The Founders Awaken

Chapter One: The Founders Awaken

Harry was sitting in an otherwise empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express, Ron and Hermione were helping Ginny find her friends, trying not to think about the weird feelings that had been filling him all summer.

Since he left on the Hogwarts Express in June he'd had this nervous, fluttery feeling in his stomach. Almost as if something big was about to happen, and yet nothing did. At least, not until the Death Eaters invaded the world cup, but nothing changed after the event. He was still nervous, anxious, had butterflies fluttering about his stomach like there was no tomorrow. He felt a longing for someone, or maybe a group of people. But he wasn't improved by being around friends. He felt like there was this one person he was meant to be with, as more than friends maybe, but they weren't there.

This was strange because the only person he'd had those kinds of feelings for was Neville, his very best, and yet secret, friend.

His magic also felt like it was preparing for something. Like an explosion or something.

But that made no sense to him. Surely an explosion wasn't going to happen.

Although given everything that he had already been through, well, he wouldn't put it past anyone to blow up the train, or the school. Or, at least, to attempt it.

Neville knocked on the door and Harry waved him in with a smile and a fluttering stomach. They hugged for a few seconds more than they usually would as Neville sat next to him, and when they pulled away Harry could see concern and care in Neville's eyes, along with something else which Harry couldn't quite place. Though he got a distinct feeling that Neville was experiencing the same weirdness as Harry.

"You okay, Harry?" Neville asked.

Harry nodded, "I am now, somewhat. You?"

Neville nodded, a grin forming on his features.

Another knock sounded on the door and the two looked to find a blond girl sliding the door open, "Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked, her voice was softer than any Harry had ever heard before and for some reason he felt a connection to her so he nodded.

She beamed as she sat down opposite them, "I'm Luna, by the way. Luna Lovegood,"

"It is nice to meet you, Luna. I'm Neville and this is my best friend, Harry," Neville said kindly.

"It is very nice to meet you," she said dreamily, "The wrackspurts will clear soon then we can all become best friends,"

Harry was confused but he didn't say anything, she was nice and he didn't want to hurt her feelings. He knew what it was like to be bullied for who you were, so he wasn't going to make her think he didn't like her or anything.

That was when Draco Malfoy stormed into the compartment, but before anyone could say anything a burst of magic came from all four of them, the strongest most alive magic Harry had ever felt.

It felt like home.

But with those magics came memories that he shouldn't have but was suddenly filled with. Memories of another life. A previous life.

One where he was Salazar Slytherin.

He saw it all.

His horrid childhood where he was hurt by his family for everything.

Escaping when he was captured by muggles who wanted to kill him.

Meeting Rowena and instantly becoming friends despite her quirks.

Them travelling the world and learning whatever they could from anyone they could about magic, potions, and everything else.

Meeting Godric and Helga and becoming friends with them.

Saving adopting a magical boy who was about to be killed by muggles.

Falling in love with Godric.

Rowena and Helga falling in love.

His and Godric's bonding day.

Rowena and Helga's bonding day.

Building Hogwarts and inviting people to learn and teach.

The births of his and Godric's children.

The births of Helga and Rowena's children.

Raising their children.

Teaching.

Their children getting married.

Their grandchildren starting to be born.

Finding out his adopted son wanted to start a war with the muggles and had gathered followers to help him.

The war starting.

Saving magical children.

Him going to find his son, to try and stop him.

And then never getting the chance to return home.

The pounding of the memories took less time for him than it did for the others. But Salazar… Harry wasn't surprised considering he was the first of them to die.

He looked at his friends, his family and knew instantly who was who. Their magic was still whirling through the air, strong and peaceful.

He noticed the others start to come around and as they did so the magic slowly settled back into them, leaving them stunned for a few moments as they took time to adjust to their new power levels and skills.

Helga… Draco closed and warded the door so that no one would see them or hear them as they spoke before collapsing next to Rowena… Luna on the seats opposite. He looked at Luna with love and hope in his eyes, but also a lot of confusion.

"We did it," Draco breathed out, sparking confusion in Harry.

Harry looked at Godric… Neville, and was happy to see the love and awe in his eyes that Godric always blessed him with before… before he went away.

Harry felt all the love he had been feeling before the memories, as well as all the love from his past life, flare up in him as he kept looking at the man next to him.

"Sal," Neville whispered in awe, almost as if he didn't quite believe what was happening and yet didn't want it to end.

"Ric," Harry whispered, just as awed as everyone else as he looked at his love.

"Sal, what… what happened?" the pain in Neville's eyes and voice made Harry's breath hitch, feeling pain himself as he looked at his love and their friends, who also looked at him with sad eyes.

"I… I found him, but he seemed to be expecting me. Some of his followers captured me, not without a fight of course, but someone dropped from the trees behind me and… They brought me before him and we duelled. I tried to speak to him, to reason with him… I was winning the duel but then… then he apparated behind me and threw a poisoned dagger at me as I spun round… I'm so sorry,"

Neville pulled Harry into his arms and held him tight. Harry sank into the embrace, welcoming it gratefully as tears filled his eyes. He smiled though when Draco and Luna joined the hug, and yet he couldn't stop the tear from spilling down his cheek.

He felt like he was home again.

Well, almost.

When they had all calmed down and settled back into their seats, both new, yet old couples holding hands, they allowed themselves the opportunity to sort out their memories, all their memories. They were all masters of Occlumency back in the day and they settled back into it with relative ease now. Arranging their memories so that their ones from their past lives were hidden.

It was also what gave them the opportunity to see what had become of the wizarding world, and their school. They were far from happy with what they realised. The farthest from happy you could ever possibly be, in fact. Their magics were all on the edge, anger spitting from their bodies in waves as they realised more and more what had become of their home.

"We need to sort this mess out," Neville growled.

"Indeed. We need a plan," Harry agreed, "Are we going to be telling everyone who we are now, showing our abilities and such, or are we going to wait?"

"I think we should wait," Luna said, "It will give us time to truly look at everything, maybe get some thoughts on the school from other students, of all ages. We can examine the classes we go to, I believe, between all of us, we can look in on each one that is offered. But we need to look at everything through our new eyes, and not the ones we had before our reincarnation,"

"We also need to find out what goes on in the Hufflepuff common room, none of us have eyes there, we need to know if Professor Sprout is a good Head of House, and how the students are, etcetera," Draco said, worrying over his students the same way he did in his past life as Helga.

Harry could still see confusion in his eyes, and also a hint of sadness and fear.

"Are you okay, Helga?" Harry asked, worried for his friend.

Draco looked at him, a small smile tugging at his lips, "I will be. I just need time, to think,"

Harry still worried about him, but nodded nevertheless. They would talk when they managed a few moments on their own as they used to. Him and Helga had become best friends in their past lives, especially as they both experienced pregnancy and childbirth. They would talk alone whenever they could about anything and everything.

"Do you reckon our home is still in the castle?" Neville asked

"It should be, but we can check when we have the chance. It will either be there or the Room of Requirement where we will need to plan what we are going to do anyway since they are the two places no one would find us," Luna said.

"Or my Chamber," Harry added, and then he gasped as he remembered his basilisk, the one he killed before he remembered who he was.

"Sal?" Neville said, concerned.

"I killed her," Harry whispered, pain filling his voice as it hitched.

"Who?"

"Sasha," Harry's heart hurt at the thought of his magnificent snake being alone for hundreds of years, only to perish because some fool of a boy who claimed to be his heir controlled her.

Harry glared, "We will also need to deal with my so-called Heir. I need to know which of our children he is descended from, or if he is from… And we either need to fix his mental state or get rid of him," as much as it pained him to say it; he didn't want to kill anyone after all; it was either fix him or kill him. And he doubted that he would be able to fix him. He was just too far gone in his insanity.

"You won't be doing it alone this time, though. I… we can't bear to lose you again," Neville said, squeezing Harry's hand in a mix of comfort, love, and pain.

"I wouldn't dream of doing it alone. Not this time," Harry whispered reassuringly.

"Good," Neville said, his breath hitching in remembrance and thanks.

Harry groaned after a few minutes of silent thought, "This is a mess. All of it is a mess. Our school. The wizarding country. Why did we only remember our past lives now? And what are you all hiding from me? I remember Helg-Draco's words when we remembered. What did you do? And how are we going to be able to remember to call each other by our new names?"

They all looked guiltily at each other, and him, clearly contemplating whether or not to tell him.

"I'm not going to hate you for it. You are my family, and I love you all, even if we have different lives, experiences and bodies now. I just want to know,"

Draco cleared his throat, "Well, erm… When we found out you were killed… We were beyond devastated. We couldn't… Well, we got revenge first of all, the war ended pretty quickly after that… But afterwards…"

"Afterwards we researched everything we could find to try and find a way to all be together again," Luna said, a sad tilt to her voice, "And eventually we did. We found an ancient ritual which would allow us to all be reincarnated when the world would need us the most, and we could include you so long as we used a phial of your blood and something that still contained your magic,"

"However, the ritual would kill us," Neville said, Harry looked at him in shock and pain, "So we set things in order, infused all of our magic into Hogwarts, including some of yours, so she became sentient and could help the students for us, we made the wards stronger, we set our vaults up in Gringotts and made sure half of everything went to our children and the other half would go to our reincarnations, we said goodbye to the children and grandchildren… and we did it,"

"But why?" Harry asked quietly. He was confused, why would they die for him?

"We're a soul family, Sal-Harry," Draco said, tears shining in his pale blue, almost grey eyes.

"When you died, we felt it. We just weren't completely sure what it was until we got confirmation. Every moment hurt without you, both physically and mentally. We couldn't stand to be apart from you, and it was worse for Godric. We needed to be with you again, in any way we could. So we found a ritual that would help us achieve that, and we did it," Luna said, tears shining on her pale cheeks.

Harry nodded, looking down at his lap.

"What made you decide on a ritual that would bring us back when the world needed us the most?" Harry asked.

"I had a vision," Luna said, "A major one which showed me what the world would become, and had already become, from the night your parents died onwards. I knew that something would have to be done to save the country. I knew that we would have the power and ability to do something about it. And… well, it was that or we would be reincarnated straight away but wouldn't have our memories, or ever be able to retrieve the memories of our past lives. The ritual we did allowed us to be able to retrieve our memories once we were in a room alone together, and we would be tugged together by our magic when we were ready for the memories and magic to resurface,"

Harry nodded again, unsure of what else to say. He was confused, sad, angry and everything else.

He thought back on his past life and his current life so far and realised that his childhoods weren't all that different in both his lives.

"Do you… Are all of your childhoods this time similar to your childhoods last time? Or is it just me?" Harry asked, a quiver of something in his voice.

They all had looks of deep thought on their faces as they recollected both their childhoods. Eventually they all nodded in agreement.

"Does this… Does this mean the rest of our lives will be the same?" Neville asked quietly, squeezing Harry's hand as though it was a lifeline.

"Not necessarily," Luna said in her dream-like voice, "I mean, we have free will. We can make our lives what we want them to be. Now that we have our memories of our past lives we know what we need to do, and we know what we can do. We also can use them to learn from our past mistakes, and live the lives we want to live, whatever they may be. And we will do everything together. I do mean everything," she gave a pointed look to Harry, clearly referring to a certain Dark Lord.

"I promise that I won't go off on my own again. When there is a bad guy to fight we will fight together," Harry said, rolling his eyes slightly.

"Right, I think we need to talk about lighter subjects. In any case, we can't do anything until we get home, so can we please just not talk about anything bad," Draco said nervously, a distant look of pain in his eyes.

"Well erm… what are we supposed to talk about that is good? I mean everything in our past lives is tainted by… and everything now is different," Neville said.

"We can talk about what we like in our new lives. Good times we have had, if any. What we want to do in the future. I don't know. Just anything, please," Draco said.

"Okay," Luna said, squeezing Draco's hand in comfort. Then she started a conversation about magical creatures she liked and it eased the way to other conversations about anything and everything that was mostly light.

They got to know each other again, the similarities and the differences to their old selves. They joked about things that had happened and people they knew, both new and old. They became a family again.

Harry was in awe of all three of them. Amazed that they had done something like this for him, and that they had this opportunity to repair their home and the world. He wasn't as blind as he was thought to be by others, he saw things they thought he didn't. He knew who the ones who pretended to be his friends really were. He knew who Dumbledore was. He knew what they were trying to do to him.

But now he had the power, and the strength and support, to overcome everything that was thrown at him, properly. He could be himself, and he could not be a pig for slaughter.

As they were on the carriages, which he now knew to be pulled by thestrals, they were talking about the school, but not about what it used to be, about what it was now.

"It's going to be weird, isn't it? Being students again," Neville whispered, "In our own school also,"

"Yes, but there have been a lot of advancements over the last thousand years, even though many things are the same, or have gone backwards," Harry said, squeezing his mate's hand.

"Harry is right, there is a lot to learn, a lot to create, and a lot to do," Luna said, nodding her head determinedly.

"And a lot to figure out," Draco muttered from his spot next to Harry and Harry squeezed his hand in comfort.

"Are we going to show our relationships with each other to the rest of the school?" Harry asked, he needed to know. He didn't think he could handle not being able to hold Neville's hand, or be friends with Luna and Draco.

They were the last ones to get off the train and no one had seen them, but they would be soon.

"Of course, we need to stick together. I can't let any of you go again," Draco said.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as the others nodded, "Thank Merlin for that,"

They all laughed, "It's just a little weird that we swear on our student, who people seem to forget was in your House, my love," Neville said.

"I know. He was such an amazing boy, though. And we will just have to remind them, won't we?"

"And if people question us, we will just tell them to mind their own," Luna said, her voice sharp and fire in her eyes.

They all nodded, fire in their eyes also.

They sucked in their breaths as warmth and love surrounded them, although decidedly weaker than it was when they left.

They were home.

Hiya my lovelies, how are you all today?

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it is one of the many stories that I have been thinking about for a while and I wanted to start getting it out.

I have a Facebook group called Maraudering_Paige which all of you are welcome to join if you would like to. It is where we can talk about Harry Potter, fanfics, life, share memes and more. It is also where I will be sharing updates with you on what I am working on, both fanfics and original works, etc. I am willing to accept each of you who want to join into the group.

I hope you are all having an amazing day.

Kind regards,

Paige xx