Section 2

Harry slowly regained consciousness. He felt someone carding their hand through his hair. It felt nice. He must be in the Hospital Wing again. Who were they playing in Quidditch this time?

"Time to wake up, Harry, my beautiful boy," whispered someone.

The words took a minute to register but Harry suddenly sat up and said, "Mum?"

"Yes honey, it's me. I thought you were going to sleep for hours," Lily said.

"But if you're here, then I must be dead. So it worked, huh?" Harry mused.

"Yes, and no. Yes, you succeeded in killing someone, but it wasn't you."

"I did what?" Harry asked.

"There's a lot I have to tell you, Harry, and we don't have much time. You have some decisions to make, but you need all of the information to make them with. First, you are not dead. At the moment, you're in a sort of limbo. That basilisk fang you tried to kill yourself with killed something else instead.

"The night your father and I were killed, Voldemort was trying to kill you. We were just in his way."

Harry was surprised, "Why did he want to kill me?"

Lily gently explained, "There was a prophesy made that a child born at the end of July would have the power to defeat the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord would mark the child as his equal and the child would have a power the Dark Lord didn't know. Either would have to die at the other's hand or neither could live."

"But Mum, that doesn't make sense!" exclaimed Harry.

"No, it doesn't. It was a fake. Albus Dumbledore planted it to make Voldemort think there was someone more powerful than him. There was a Death Eater outside the door listening and he took the first part of the prophecy back to Voldemort. Based on that, Voldemort decided it must be either you or Neville Longbottom as you were born within hours of each other. For some reason, he came after you.

"No one was there to see what happened, but what your father and I have managed to piece together from reports of those who were watching from above is that Voldemort shot a spell at you that rebounded. Now Albus wants people to think it was the killing curse, but it wasn't. It was a spell to transfer your power to Voldemort. He was using you as a guinea pig. Once he proved it worked on you, he was then going to Neville's and do the same. He thought it would make him the most powerful wizard ever."

"What? How can someone do that, Mum?" Harry asked.

"The short answer is, they can't," she replied. "Voldemort found a spell reportedly from the ancient Sumerians that would transfer the power from one wizard to another. The problem occurred when Voldemort decided the arithmancy of the spell was wrong and that if he adjusted it further, it would be more effective. If he had been more careful, he would have learned that the spell doesn't transfer the power from the person it hits, it essentially renders them a Squib. It was used as a punishment for those who had committed atrocities against magic. The magic is returned to Mother Magic to gift to another more worthy soul."

"But how did that kill him?"

"It seems Voldemort had been delving into even darker magic. He'd been splitting his soul making horcruxes thinking it would make him immortal. It doesn't. While you can 'revive' a soul housed in a horcrux, it will still only live a natural length of time from the age the person was when they made it. When the spell hit you, the magic released, but then was quickly reabsorbed by you, to include Voldemort's magic as well."

"I've got his magic inside me as well? And you mean we could have more Voldemorts running around if all of his horcruxes were found and brought back to life, mum?"

"Yes, Harry. Theoretically. The ritual required to reanimate a soul requires certain things, and no, I'm not going to tell you what they are, and one of them is a finite resource. If that resource is found and removed, then the ritual would fail as there is no suitable substitute for it."

"So how does this figure into what he did to us?" Harry asked.

Voldemort came to our house to do more than just kill you. He'd also planned to make another horcrux from either mine or your father's death. When he finally cast the curse at you, not only did it rip his magic out, it ripped out part of his soul. That soul part attached itself to the only living thing in the room – you."

"Ewwwwww! I have a piece of Voldemort in me?" Harry exclaimed.

"Well, you did until tonight when you did that absolutely horrifically stupid thing and stabbed yourself with a basilisk fang!" shouted Lily.

"I'm sorry, Mum," muttered Harry.

"I know, my son. I understand you have been pushed further than you ever should have been, but suicide is never the answer."

"What was I supposed to do, Mum? Sirius was on the run again. Dumbledore would send me back to the Dursleys and then Vernon would kill me like he's promised. Who was going to help me? Whenever I tried to tell someone what was going on, they'd just pat me on the head and send me back," said Harry, his voice steadily rising, "Who was going to help me?"

Lily reached out and took her son's hand, "Harry, this has gone so terribly wrong. You were never supposed to go to Petunia. If Sirius or Alice Longbottom couldn't take you, you were supposed to go to Andromeda and Ted Tonks. Andromeda is Sirius' cousin. Albus too many names Dumbledore stuck his nose in where it didn't belong and everything fell apart. His supposed blood wards are total fiction. Petunia is my sister, but she was adopted. Our parents didn't think they could have children, so they adopted Petunia. Then I came along two years later. I would have never known it if I hadn't had a heritage test done at Gringotts before I married James."

"Well, that explains why you two look so different. I guess one of her birth parents was a horse of some sort," Harry said with a chuckle.

Lily laughed, "I've often wondered that myself. But we're getting off track."

"So, who should I have gone to? Really?" asked Harry.

"Minerva McGonagall should have taken over once you came to Hogwarts. She had the authority to make you a ward of the castle as the Deputy Headmistress and your Head of House. Even Severus could have petitioned to have you made a ward. All it takes is one Head of House and the Deputy or Head to agree that your circumstances were such that you needed to be removed from your current guardians."

"Snape? He'd never say anything. If anything, he'd probably be cheering Vernon on while eating popcorn!" Harry exclaimed angrily.

"Severus wasn't like this before. He and James locked heads from the first time they met on the Hogwarts Express and it got worse over the years. Your father is taking care of that while we talk. All of this is pointing to them being spelled to ignore your situation and I don't think we have to look far to guess who did it," Lily explained.

Harry asked, "But why? Why did he want me to suffer?"

"Remember that prophecy I told you about? Well, Albus thinks it's still in play and wants to keep you around as his little weapon to send up to defeat Voldemort for good. He didn't know that there are ways to remove that soul shard without killing you. He never tried to find out. All he would have needed to do was talk to the goblins and they would have had it out with very little effort. Then they could use it to find the other soul pieces and destroy them."

"When did Dumbledore develop this 'God' complex?" inquired Harry.

"A very long time ago. When he defeated the Dark Lord Grindelwald, he was hailed as the Hero of the Wizarding World. Countries bestowed him with awards and honorifics. He began to believe that he was the next Merlin and only he knew what the 'big picture' was. His excuse for whatever idiotic scheme he thinks up is that it's for the 'Greater Good.' He forgot to let people think for themselves."

"So, what do we do now, Mum?"

"Your dad's out there right now reading everybody the riot act. Albus should have ensured Sirius had a trial. You should have been with him or the Tonks or even Minerva. You need to go to Gringotts and speak to your account manager Goldcrusher. He will do a heritage test to confirm you are the Potter heir. There will be a few surprises, but I think you'll enjoy them."

"I have to go back, don't I?

"Yes, Harry, you do. It's not your time. You have many years ahead of you to become the wizard you are destined to be. To meet that special someone and ensure the Potter line continues for generations to come. You have to go back, but you won't be alone this time. Your letters have had the desired effects and you will have more people, adult people, fighting for you now."

"I don't want to leave you, Mum," Harry said, reaching for his mother for a hug.

"I'll never leave you, Harry. I will always be a part of you. You just won't be able to see me. Just remember that whenever you think the whole world is against you, remember that your Mum loves you, your dada loves you, and you are a great wizard. Now it's time for you to go back. Your Dad has all of the right people moving in the right direction now."

"But what if I want to stay with you?" asked Harry in a small voice.

"As much as I would love to spend more time with you, it's not your time to be here. You have a life ahead of you that will be much better than you ever dreamed of. I'll leave you with one bit of advice, though. Don't marry anyone with red hair. You'll never be happy."

With those words, Lily kissed her son on the forehead right where the lightning bolt scar had been then slowly faded out of sight.

END STORY ARC 2