This scene opens in Hogwarts, sometime thirty years prior to the last, in year 19XX, when a certain Tom Riddle was the illustrious star prefect of the school, about to end his Sixth Year. Another key character was in her First Year. She had seen this moment coming, planning carefully the entire year, ready to seize Fate. It would be a pivotal moment to change the future war and the future world, unbeknownst to anyone else.
Tom Riddle looked himself in the mirror, standing in the middle of the Slytherin bathrooms, where he had just exited the chamber. In front of him, his features rearranged themselves ever so subtly, shifting carefully between different appearances, all the different faces he used to manipulate and charm those around him.
-There it was, the smile which won him so much in life.
The smile which had just given him the secrets to Immortality.
It was almost too easy, really. Slughorn was a blithering idiot, allowing himself to be so drunk that he would give away such dark secrets as Horcruxes to students. And honestly, surely one could not believe a good student would ask such questions? But they all believed in Tom Riddle. And now, he finally held the answers he had been searching for.
Tom Riddle had known of their existence, and he had conjectured that they surely must be described somewhere in the castle. But he had found no mention of them, even in the scarce Parselscript manuscripts inside the Chamber of Secrets which Salazar Slytherin had left behind.
It was almost as if their written description had been wiped off planet earth.
But even Albus Dumbledore could not master every corner of Hogwarts, and read all the books it housed cover to cover. So he was sure they should still be in the castle.
And it turns out, they were.
Secrets of the Darkest Art.
It was funny really, how a scarcely known wizard like 'Owle Bullock' could be the only one who thought to write a book on Horcruxes, especially considering the wizard had barely achieved anything at all in his lifetime. It also explained how Tom Riddle had never found it. Even for him, any minutes he spent unsupervised in the Restricted Section were on borrowed time, and he could not leisurely scroll every single volume, especially when physically touching half of them meant certain death. So he could hardly be blamed for being unable to browse for the information with no directions, and while he was annoyed by his mistakes, he recognised that they were hard to have rectified at the time. It was a book which was literally hiding in plain sight, concealed by the veil of its author's supposed incompetence.
Tom Riddle paused, pushing the final door to the Restricted Section, this time, knowing he would be successful. This was his destiny, and for once in his life, he felt his own hand shaking uncontrollably, with tremors betraying the true excitement which he would never show on his face.
He strode up confidently, a manic smile overtaking his face as the door closed behind him. It took him no time at all to find the shelf labelled 'B' for the surname of its authors, and he began to scan each row meticulously.
He didn't notice, for once, that there was movement further down the room, where a window was slightly ajar. He did not see the final strand of platinum blond hair disappear out of it, as the girl climbed out onto the roof tiles, her hands shaking and her palms sweaty as she deposited a book in her satchel, knowing she had quite literally found the last possible moment to carry out her action. And as he searched away for a book which had been there for a hundred years and remained there until just two minutes ago– but was there no longer– he did not hear the sound of a small figure mounting a broomstick, and flying away quietly off the roof. He did not hear the sound of Professor Merrythought catching that girl later, far away in the main flying field of Hogwarts.
Perhaps it would have been different if Merrythought had questioned why a small First Year girl was carrying a book bag while flying. But as it stood, she was only furious at the audacity of a girl to fly after curfew, and dished out immediate punishments.
So, Tom Riddle searched for hours, but he found nothing. Finally, at 8am the next morning, long after the sun had risen again, he left, apoplectic and raging.
He strode into his dormitory, just barely keeping from cursing all its recently awakened inhabitants.
"My Lord? Where were you?"
"Studying. Some reading material interested me. That was all."
"Oh, okay. Well, did you hear? That loony First Year, Pandora Lovegood, was caught flying out in the pitches last night by Professor Merrythought! What a lunatic!"
"-And do I look to you like I care even remotely about a reckless, idiotic First Year and her shenanigans on a Quidditch pitch?"
"Well no, my Lor-"
"Cut the bullshit, Lestrange!"
The room was silent. No more was said of Pandora Lovegood in the Slytherin boys' dormitories, ever again.
Later after the conclusion of the year, as Tom Riddle sat in Wool's Orphanage for his last summer there, he fumed about his failure to locate the book. He thought carefully about where he went wrong, but could not envisage anyone taking it. Even Dumbledore, for all the distrust he received from the teacher, would never know of his true intentions. So what could it be? Perhaps the library, in its disuse and ancient age, had become poorly organised, so titles were no longer in perfect order? Perhaps, with its contents, it hid itself to all but the sharpest minds and eyes, and he had to think harder to find it?
A minor setback, he told himself. Valuable time lost, but he would surely find it when he returned for his Seventh Year.
-He never did.
2 Months After the Battle of Skye.
Khemukhai'ilal the young manticore chased after his little pink brother on the unusually lukewarm day. The human boy laughed and bounded straight up a tree with his dextrous limbs and unusual strength.
"Catch me now, Khemu!"
The juvenile manticore snorted and unfurled his wings, leaping upwards to fly to the top of the tree. He growled loudly, trying but failing to be intimidating as his brother swung himself off one of the boughs and back to the clearing. To the clumsy manticore's dismay, when he attempted to ascend down at equal pace his left wing caught on one of the branches, bringing him tumbling down and the tree with him. Harry laughed, but was caught off guard when Khemu's tail extended all the way to pull him down from the branches too, landing in a heap on top of his brother. They tossed around for a short while, but the manticore clearly had the upper hand on account of being several times larger than Harry, who was to his dismay still but a little, scrawny boy.
Few creatures in the dark jungles of Azkaban were not forced to stay there, where dead was the sun, and the only clouds were the cloaks of dementors. Under those perpetually grey skies, though, lived a remote and unknown kingdom of magical creatures, most of whom Harry considered his extended family. He could recall Ashwinders and Diricawls and Acromantulas from the very first moment he could see, but had never seen another of his own species: human, or so his mother called it.
Almost every night, as he lay in his dry moss bed or sometimes under the wing of one of his siblings, though, he dreamt of a woman with hair the colour of an Fire Salamander, who sometimes became a bird of the same hue, or sometimes handed him over to a tired looking man with the same messy fur on the top of his head that Harry had.
They were, he knew, the parents who had birthed him, so close and yet so far from the caverns and trees where he now lived. They were the only reason he knew there were others like him, with five toes and five fingers and pink skin and no scales.
"One day, young brother, you may be able to learn that ultimate weapon of you humans. But until you have your ma-gick, you will always be at my mercy!"
"-Your brother is far smarter than you, Khemukhai'ilal. Even mankind's magic is no match for the superiority of the Manticore's evolution, but it is their smarts which mean we here must stay trapped without warmth in our hearts and sun on our fur. Perhaps one day we will all have to venture out to meet such humans, so you would do well to remember that it is their wicked innovation which has slaughtered so many of our species not through force and open battle, but through isolation and control. You should know better, my son."
Khemukhai'ilal lowered his mane, in a suitably chastised manner.
"Mother!" greeted Harry cheerfully.
Masa'khilara nodded at her youngest child. "My sons. You are too old to be frolicking around like newborns. There are many dangers on this accursed island, and you know it."
"Apologies, Mother." both replied in unison. They knew that their Mother's words were largely symbolic and she did not truly believe they were in any sort of grave danger on the island, especially with Khemu being essentially unkillable and easily able to wrap Harry inside his impenetrable wings. Nevertheless, she was always teaching them to be vigilant, and that their imprisonment on the island would be temporary so they should live with the same principles as that they would live by in an open world.
"Come, my children. It is time for a Shifting again."
One of the only good things about this terrible Rock on which they all lived was that it was constantly Shifting. About once every 14 moons, the terrain would rearrange itself and the streams would start to point in another direction. New boulders and pits and places to play would reveal themselves to Harry and the other juvenile creatures on the land, making their lives much more entertaining and interesting despite the constant grey skies and cold temperatures.
Eagerly, Khemu and Harry followed their mother towards the big circle rock at the centre of their island, the only rock which never Shifted and which was therefore the safest to stand on as they watched the land morph itself into something completely new.
When they arrived, they saw many of their friends and neighbours there as well. There was Tssabassala the young ashwinder, who was friends with both of them; a quintaped called Sextus who was pleasant enough when he was not in a murderous temper; and Raaz the thunderbird, who always fed them the best information on how the new Shifted island looked like, because he could fly.
The creatures had long learned to coexist with each other in ways which would never have been vaguely possible if they had not been bound in their magical prison. In fact, most of the adult creatures, at least those who had been mature before they had been captured and imprisoned, were under powerful "magicks" which made it impossible for them to attack each other. Harry's mother had said this was because the golden man, who was the most powerful wizard to have walked on the island, wanted them to kill any intruders, but not each other. However, it meant even creatures who would usually eat each other or fight over territories had to learn to ignore each other's very existences if that was what was necessary to keep peace.
"It issss about to happensssss." said Tssaba. Hubert the quintaped merely grunted as he was the only one who was completely unfamiliar with the language of the serpents. Manticores, like Khemu, were able to understand the serpent's tongue perfectly as they themselves were part serpent. Some thunderbirds like Raaz had also apparently developed the ability since, at least when they were in their natural habitats, they often hunted common snakes for food. As for Harry, he had gotten used to being able to recognise some of the syllables being said, though to him he could never tell when a new word began or whether the long strings of ssss sounds were part of the vocabulary.
"Do speak in proper languages so that all of us may understand." grumbled Sextus.
Tssaba replied in words Harry did not recognise. Khemu bared his teeth.
"He says, what makes the language of creatures proper? It is merely the most common language we can all speak."
"-We all know it is to do with magick that we can communicate in the common creature tongue. There is nothing common about it." interjected Raaz.
Harry huffed, not wanting to hear another argument about the way they communicated to each other and whether they could use creature words without any sense of shame.
The rock began to groan around them, churning the earth as trees collapsed, shoots and vines arising in their place. Streams forked into new tributaries and twisted through the cracks forming in the ground. Hills collapsed into valleys, and valleys rose to be peaks. In some places, gaping maws of nothing opened out of nowhere, swallowing stones and weeds and soil.
The air too told of the change, humming and buzzing with anticipation. What none of the creatures understood clearly, but could feel nonetheless, was the Shifting of not just the terrain of Azkaban Forest, but also equally of the magick protecting the walls which shrouded it from the outside world. They could all feel how waves of energy spread, and see how bright purple engulfed the horizons, pulsing brightly at intermittent intervals in arbitrary spots, and expanding and thickening.
For Harry and the other young creatures, the Shifting was always a wonderful spectacle, an endless source of excitement whenever it occurred, bright and explosive. But he knew that for his mother and the other older creatures, it was a more grim event, because to them it was a showcase of the great power which caged them there in that forest, and an absolute and impenetrable barrier none of them could pass.
"It has been 6 years since this has started. The Magick is more powerful than ever. When it first started, I could barely feel anything underneath my hoof. Now, the earth itself shakes with fury." said Chief Bomologo, the Erumpent head of their makeshift alliance: or at least, the parts of it which joined together to live in constructive harmony.
The other creatures voiced their agreement.
"It is so unnatural. These humans are somehow far more dangerous than any of us, despite possessing no physical strengths."
Harry felt the creatures looking at him, as they often did whenever humans were mentioned.
"Is all Magick purple?" he butted out, before he even thought about what he was going to say. The creatures regarded him strangely, none of them having an answer to that.
"-Wait! Everyone! Look at what I found! A strange object has appeared in the lands! I have never seen anything like it!" Raaz interrupted, flying down rapidly from the heavens.
"Where?" asked Bomologo.
"Not too far, not too far. We can all get there quickly, just follow my flight."
Some creatures clearly made their skepticism known, barely paying him attention.
"This thunderbird Raaz is always talking about this and that. Everytime it's just a newly shaped rock! Why would we go with you?"
"Trust me, you will want to see this! I could feel it. It was so strong!"
"-Feel what?"
"Magick!"
The creatures all stopped, turning to look at their Chief, who knew more about the lands then any of the rest of them, having been one of the first creatures confined to the forest in order to guard it.
The Chief paused, before snorting in a powerful huff of air, as he tended to do while he was thinking.
"That is strange. We have never had an object of Magick inside our forest before. Only the boundaries which hold us in have shown Magick. Raaz, are you sure this one is inside the lines?"
"Yes, definitely. I even touched it myself, though I couldn't feel much, other than a little warmth."
"-Warmth? I have been waiting for hundreds of moons for warmth again. Let's go!" exclaimed another Creature excitedly. Many raised their heads and hissed or cawed in excitement, clearly with similar feelings.
"Be careful. Never trust an object of Magick!" boomed the deep voice of the Chief. The Creatures stopped in their tracks.
"But Raaz was able to touch it! Surely there isn't a harm in looking?"
Bomologo huffed loudly through his snout again.
"I… don't see why not. Just, be careful before touching it. Let us all go together."
Harry looked at his brother Khemu eagerly. He saw a similar look of joy returned to him. They were both extremely keen to see this interesting Magickal object.
So off the creatures went, trudging through unfamiliar, Shifted lands. Before long, as they descended down a slope which had previously been a lake, and ascended another slope which had previously been the base of a gargantuan tree, they reached a flatland, where they could all see it.
A chorus of hisses and caws and other creature sounds echoed through the forest.
"What… is that?" asked Mekone, the magical raindeer (technically a Leucrotta, though Harry could barely say that name), shaking his antlers in confusion.
"Itsss looksss like a mountainsss." said Tssaba.
"Not really, as it is not particularly tall. Certainly not enough to be a mountain." the Chief said.
"-It looks tall to me." chirped out Harry. All the creatures turned to look at him, rather dubiously.
"-Okay, well, I am small."
The Creatures turned back to look at the object.
"-It does not feel particularly evil, in my opinion." Khemu and Harry, along with the other creatures, turned to look at their mother.
"You would know, Masa'khilara. Better than any of us." said the Chief.
"Yes. I spent some time with Magickal humans far from here when they fought me and captured me, and I know what their Magick feels like when it is dangerous."
"But surely you cannot deny this is powerful?"
Indeed, a buzzing feeling seemed to flow through the air, seemingly coming fully from the strange object.
"True. It is rare that I have felt such strong Magick before. Only powerful humans can produce such a feeling."
"-Powerful humans are all dangerous and terrible. That's what you said, Mother." said Khemu. Harry bit his lip, as he always did, feeling guilty when he learned what his species could do to other creatures.
"No, Khemu. I said they are all dangerous, but I never said they are all terrible. Some of them are not as destructive and cruel as others. They merely can be if they so choose."
"Why don't I touch it?" suggested Harry. The Chief snorted.
"That would be dangerous. Some objects are specifically made by humans not to be touched by other humans." said the Chief.
"-But Chief! I touched it and I was fine! And Masa'khilara knows Magick enough to detect danger when it occurs." interjected Raaz. Many other creatures made loud sounds of agreement, clearly curious about what the object was.
"-That does not address my concerns at all. This is surely too risky." Bomologo turned to look at Harry's mother, hoping for another trusted, senior agreement.
Masa'khilara was silent, but after a while, spoke again.
"I somehow feel this one might be fine. In fact, I feel rather a positive energy from this strange object. It is worth figuring out why this appeared here, and I do not think it will harm Harry. Khemu can go with Harry and curl his wings to protect him if any Magick attacks."
"-Yes, Chief. You can trust me! I will just touch it briefly." said Harry. Khemu was similarly eager, shifting his paws along the ground in excitement.
The Chief snorted, this time very long and in a very annoyed fashion.
"Fine then. Be careful, and step back quickly after touching it."
The creatures parted ways so Harry and Khemu could move through them. Taking a deep breath, and closing his eyes, he moved his middle finger slowly down towards the strange looking stone, not daring to look.
The Creatures waited with baited breath, being as silent as a troupe of Creatures could ever be. Before he touched it, Harry could only feel the thick hair of Khemu's mane brushing the back of his head.
Suddenly, a golden light spread out, just as Harry touched the stone. He opened his eyes, just as Khemu's wings reached out to cover him. The world began to be covered by the wing, but then-
"WOAH!"
Harry looked in amazement down from the top of the slope which looked down onto the flatland, as the other Creatures watched in shock.
"You just-"
"What!"
Harry couldn't believe his eyes. He had just been standing next to rock, but then it had seemingly blasted him back extremely far, as he was immediately standing above the flatland.
He ran towards the Creatures, shocked by the distance which he had to cover to do so.
"I have seen Humans do this before." everyone turned to Masa'khilara. "They can disappear in one place and appear in another place, just like a Demiguise. It makes catching them almost impossible, unless they are already in reach of your jaws."
"Curious. Very curious." said the Chief. "Harry, did you do anything in particular?"
"Not at all, Chief. I barely had time to see a thing!"
Harry moved towards the stone again, where Khemu was still standing in shock, looking back and forth between the stone and where he had just landed in a comical way.
Now he was closer, but was not touching it, he could recognise the word, because he had been taught human words by Teacher Cahallorman, the centaur, who was absolutely the most knowledgeable Creature within the forest, and who therefore often taught Harry and other younger animals various pieces of information relevant to them.
Harry paused, reading out the letters on the stone.
"Mer-... Meridia-,..Meridi-an. Uh, It says Meridian." he said out loud.
"Does anybody know what it means?" Bomologo called out. He looked to Masa'khilara, but the Manticore shook her head.
"We should summon for Cahallorman."
"-You know he does not enjoy being disturbed on days like this, when he is retreated for meditation."
Harry winced, knowing too well, having disturbed Cahallorman at the wrong times in the past.
"This is more important, surely. Raaz?"
"Yes, Chief?"
"Do you know where to find Cahallorman?"
"I can look for the plume of white smoke."
This smoke was the results of what Cahallorman called burning in-cense, which Harry did not understand much but which made his nose tingle greatly, and which did even worse things to other Creatures who had far more sensitive noses.
"Find him. Tell him what is going on. Though I suspect, knowing him, that he will already have noticed the presence of this magickal object within our Forest: even before anyone else finished watching the Shifting."
"Okay, sir. On it!"
The Thunderbird gave a magnificent caw and in a sweep of his wings, he was gone, exploding into the distance to wherever Cahallorman was meditating.
The rest of the Creatures waited with interest. Bomologo turned to them, addressing the group with great authority.
"Now, we must wait."
They had been waiting a long time, during which all the Creatures tried to touch the "Meridian", whatever it was. Somehow, only Harry was sent to a new location some several meters away from it, when he touched. The other Creatures simply enjoyed the novelty of the object, some using it for bathing in warmth, and others keen to study every inch of its surface.
Suddenly, they heard Raaz's distinctive cry in the distance, and the sound of thunderous galloping.
"That was faster than expected, Cahallorman."
"I was on my way already, Bomologo. Raaz caught me somewhere around halfway."
"-So you sensed it?"
"I did, of course. The planets warned me it was arriving."
"Come, come. Take a closer look."
Cahallorman strode carefully up to the object, bowing his head before it. The other Creatures watched as he stood there, eyes closed, for several moments.
"I have come across this word, before, Meridian. Back then, I had managed to reach some discarded books of non-magickal humans. This one was about their maps, which are pictures they draw to help them navigate."
The Creatures listened with great interest, even Masa'khilara, who had only ever really seen humans in an aggressive capacity.
"Meridians, in that book, where lines along the surface of our world, connecting lands into sections they could understand and keep track of. I suspect, as with much non-magickal human words, that it might have come originally from the mouth of a magickal-human, who used it for separate meanings, but which were related."
"Humans are such strange creatures-" said Mekone, but he quickly shut up with a harsh look from Cahallorman, who did not enjoy being interrupted.
"I suspect Meridians is a word which is related to large distances of land. How, I cannot imagine."
"What is this object then? It does not really look like a line."
"-This is not a Meridian itself. Merely, the word is inscribed upon it. Which means that it describes some meaning to humans as to what it can do. This is called a "pyramid", and is a favoured object of humans to hold powerful magic in stable locations, but nothing more."
"But what is the magick for? Is it harmful for us?"
Cahallorman strode around the object, his face serious.
"I suspect it is not here to harm us. It would be unlike humans."
"Why?" asked Khemu.
"Humans, like many animals, enjoy hunting their prey themselves. If they wanted to kill us, they would make it more enjoyable for themselves. Some humans, especially those of the same despicable ilk that trap us here, are true monsters. They would not let an inanimate object do the killing for them."
Harry shivered, and saw other Creatures looking at him with some fear in their eyes.
"What happened to Harrison, when he touched it?"
Harry turned to look at Cahallorman.
"I don't know, sir. It just suddenly moved me from one place to another."
"-Moved you? It threw you?"
"No, it didn't. I disappeared and suddenly appeared maybe thirty steps back."
"-Ah."
The Creatures all noticed Cahallorman's face, which was grim and suddenly incredibly serious.
"Is there a problem, Cahallorman?"
"I fear so. The humans have a frequent spell they use, or a type of physical magick, if you like. This is called Apparition. It allows them to move across large distances. It would also make sense for this to be encapsulated by the word Meridian, which is a line connecting places very far apart."
"-And so?" asked Mekone.
"-And so, this object can likely help them perform this task, perhaps at a more powerful level. Which, if the planets have been warning me correctly, is the extremely terrible news I have been fearing for a long time."
"Why?" asked Khemu. But Harry suddenly knew the answer.
"It means they are coming."
Cahallorman nodded his head. "Unfortunately, I fear so too."
"They? As in-?"
"The humans. They are going to use this stone in some way to get onto the island. And when they do, they will not be pleasant ones."
The Creatures all made cries of displeasure.
"We can kill them all!" cried Amilara, the rather violent Acromantula.
"We certainly will not!" thundered Bomologo. "This is a death wish for us Creatures. We will not die in this forsaken location out of nothing but foolishness, before we reach our homes again."
"But a human cannot defeat us, no matter how strong they are!"
"No man will come unprepared." said Masa'khilara. "They know every single one of us here, down to each individual number. We cannot surprise them. They can use magick to harm us, just like the barrier which keeps us here."
"Indeed." said Cahallorman. "They will have a plan. For now, while we can only guess why they want this pyramid here, we must be cautious. No Creature will ever venture near here again, unless they want to be killed when humans start noticing that they have been around and add more spells to it. That includes you, Harry."
Harry gulped, and nodded quickly. Cahallorman's eyes softened.
"I am sorry, that you must experience your species in this brutal way before any other. There are truly some good humans as well, out there. Sadly, they seem far and few between, especially these days."
Harry could say nothing, only nodding again.
"So this is it?" Bomologo asked. "What we have been expecting our whole lives in this place?"
"Yes, I cannot see how it will not be. This is it." Cahallorman confirmed, all traces of peace gone from his eyes.
"The humans are coming."