L.O.S.T II
LAST CHAPTER: Daphne Greengrass gifts Harry two books for Christmas; one is a compendium of… controversial magic, and the other is a compendium of hagiographies. Harry reads about Recimir, who wanted to create a magical empire during the last years of the Roman Empire. Harry's attention is drawn to his mother's family; he is told of a potion that can reveal his ancestry. Unfortunately it's illegal. Not that it's mattered to him before…
The frozen mud was solid beneath his boots, the air searing his lungs with every breath. Harry fought through the pain with practised ease and grinned. His skin tingled; adrenaline rushed through his veins like smoke through a chimney.
To his left, the lake was frozen solid, and a couple of daring seventh years had risen early to play some Wizarding game on the ice. It wasn't one he recognised; he'd have to ask Susan later. For now, he ignored them, and they he, so he continued his run.
It was much easier than it had been back in September. Strongsong told him this time would come—when challenging exercise would no longer feel so excruciating, when the pain would become power to thrust him along instead. It'd taken nearly six months of hard work, but he felt he was there.
Just then, a scarlet flare peaked over the trees of the Forbidden Forest. The day was dawning, and he was already up. Already working. Harry felt a spark of triumph. He rose before his classmates, worked harder than them, and here he was. All he had to do was put one foot ahead of the other. That was the path to victory.
Soon, he'd find out about his mother's ancestry and finally – hopefully – put the rumours to bed once and for all. Professor Dumbledore would find the real Heir (or maybe even Alan and his new friends would get lucky), but either way, everything would return to normal. Then he could restart his duelling club – nothing like Lockhart's awful parody – and return to what he truly loved.
He peaked a slight rise to see a figure lying on the ground, reclining by the lake. Tracey David grinned at him and waved. "Lovely day, isn't it?"
Harry slowed to a halt. Davis was sporting her usual hard-wearing exercise robes, coloured a classic Slytherin green. "If you like it cold and frozen," he returned gamely.
Davis' grin widened. "Oh, talking to me now, are we?" she teased. "Now we have a mutual friend. She's not as frozen as everything thinks, right?"
No, Harry thought, Daphne certainly wasn't. She could be fierce; he would say she had a temper. But he hadn't missed the undercurrent of displeasure in her ribbing. "I'm not a…" What was the phrase? "... people person, Davis. I like to keep to myself."
Davis raised a startlingly dark eyebrow. "Could've fooled me with that club then. Didn't you bring it together?"
Harry felt his jaw clench. Flashes of Hartin, McConnell, and, most of all, Gabriel's face flew through his mind. "Yes," he ground out. "And I pulled it apart."
He did his best not to sprint away, ignoring Davis' shouted apologies as he completed his last lap of the morning.
The walk back to the Common Room calmed his rage, the cool wind soothing the flush of his cheeks. How had he allowed Davis to get under his skin so easily? He'd had months to come to terms with Gabriel's… with the incident. He thought he had.
Perhaps it was just the pressure? With the end of the Christmas holidays, the dirty looks had returned, the whispers – he'd even had to dodge the odd spell. There hadn't been an ambush attempt yet, not this time. Maybe knowledge of last year's failed ambush had gotten around?
Hopefully, Daphne would discover how to brew the Genus potion before he had to deal with another. Though Daphne herself was another source of tension. She and Susan still didn't get along, and all three of them had agreed not to show familiarity with the other in public. The Boy-Who-Lived's friendship with a Slytherin would only make the rumours worse. That, too, was frustrating. He didn't have many friends and didn't want the luxury of playing pretend.
Harry returned to the Origin of Politics after a lazy shower. The book was, despite its tepid style, engrossing. He'd restrained himself from skipping from chapter to chapter, instead focusing on older figures of Magical history.
Three figures stood out to him: Egica, Recimir, and Adrian. He saw echoes of their arguments in modern Wizarding politics – what he could understand of it, anyway. Egica was a Visigoth, the oldest of the three. His family were high nobility; his father, Theodoric, was integral to soothing relations between his own tribe and the Romans.
The peace, however, slowly broke down, and the Muggle Visigoths blamed Theodoric for the renewed fighting. A mob burned Theodoric's palace, his family fled, and he died soon after, leaving Egica leader of his family. They were pushed from place to place, eventually settling into a role as mercenaries.
Harry wondered what that was like – when the gulf between Wizard and Muggle was not yet so great, when they fought on the same battlefields, and lived beside each other in the same towns and cities… But Egica theorised that it could not be. As he grew older, he became increasingly pious and saw that new magical discoveries were increasingly leading Muggles to view Wizards as gods. He therefore arrived at an idea he called Sundrunga, later known as the Doctrine of Severance.
On the other hand, Adrian's father was a provincial Roman Decurio, a sort of local mayor (as Harry understood it). Nestled deep in Italy, his home town of Spoleto remained insulated from the scouring of the Roman Empire… until it didn't. Vandals raided Spoleto, murdering his elderly father. Adrian took up his wand, mustered a Muggle raiding party of his own and avenged his father – controversially killing no few Wizards along the way.
To Harry's judgement, Adrian seemed a more affable figure than the other two; in contrast to them, he advocated for what he called the Magna Concordia - the Great Concord.
Using the power of the rising church, he wanted to restore harmony among Wizards and Muggles by establishing Wizarding holy orders to provide charity, guidance and defence.
Suffice to say, that had never happened, and nor had Recimir founded his Kingdom of the Sorcerers. The heart of the future belonged to Egica the Visigoth, as Wizards and Muggles had slowly separated.
Thoughts of Egica, Recimir and Adrian spun through his mind throughout the day. He didn't think he heard a word of what Binns said in his actual history lesson. No matter how bloody, Goblin rebellions could not compare to the sudden truths that sprung from his mind like sparks from an over-eager wand. Was Recimir totally like Voldemort? Was Adrian like Dumbledore and his Valentinian faction? Or were the pro-Muggle Campbellites Adrian's political descendants?
He refocused only in time for duelling practice. Susan lined up against him first, beginning with a quick disarming charm and flowing to a series of minor hexes.
Harry danced around them comfortably, while Susan grew steadily red in the face.
He couldn't help but grin cheekily at her as he skipped by a third Expelliamus.
Susan pouted. "Merlin Harry, this isn't fair!"
No, Harry thought, readying his wand: it wasn't.
The duel was over within twelve seconds.
"It really isn't fair," Susan repeated, this time more seriously. "I'm not learning anything losing like this."
She was right. Gabriel had paired students of similar ability with each other for a reason. There was nothing to gain by being defeated in moments.
Harry couldn't stop himself; his gaze slid over to Daphne, who was – very purposefully – ignoring the conversation, her shaded gaze turned down to her violin. She was carefully running a cloth down its grain.
They would be perfect opponents… if only they weren't already opponents. Susan had never forgiven Daphne for the Forbidden Forest debacle, and Daphne was only too eager to return the antipathy. In fact, their shared dislike seemed to grow; now they only spoke to each other when strictly necessary. Harry hadn't dared suggest they duel each other, lest he were to open a box of frogs he couldn't control.
And he didn't have the heart to try then, either. "Perhaps Hermione would be willing," Harry said vaguely. Probably not, he thought. "And Corner should turn up tomorrow."
Even after all the attacks – which, many had noted, seemed to have paused – Michael Corner still joined them occasionally for duelling practice. He wasn't bad, either. Unfortunately, Susan was slowly pulling away from him in skill, as Harry had pulled away from her.
Daphne broke his reverie, strumming her fingers gently across the strings of her violin. It was a tick of hers.
"Daphne," he said out of the blue, "could you play a song for us, if you have time."
The Slytherin's head jolted up, and though her eyes were obscured, Harry could see the surprise in the crease of her brow. She wrapped her hand around the instruments' neck, and for a moment he thought she would refuse.
"What do you want me to play?" she said eventually.
Harry shrugged. "I don't know anything about music. You chose."
Daphne looked long at Susan, who remained silent, before retrieving her bow from her case. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and began with speed. Her song sung at pace, with heart, dancing around a tense central note. It was like joy made sound – at first, but soon the sonata (at least, that's what Harry thought it was) dipped, and swung, and uncertainty flickered in Harry's heart. He thought of all the students in the castle, and all the teachers, scurrying, scrambling around the castle, chasing and being chased by the shadow of the Heir.
He thought of Professor Dumbledore as he had last seen him, his eyes dancing from page to page across his vast oaken desk; he thought of the heads of the Houses, debating to-and-fro. Who was the Heir? Or what? He thought of the Prefects, endlessly pacing their rounds, constantly wary, always watching – and never finding.
The music soared, shimmering like a spring sun, and Harry thought of Alan, Hermione and Neville, pouring over tomes in the library, searching, searching, forever searching… The only denizens of the castle who weren't scrambling were in the Hospital Wing, still, silent: petrified. He knew they were lined up in beds in a single distant corner, curtains drawn over their frozen forms. Madam Pomphrey had to feed them potions to extend their lives. And, ironically, it was they alone who were at peace.
Vaguely, Harry heard the sonata descend into something slower.
Everyone else feared the end of Hogwarts, though they were unwilling to say it aloud. Harry recalled Wyrmhood, the school Emily Lyle had gone to. What was that like? Did it have a lake with a squid? Did the stairs of the building turn by themselves? Were their professors just as renowned as Professors McGonagall or Flitwick?
Harry sighed. Probably not. Hogwarts had no rival in Britain, for splendour or excellence. All he had to do was prove his own innocence. Drink the potion, note his mother's family, and hunt down Muggle records of their non-Magical origins. That was that. The Headmaster would find the Heir, eventually.
Yes, and if not him, the-
"Harry? Harry?"
Harry suddenly realised that he'd closed his eyes at some point, and that the music was finished. Daphne was staring down at him indecipherably, her lips pursed.
"That was lovely," Harry said honestly. "I feel much better now. Who was it?"
"Beethoven," Daphne said. "One of his better violin sonatas."
"Wasn't Beethoven a Muggle?
Daphne shut her violin away with a click. "Not everything Muggles do is bad, Harry. Muggles wrote some beautiful music in the past. But I'm sure you'd prefer to talk about the Genus Potion than the Centuries of Grace."
"The what?"
"The height of Muggle high-culture. Long gone, I'm afraid, before their fast food and television."
Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he settled for a change of topic. "Oh. What about the potion?"
Daphne took a long glance at Susan. "Unfortunately, I don't think we could brew the potion within Hogwarts' grounds. The wards, if you take my meaning…"
The wards would pick it up as Dark Magic.
Across the room, Susan shuffled in her chair. There was only one solution to this problem.
For a moment, it looked as if Daphne would suggest it. "If…" she began, before trailing off. Her mouth was pinched in a thin line; she looked… strangely uncomfortable with the inevitable conclusion.
"If we can't brew the potion in Hogwarts," Susan began, not a little unhappily, "then we'll just have to brew it in Knockturn Alley, in an inn."
Daphne suddenly seemed very tense. "Yes," she said tightly. "We'd source the ingredients in Knockturn anyway - they aren't exactly owl-order staples, and it only takes half an hour to brew…"
That would only leave finding a way out the castle, Harry thought. He tried his best not to look too pointedly at Daphne, who he knew knew a way out herself.
"We just have to find a secret passage that can take us outside the wards," Harry finished. "I know they exist."
Daphne practically jumped to her feet. "Yes," she agreed hastily. "Anyway, I must be off. See you later."
Harry and Susan watched her hurry away, then matched eyes. He could already tell what she was thinking. Harry shrugged. "No idea."
"It was as soon as the idea of leaving the castle came up," Susan pointed out.
"But why admit we can't brew it within Hogwarts, then?"
"I have no idea," Susan said. "But we should be careful. Something isn't right."
...
...
February arrived with a fresh flurry of snow, and good news. Hermione had finally left the hospital wing. She'd been sequestered therein since Christmas, and Harry had been getting somewhat worried - no matter how Susan tried to reassure him. Apparently, Magical illnesses could linger terribly; they could be pretty sensitive to change, and just needed time to be cured.
"It is odd, though," he said to himself one night, staring into the curtains of his four-poster bed. "No one seemed to know what was wrong with her, and nothing has been going around…"
But he could do nothing except speculate, so he slept on it instead. The next day dawned pleasantly for the season, with golden sun shining over a dewy Hogwarts morning. Harry breathed in the moist air on his morning run, enjoying the premonition of spring. As he sometimes did, he took the time to practice his stretching as Strongsong advised.
After sixth months practice, he was close to achieving the splits… not that it was hugely relevant for duelling, but it was a sign of journeyman ability. Either way, it never ceased to amaze him how limber he felt, how free, how-
-Hey, was that a bird?
Something was coming his way.
No, wait, something was diving toward him.
Harry ducked as the black-winged owl thundered straight over his head, leaving a white note on the green grass at his feet. He snatched it up, cursing at the bird.
It's ready, the note said.
Meet by the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, on the first floor in two days, at 11 o'clock. Portkeys organised. Key received.
After reading twice, Harry burned it with a brief Incendio. It was actually happening, then. They – all three of them – were really going to sneak into Knockturn Alley. At the time, it'd just been an idea. Now… now it felt real. Now it felt like one of those stupid ideas, like venturing into the Forbidden Forest… or Knockturn Alley for a Lightspeed.
His head warned him against it. His gut spoke otherwise; he had Susan, and Daphne, and a plan. He'd been to Knockturn before. Everything was arranged. There was no need to panic.
Right?
Regardless, Harry soon found himself back behind the curtains of his four-poster bed, staring at the cover of Curses Most Terrible. The knowledge therein almost seemed to call to him, beckoning him to read. And after all, he wondered, why shouldn't he? It was only knowledge, neither bad nor good until it was used…
Harry frowned. No, there was a reason people called some magic Dark. Just because some were a little overenthusiastic in labelling, that didn't mean there was no such thing as Dark Magic at all. The book was called Curses Most Terrible, for Merlin's sake!
He couldn't use it. He couldn't.
But then again, would Daphne's parents really give her something so dangerous? He recalled his last visit to Knockturn. Some of it had looked relatively normal, but there were no few dark alleys, and a similar number of strange figures. He couldn't help but imagine dark-cloaked figures advancing toward them, driving them back down a dead-end. Did he have the luxury not to read the book? Susan and Daphne were ultimately risking their lives for him (even if nothing was likely to happen). He was easily the strongest duellist. It was his responsibility to read the book. He didn't have to learn all the spells.
Harry's hand crept toward the cover… and turned.
Yellowed pages greeted him – ordinary pages – pages no different than any other older book.
Introduction, read the subtitle.
Slowly, then with increasing interest, Harry began to read.
Two days later, it was as though he hadn't put the book down. Every excuse he got, Harry was withdrawing behind the curtains of his four-poster bed and cracking open his newest book. Curses Most Terrible, he'd discovered, was far more than a lexicon of dangerous spells. In fact, fewer than a dozen curses were actually detailed within its pages. Most of the book was dedicated to explaining the uses of said curses, anecdotes from particular duels, and long-winded and unpleasant descriptions of the effects of those same curses.
Some of them made Harry shudder… but none of them could make him stop reading. The consequences of even a simple bone-breaking curse were just too interesting to ignore. Added to his repertoire, a bone-breaker alone would give him a new vector speed to trouble his opponents, a spell capable of real intimidation, and – most importantly – a (fairly) safe method to disable an opponent quickly. Not that he could use it in a friendly spar. Neither Susan nor Daphne would appreciate that, never mind one of his occasional duelling partners like Michael Corner.
No, he'd practiced his preferred new spells alone in the Duelling Hall, the door locked with every spell he knew. In two days, he'd taught himself four spells.
As he whipped the Invisibility Cloak over him and Susan, Harry had never felt more accomplished, more ready.
… Until he realised he'd forgotten where on the first floor the statue of Gregory the Smarmy was.
"Uh, Susan?" he whispered bashfully.
"Yes Harry?" She whispered back. He could feel her breath on his neck.
"Where is the statue of Gregory the Smarmy?"
Beneath the Cloak, Susan shifted. He could practically feel her radiating annoyance; she wasn't happy about the plan to begin with.
"By the tapestry of Michael the Magnificent, the one showing him slaying a dragon. It's a big statue, you, er, can't miss it."
Harry tried to picture the first floor, recalling a ten foot statue of a large, corpulent Wizard. "Oh. Nevermind."
They ascended in silence, stopping by the vast edifice of Gregory and his massive stomach. A sconce was lit nearby, casting a dim, flickering light down the corridor.
Harry paused. It was early enough for Prefects to be still patrolling, though they were less scattered than last year – a compromise to guard against the Heir. Even so, if he were to remove his Cloak…
Daphne, of course, could already be there herself. She had her own cloak, not that they'd discussed it much.
Coming to a decision, Harry palmed his wand and poked it into the cool night air.
"What're you doing?" Susan whispered.
Harry ignored her, and cast. "Lumos."
He fed just a trickle of Magic into his wand, lighting the tip but dimly.
Then he cancelled the spell, and waited with baited breath.
A few seconds later, a brighter Lumos answered.
Harry sighed, and threw off his Invisibility Cloak. About ten feet away, Daphne matched him. She put her finger to her lips. Harry nodded, then watched as she tiptoed over to the statue.
Tap; tap; tap. Harry couldn't quite see where, but five more taps rang out. Harry saw her silhouette retreat and then, slowly, Gregory's vast belly opened as if on a hinge, revealing that vast black maw that Harry suspected was the beginning of a staircase.
"Oh," he heard Susan breathe behind him. "Lumos."
Her wand-light revealed what was indeed the landing of a flight of stairs, extremely steep ones, by the look of them – the sort that could send you flying with a single misstep.
"Lovely," Harry whispered. "Does Gregory's… stomach close itself?"
Daphne paced toward the statue. "Yes," she said impatiently, "now let's go before we're caught. I don't fancy being expelled for your benefit."
She cast her own Lumos and began to descend, disappearing from sight in moments, leaving Harry and Susan alone.
They shared a meaningful look and followed.
…
…
The tunnel was exactly as Harry had expected. Dank, dark, dim, and many other things beginning with d that meant rubbish. Their only saving grace was that he didn't think the tunnel was very deep, so there was no chance of running into a Deep Earth-spawned daemon and being killed. It was a dull walk, actually.
The walls were grey-brown, irregular and mossy. Nothing of note was written on them except graffiti – including the now familiar Recimir Shall Rise Again. Now he knew who Recimir was, Harry very much preferred he didn't.
They made their way in silence, broken only by the occasional drip drip drip of moisture. Their breathing quickly faded into the background. Eventually, Harry sensed the tunnel begin to rise. Then, suddenly, a chink of light appeared. It was shaped like the outline of a door.
"Finally," Susan complained. "My legs ache."
Daphne felt for a handle. "Go for a – ah," something beneath her hand squeaked in rusty agony, "– run with Harry. Get used to your own feet, or take some weight off them."
Even in the dark, Harry saw Susan's bright blue eyes flare with anger, but Daphne wrenched the door open before she could reply.
A tree-ringed clearing greeted them, lit by cool moonlight. The smell of pine was strong.
Harry recognised it intimately. "This is…"
"... The Forbidden Forest," Daphne finished for him. "Let's not stay around." She hurried to the centre of the clearing, picking something off the ground. Harry and Susan followed.
Two bronze metal batons glimmered in her hands, one topped with a red ribbon, the other with a blue. Both were small enough to fit inside a pocket. "One to go," Daphne held up the red ribboned baton, then the blue, "and one to return."
"Okay," said Harry, "the Portkey should take us to Diagon's Apparition Point, right? And since some kids are homeschooled anyway, no one is going to look at us twice… right?"
Thank Merlin the Magical world was so laidback. Three children wandering unsupervised around Muggle London would soon attract attention.
"Right," Daphne nodded.
But Susan only shrugged. "I'm not too sure about that, but I think we can get away with it. And I'm not fat."
Daphne held out the red-ribboned baton and grinned. "Prove it."
Susan grimaced, put her hood up, then grabbed the baton. Harry echoed her.
"Patria."
The words from Daphne's mouth seemed to spin around his head, lengthening and whirling until the syllables became songs and the songs became dreams, and all blurred together for a long, long moment. They were spinning and spinning, all three of them falling through a changing sky. The ground swooped before them, and they with it, and Harry heard Susan scream, and then he saw Diagon sprawling out before him.
The centrifugal force of the Portkey began to slow; Harry knew it was time to land. He forced himself straight and bent his legs. He hit the cobblestones solidly, but didn't buckle. Strongsong's book had taught him to fall as well as run and stretch, and he'd had time to practice during long autumn days.
Susan beside him looked elated; her scream must've been one of enjoyment, while Daphne seemed a little worse for wear – slightly sick, though she was doing her best to hide it, peering through her dark shades at the surrounding houses.
Harry followed her gaze. Diagon looked empty in the winter gloom. So far south it was not snowing, nor was there snow on the ground, but a light mist obscured the familiar floating orbs that patrolled the byways of the Alley. They glowed like spectres, passing silently without really illuminating anything. Harry strained his eyes to read the lettering on the nearest signboard, knowing it was Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop. He couldn't quite make out the large, golden letters.
"Well," Harry said quietly, "I don't think anyone will notice us in this."
They strode down the cobbles in their little three man phalanx, steadily ignoring those they met on their way. Most smelled vaguely of alcohol, whose sharp tone Harry recalled from Uncle Vernon's forays to Little Whinging's pub, the George and Dragon. He was always meanest when he came home, and on those days Harry was glad to be locked in his cupboard, asleep.
Soon they entered Knockturn Alley. Susan stuttered at the entrance, but Harry pushed her on. "It's fine," he whispered to her, "really. Mostly it's no different to Diagon."
Because of her hood, he had no way of knowing what Susan thought about that comment. He suspected she disagreed; but they continued nevertheless. They arrived quickly at a crossroads, where a gaggle of Hags were sitting outside Merlin's Regard, a four-storey inn. It was, Harry knew, the inn at which Daphne had booked a room.
The Hags were leering; Harry fingered his wand. An apothecary, The Fell Nettle, sat in pride-of-place as a corner store behind him. That was their destination; but Harry felt the curious urge to carry on to, to follow his memory down left, then left again – and down an alley, until he arrived at Rosier's Trifles. He wondered what had happened to it. Had the Aurors closed the shop down? What'd happened to the old man, Caudicus Rosier?
He felt someone – Susan or Daphne – tugging at his arm, and turned, following them to The Fell Nettle. Daphne held the door open for them.
They were far past opening hours, but a man was behind the counter, regardless. It'd cost Harry no few galleons to get him there, though not as many as the cost of the ingredients arrayed before them. Or so Daphne had claimed; she had arranged it all, while Harry had paid for it. All were carefully boxed and labelled, with names like Griffin's Heartstring and Orcspirit Essence.
The strange cat-like eyes of the proprietor fell on him, and Harry pulled his hood down further. He'd already covered his scar in Muggle makeup, but still… there was something deathly unnerving about him, with his yellow eyes and bone-white hair. He looked too young to possess such an ancient aspect, barely middle-aged…
"Your ingredients, young master."
He gestured airily to the counter, not even sparing a glance at Daphne or Susan. Harry swallowed nervously. Did he know?
There was a bag at the end of the counter, spun out of the strange knitted material Witches and Wizards preferred. Harry took the bag and packed the ingredients. His wand hand itched. The proprietor was watching him like a hawk.
"Thank you," Harry said, once it was all packed. "A good evening to you."
He'd never been more glad to leave a shop. He took a great gulp of the night air.
"Do… do you think he knew who we were?" Susan whispered.
"He knew who I was," Daphne said. "I set it up through my family. You I'm not sure of, but Harry…"
Harry saw her bite her lip.
"It doesn't matter," Harry said. "What's done is done. And who would believe him, anyway? For all the world thinks, I'm asleep at Hogwarts."
They made their way toward the Merlin's Regard gingerly. Harry soon handed Susan the bag of ingredients; he put himself between the watching Hags and his friends, his fingers brushing his wand beneath his sable cloak.
"Heh!" The nearest – and possibly ugliest – Hag cackled, staring at them with milky eyes, "the night is young, the night is young!"
Daphne froze; strangely, she seemed even more nervous than Susan. Harry pulled her onwards, and the Slytherin in turn diverted him toward an exterior staircase. They climbed in silence. Harry felt his heart beating; sweat began to pool on his brow.
But soon they were inside, finding themselves in a long corridor. The walls were white-washed, and the wooden beams crooked and sagging. A painting of a surreal landscape was flanked by two fading tapestries, breaking the monotony. It caught Harry's eye as they passed: Fairyland…
"Here," Daphne said lowly, fishing a gleaming silver key from her robes, "room eleven."
The door unlocked with a sharp click, then opened with a long squeak. Within was a room not unlike Harry's own at the Leaky Cauldron, though furnished in different colours. Harry took the sight in; the bed was slightly narrower, the floor timbered rather than carpeted… but it was otherwise familiar. More important than its appearance was its purpose.
"So…" Harry began, "let's, er, get on with it."
He didn't particularly fancy voicing 'let's brew this Dark potion.'
Daphne leapt into action, diving into the nearest dresser. Incongruously, she pulled out a heavy black cauldron. The rest of a potion's kit followed quickly. That must've been pre-arranged. Harry and Susan watched, Harry feeling a little useless; but he could not help but notice the slight shaking of Daphne's hand. Was she still thinking about the Hags?
"Can we, um, help?" Susan eventually said.
Daphne glanced up from the potion's kit a little frantically. "Yes – wait a minute." She took a small book from her robe pocket, flicking toward the centre. "There should be some stabilising candles hidden somewhere about. Arrange them-" she tapped the diagram, "-like this."
Taken aback, Susan took the book and stared.
Harry peered over her shoulder… the page displayed… Harry wasn't really sure what it displayed. But he could only call it one thing: a ritual. He didn't know much about rituals, except that they were Bad. Bad with a capital B.
He glanced over at Daphne, who was still fiddling with the potion's kit, doing something with the bottom of the cauldron. She'd described it as a potion…
But it was too late to back out now. They'd come too far.
"Let's just do it," he whispered to Susan.
She looked back at him, her bright blue eyes glimmering.
Harry held her breath… and Susan nodded. Thank Merlin.
They followed Daphne's instructions for half an hour while she brewed.
Apparently, the ritual's intent was no different to what Daphne had described. It called upon the memory of the earth itself – or, some argued, the memory of the ancestors of the drinker – to divine the parentage of whosoever drank the potion. However, the ritual's power came primarily from the burning of the blood of a white stag, stabilised by candle-fire – not from the potion itself, which was actually called a 'sparking potion'. It lit the magic in the blood.
Harry arranged the ritual in a daze. He couldn't even find it in him to be annoyed with Daphne; she'd lied, he knew, because she herself wanted to know the truth. The fact she cared enough to do all this was…
Daphne's cough broke his reverie. "It's finished," she said gravely, staring at the smoking cauldron.
It did not look appetising.
Susan handed the book back. "Have we done this right? I don't agree with this, but I don't want Harry-"
Daphne glanced at the book, then at the room. They'd arranged a practical field of candles (which was worrying, because the more candles, the more stabilisation required… and the more stabilisation, the more unstable the ritual really was), along with an interconnected myriad of channels. These were small trenches, just a couple of inches tall, made of a strange black metal. Arranged in the pattern of an unfamiliar rune, they could have only one purpose: to be a channel for blood.
"It's perfect," Daphne said. She snapped the book shut.
A sudden silence came upon the room. Harry looked over their work, from the trenches to the bubbling potion. It was all ready, but his mouth wouldn't move.
"W-well then?" Susan eventually said. "Are… are we doing this or not?"
Harry felt Daphne's dark-shaded eyes watching him. He took a deep breath. "Yes," he said. "What do I do?"
Daphne nodded. "Bones and I will move the Genus potion out the runic array - it's a little heavy, while you settle in the centre. You need this paper – that's how the… it will speak to you. I'll direct the ritual – you just need to drink the potion when I tell you, and place your hand on the paper."
That sounded simple enough. Harry made his way to the centre of the array and waited. He watched Susan and Daphne move the cauldron to the corner of the room. Daphne returned with a strangely greasy piece of paper, yellowed with age, and a vial of smoking clear liquid. It could only be the potion. Harry looked at it sourly. He knew exactly what was in it. He wished he didn't.
"Kneel down," Daphne told him quietly.
Harry placed the paper on the floor, placing his palm on it. He held the vial in his right hand.
Daphne returned to the edge of the array, while Susan looked on anxiously.
She unclasped the lid of a container she was yet to touch, a strange black cylinder that reminded Harry – strangely – of a Muggle Thermos. It clicked open, and Daphne poured its contents down the trench. It spread slowly, like treacle, and Susan gasped as it reached the light. It was a dark, deep red. The white stag's blood – a lot of it.
Suddenly, Harry felt trapped, as if the runic array was a prison, and he the only prisoner. Quite out of nowhere he recalled visiting the Birdcage, seeing Montague in his cell… had he gone through similar rituals? Was this common in Dark families?
Then Daphne started whispering. Quietly, quickly, and many, many words; she was reading from her small, nameless book. Harry strained to divine what she was saying, but each word seemed to quail from his mind, fleeing before he could define it.
The rafters creaked above him. Then the floorboards below, and Harry felt the distinct sensation of something… descending… something pressing its vast palm down from the Heavens and settling around them. It was like a hand around his throat, a stone atop his chest. Harry turned to the others, alarmed.
Daphne's whispering grew a little louder; she did not look up. Susan was looking back at him, equally frozen in quickly approaching terror.
Then something rose up from the earth, up from the dust of death and time, to meet the great invisible hand. Harry felt them embrace, and the world seemed to rock and shudder. The blood shimmered and flowed like rivers in the trenches; the air sparked and burned, and the candles flickered worryingly. They were all that was stabilising the ritual, all that was restraining the might of these two incomprehensible forces.
If they were to go out…
Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. They won't go out, he thought. They won't go out. They won't go out.
Images of a sudden snap, of the two forces crushing him until he was jelly passed through his mind.
He heard his heart within his ears.
They won't go out. They won't go out. They won't go out. They wo…
Harry cracked an eye open. The room was still there, and he was still alive, but something had changed. The air was still… and it was then Harry realised: the whispering – Daphne had stopped. The… things were gone.
A great wave of relief flooded through him, and he glanced down at the paper beneath his palm.
Something was being written there – indeed, something was writing itself, without quill nor ink. The words were appearing in plain cursive, one letter at a time, as if from nowhere.
No, Harry realised, from the past. And from those… whatever they were. They knew.
James Potter was the first name to appear. Not a revelation, but proof it was working.
Lily Potter.
Irritatingly, Charlus Potter appeared above James, then Dorea Potter - his paternal grandparents… not what he needed to know. But if it was moving generation to generation, paternal to maternal, that meant…
Harry's eyes flicked over to his mother's name. He waited with baited breath.
M, it began out-
A-
R-
R-
"Oh," Harry said. A spasm of anger overtook him; he could already tell what name this was: not a Muggle one.
O-
K-
G-
A-
All his attempts at learning Wizarding custom left him then; he didn't even consider substituting Merlin for- "Oh, shit."
U-
N-
Suddenly, there was a knock – a bang, really – on the door. Harry practically jumped out of his skin. His wand was in his hand before he even knew it.
His mind rushed through thoughts like a race-pattern Nimbus. Had it been discovered that they were out of bed? Was McGonagall coming for them? No, it wasn't likely… and something about that knocking riled him the wrong way.
The Hags, perhaps? Or the proprietor of the apothecary? Either way, they were here for him and weren't friendly. The decision was made; he glanced at his friends.
"Get to the back of the room!" he ordered.
Harry squared himself. Whoever was on the other side of that door was an adult, and a nasty one. He wasn't ready.
He had no other choice.
A/N:
The day was coming; now has arrived. As you can see, Harry hasn't got what he wanted at all, and has seemingly picked up some more foes on the way… for reasons that shall be soon explored.
Arguably, later additions to canon rule out the idea of Harry-as-a-Slytherin-descendent entirely (if I so recall, I don't really pay attention anymore), but I'm ignoring everything after the seventh book. And my intention has always been too explore the unexplored sections of the HP universe, of which Lily Potter's own ancestry is one.
It's not a very pretty one, at all.
(And yes, this does make Petunia a Squib).
NEXT CHAPTER:
Harry finds himself in a serious fight, finds something out about Daphne Greengrass, and discovers yet another book. A curious tome – one that is seemingly unused...
PS. As usual, the next chapter is available early on D-iscord, and yet another chapter beyond that on P-atreon.