A warning before the chapter begins, this chapter will talk about many different religions, including Christianity, if you take offense to having your religion being considered a fictional story then I suggest either skimming or skipping this chapter, future chapters will not feature religion as heavily as this chapter if at all.

Please also note that any reference to the various religions included are what I remember reading or quickly researched for this chapter, in the context of this story any mistakes I made are correct in the story.

Dumbledore and Harry left for the Rookery via side along apparition, apparition with a wizard was far different to elf apparition, rather than feel the world spin under you wizard apparition felt like being pulled through a very tight tube. After just one trip Harry decided that this was that it was the worst way to travel, he had thought the knight bus was horrible but the sudden jumps were nowhere near as bad, at least you could sit down on the Knight Bus.

It didn't help Harry's opinion of apparition that the moment they appeared Harry had promptly fallen over and been heavily sick. Upon seeing his student fall over and threw up Dumbledore had chuckled at his distress.

"Ah yes, perhaps I should have said, often people do tend to vomit their first time. I'm sure you'll grow used to the sensation by the end of the day." Dumbledore was kind enough to vanish the vomit from Harry's clothes, Harry decided he would develop a form of teleportation that did not involve being squeezed through tight tubes.

Taking a moment to look around Harry spotted a large building atop their hill, it didn't look like somewhere he would want to live, but if Dumbledore's friend was as eccentric as himself then the castle shaped building might be seen as a perfectly reasonable home.

Harry spotted several black birds flying around the building, he thought they might be crows but considering the name of the home they were most likely Rooks, Harry watched one of the birds as it flew around the building before settling on the ground and pecking at what looked like a floating purple pumpkin.

Looking more carefully Harry spotted several more strange looking plants dotted around the home, to get to the front door Harry and Dumbledore needed to climb up several steep steps that looked to have been cut by hand, the door itself was clearly made up of multiple different types of wood. Dumbledore reached up and tapped his wand on an elaborate bird shaped knocker, the beak of the knocker opened and began to tweet in what could have been song.

The door was opened by a strange individual, Harry would have called him eccentric if he wasn't standing next to Dumbledore, he had bright yellow robes with silver moons that appeared to move around and through the fabric. Around his neck, attached to a silver chain, swung the symbol for the Deathly Hallows. His eyes swept from Dumbledore to Harry and then to his forehead, he turned to Dumbledore and asked "What can I do for you today, Albus?"

"I have a certain letter for your daughter that I wanted to deliver in person… I also came to talk about other things." As he said this Dumbledore reached into his robes and withdrew Wulfric's symbol. Dumbledore had told Harry before they had left that his symbol was a unique variant of the Hallows symbol, it would identify him as a seeker without anyone mistaking his symbol with that of Grindelwald.

"Of course, Come in." The man said cheerfully, ushering them inside the home, Harry was certain that the room he was in was bigger than the building outside.

"Now for introductions, Harry this is my good friend Xenophilius Lovegood, Xeno this is my student Harry Potter" Dumbledore said grandly as he sat down

"A pleasure to meet you Mr. Potter, please make yourself at home while I get my Luna."

He quickly returned with his daughter behind him, when he saw her Harry noticed she had almost the exact same colour hair as her father and had a rather far away look in her eyes.

"Ah, you must be Luna." Dumbledore said warmly once she had sat down across from him "Now I have an important letter to give to you, if you have any questions I am sure Harry will be glad to help you, he will be second year at Hogwarts when we return at the end of the Summer." He reached into his robes and handed over a thick envelope that Harry recognised well, the girl opened her letter and quickly read it over.

Judging by how quickly her eyes were scanning the page she was either a very fast reader or was just skim reading the letter, once she had finished reading both pieces of parchment she handed to her father and then look at Harry curiously, Harry squirmed awkwardly, he looked her in the eyes and realised she was not looking at his scar but at his eyes, he coughed and asked "Do you have any questions?"

"Where is the Crumple-Horned Snorkack located?" She asked, still staring at him unblinkingly. Harry turned to Dumbledore and was annoyed to notice that the man was grinning broadly at him

"Erm, I don't know, I haven't heard of them before…" Harry said slowly

"That's a shame… what about the Blibbering Humdingers?"

"I… don't know? You will have to ask Hagrid"

"Who's that?"

"He's the groundskeeper at Hogwarts, he takes care of all the animals that live around Hogwarts." Harry replied, glad to have a question he knew the answer too.

Luna nodded happily, seemingly asked all the questions she had.

Dumbledore had also noticed that she had finished her questions and said, "Well then, if your thirst for knowledge has been satisfied Ms. Lovegood, then perhaps we should get on with the business we had with you Xeno."

Mr. Lovegood nodded and waved his hand, indicating for Dumbledore to continue speaking

"As you might have guessed, we… that is to say Harry and myself, seek the Hallows, we had wondered if you had discovered anything about them Xeno?"

"I have tracked the Stone of Resurrection through what I believe is its lifetime, we start with the shamans who were known to call upon the spirits of their ancestors. Whether this was achieved through raw magic, rituals or objects such as the Stone of Resurrection I do not know, although I suspect the later. The practice was later adopted by Greek, Egyptian and Chaldean wizards, the stories vary but the general theme is that someone, specifically someone extremely talented, loses someone they care for and try to bring them back."

As Xenophilius talked he waved his wand and conjured illusions that helped illustrate his story.

"One example where this was not the case is Odysseus who, as directed by Circe herself, traveled into the realm of Hades in order to raise the spirits of the dead to gain insight about his impending voyage, the story clearly describes the rituals he has to complete in order to summon a spirit. However the story I find most interesting is that of Asclepius, now he is known as the god of medicine, but before he became a god he was known to bring back the dead. Not bring back the spirits, or raise the dead to do his bidding, he brought them back completely, how he achieved this is unknown.

"Despite the lack of written documentation I can draw some ideas, he was known to heal people by tapping their foreheads with his staff, obviously his staff was magical and most likely his magic's foci, it would therefore make sense if he revived people the same way. If we believe that the Peverell brothers merely found the Deathly Hallows and did not create or receive them then perhaps the staff was in fact the Wand of Elder while the Stone of Resurrection was hidden on his person? Perhaps the Stone only allows the wielder to view spirits and the power of the Wand is what is needed to truly bring back the dead?

"Regardless of how he did it the story goes that Hades did not approve of Asclepius stealing his subjects and so killed him, some stories say that Hades asked Zeus to kill him instead and others say Zeus killed Asclepius of his own volition as he was afraid he would teach others his skills. There is only one other story I could find that describes bringing back the dead in such a complete way, that is the story of Jesus of Nazareth. He was said to have brought his friend, Lazarus back from the dead, how this is achieved is not truly said although one story I came across said 'he cried out to God' which would indicate it was divine power and not his own that revived his friend."

Harry had a feeling Xenophilius was quoting the bible however Vernon and Petunia had never been particularly religious so he was unsure of how accurate Xeno was being.

"This Jesus was said to have performed many 'miracles' which could indicate possession of the Wand of Elder or just a strong connection to divine magic, stories of necromancy crop up here and there but few describe true resurrection, at the same time few speak of the summoning of spirits such as described in the Tale of three brothers… what we do know is that Cadmus Peverell possessed the Stone of Resurrection, we know he tried to bring back his dead love, we also know he was able to summon her spirit but unable to bring her back fully.

"By looking at the stories of Asclepius and Jesus perhaps having the physical body present is necessary to truly bring back the dead, or maybe extraordinary power is needed… Maybe the reviving needs to happen on an auspicious moment? We may never know. But after Cadmus the Stone is almost lost to history, we know Antioch's killer stole the Wand, we also know that Ignotus passed the Cloak onto his son but the tale never tells us what happened to the Stone. I believe Cadmus passed the Stone unto his son, or perhaps a close friend once he had decided to join his love in death, maybe the Stone passed from owner to owner, leaving a trail of death behind it just like its twin, the Wand of Elder.

"Me and Albus had found out that the family Gauntus had appeared in Britain at around the same time Cadmus died and as his son is only mentioned briefly in Ignotus' biography, that suggests that either the son died, unable to care for himself after his father's death perhaps, or shamed by his father's suicide he changed his name. Regardless we have strong evidence to suggest that the Stone ended up in the hands of the Gauntus family shortly after Cadmus' death since they had a short period of being renown for reviving the dead, indeed the head of House Gauntus at the time, Eadmund Gauntus was said to have been killed a grand total of five times before finally staying dead."

Dumbledore and Xenophilius talked about the history of the Hallows and examples of their powers, Harry added what he knew but compared to the two men who had spent their lives researching the Hallows he knew little in comparison, Luna had extracted herself from the conversation and despite Harry's interest in the Hallows he was considering joining her, but just as he was about to make his excuses Dumbledore called an end to the discussion.

"I fear we will not gain any further insight into the location of the Hallows by reminiscing old tales, as such we must be taking our leave. Before we depart however I would like to ask if you would like to stay in correspondence with us, Xeno?"

"Of course, it is always nice to be able to talk to fellow seekers, although I have become aware of the fact that some of my mail is being read before it reaches me, no doubt they are reading my letters so that they may find discover the location of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack before I can tell anyone else." Xeno said joyously, apparently unfazed at the idea of someone reading his mail.

"Perhaps we should use code names then? Perhaps your code name could be Rook after the bird?" Dumbledore said jovially

"Ohh yes, I like that, you should be called Raven then, since they are the most intelligent of birds."

"An excellent idea, perhaps Harry could be called Crow to keep with the Corvid theme?"

Harry nodded to show he was fine with the name, truthfully he did not care and just wanted to go back to Dumbledore's home so he could do something, such as read or practice magic.

"Well then, henceforth we shall refer to each other as the Rook, the Raven and the Crow! When shall we three meet again?" Dumbledore asked with a twinkle in his eye as if he had just told a joke.

Whatever the joke was Xeno seemed to have gotten it for he chuckled and said "In thunder, lightning, or in rain I should imagine." both men chuckled some more as Harry stared at them in confusion.

This is the first chapter since 'The Philosopher's Stone' which was not fully written, I had stock piled mostly complete chapters meaning I didn't need to write much over Christmas and I didn't have the time to write much since, as such this chapter was only 3 sentences this morning… it did not help that I made this chapter almost entirely history based meaning lots of research and wiki reading, fortunately what will probably be next week's chapter has been almost entirely finished since 'The Philosopher's Stone' but I needed the story to progress so far before I could release it.

Year two for Harry is fast approaching, either 1 or 2 chapters away depending on how I feel, year two will also not be as long as year one since first year was Harry discovering all he could, he now believes he has a fairly solid understanding and so he will just spend his year studying, if you want me to go into detail on Harry's second year now is the time to tell me before I get to writing it.

(For Eadmund Gauntus, the name Eadmund is an old English name that became Edmund, it is not a spelling mistake. Likewise for Harry's codename of Crow I am using the Common Crow as reference, so if you realised that a Rook and a Raven are both actually types crows anyway kudos to you I guess.)