhart, anyway."

"Lockhart?"

"Yes, Gilderoy Lockhart. He's in another wing. I tended to him. Professor Dumbledore told me you and the youngest Weasley boy were involved, something about a broken wand and a backfiring Memory Charm."

Harry chuckled at the memory. "Ah, yes. He deserved it, the damned plagiarising fraud."

"So I've heard. In any case, I don't care what Dumbledore has said, I am keeping you here for observation for at least a couple of days. Even with healing potions, there's always something that may not show up. You have good friends, Mr Potter. Miss Granger showed up a couple of times, and so did the Weasleys. They might visit later. That being said, Xenophilus' little girl left this for you. She said they were your things. I've checked the items for any curses, and they came up blank. My wife knew some pretty obscure curses and how to detect them, so I'm pretty sure they're safe."

Tonks handed him a bag, and Harry frowned. There was a weird sense of déjà vu upon holding it, and he opened it gingerly. The first item he fished out looked like a theatre mask, almost like a parody of the Greek masks used for the theatre, with a huge smile. He set that to one side, only to pull something else out of the bag, something that should have been too large for it.

It looked like an elaborate longbow made of some sort of shining metal, and yet, it had multiple strings, glistening in the light. Almost by instinct, he held it, before plucking the strings in a precise sequence. The twanging noise sounded almost like it came from India or the Middle East, but the notes were very familiar. Despite the fact that, until now, he'd never really held a musical instrument in his life, barring that crude flute Hagrid made him.

Tonks whistled. "The opening to Paint It Black," he said. "Nice. I remember the first time I introduced 'Dromeda to the Rolling Stones. That sounded a lot like a sitar, but it looks like some weird harp."

Harry barely paid attention to what he said. He had seen this thing before. In the dreams and nightmares that haunted him. And he played that music effortlessly, despite his lack of musical ability before.

And he knew this thing's name. Bow, harp, and magical instrument, one that could emit notes of music…or blades of air. An old friend he never knew about, returning to his hands. "Failnaught," he murmured to himself(1).

And with that realisation came another. Those were not dreams or nightmares. They were memories, disinterred by the Dementors.

Before he could consider this any further, there was a moan from the nearby bed. A hiss of pain, and then, in a language that wasn't English, but was certainly one he somehow knew, the woman in the bed snarled, "…Light…too much light…"

She sat up in the bed, wincing, an amulet of some sort around her neck, while she was dressed in a hospital gown. Harry couldn't help but stop and stare. He knew this woman, even if he was certain he had never met her before.

Her skin was virtually pitch black, her hair white and done up in twin pigtails. Her features were cruelly beautiful, and her short but slender body was the epitome of lithe grace, like a dangerous predator. Oddly enough, her squinting eyes were ruby-coloured, while her ears were pointed. An elf of some kind, like out of Tolkien?

No…not just any elf. A Dark Elf. A Drow.

And not just any Drow. He knew her.

She looked around, still squinting, before she glared at them. "Humans," she snarled, in what seemed to be accented English. "What am I doing here? I will…"

Harry, on instinct, took up Failnaught in his hands, and began playing a tune. It was a surprisingly gentle and even beautiful one, considering its origins. But even in the deepest and darkest corners of the world, steeped in evil, there could be beauty.

The song struck her as if it had a very physical essence to it. But it wasn't magical, at least in any true sense of the word. It was magical in how it played with the emotions, but that was expected of the best of music. She became less belligerent. "…How do you know that song?" she finally asked.

"…I don't know," Harry said. It was partly a lie. It was more of him doubting what he truly was that had him say such a lie.

But if those memories were correct, then he had the memories of someone else. Someone from long ago. An itinerant bard, raconteur…and assassin.

And this woman, this Drow, was someone this bard knew, and loved. Perhaps the sole glimmer of light within the Do'urden family, not counting her sire, Zaknafein Do'urden. A woman who could become like that again.

Vierna Do'urden.

CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:

So, another reincarnation fic, with Harry the reincarnation of an OC from Forgotten Realms, and in the same hospital room as Vierna Do'urden. But how did she end up in the Potterverse? Who is Harry's prior incarnation, and what is his past? And how much BS can I get away with regarding the Forgotten Realms franchise?

1. This is, of course, based on Tristain's weapon in the Nasuverse.