MoP
Harry Potter and the Myriad of Possibilities: Betrayal
Chapter 5: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw
Disclaimer: This is solely a not-for-profit fan activity and does not intend to infringe on copyrights held by Time Warner, CBS, CTV, 20th Century Studios, Alliance Atlantis Communications, DC Comics, Bloomsbury et al, or JK Rowling, Paul Haggis and Shawn Ryan. Any characters that are original to this work remain the property of the author.
A/N: The Myriad of Possibilities Series primarily uses the background from the Harry Potter books but some elements and scenes have been borrowed from other sources – including the movies, Pottermore and my own headcanon – that will be covered where they fit into the narrative. The timeline of the DC Comics elements borrows heavily from Young Justice (2011) and may adapt elements and characters from the comics and several additional other media instalments – including but not limited to Smallville (2001) and Superman and Lois (2021) – and relocates events of Young Justice to the Eighties and early Nineties rather than the New Tens and Twenties as screened and includes several 'legacy' and original characters as a result.
A/N: Thanks to Jon, 6f5e4d and for their help on this chapter.
Lochaber,
March 1, 19:16 GMT.
"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you… Happy Birthday, dear Ron… Happy Birthday to you," chorused the Gryffindors as the Weasley twins carried in a large chocolate cake and placed it on a low table in front of their younger brother.
"Hip, hip…" added Hank.
"Hooray!" finished the group.
"Thanks, guys," said Ron, blushing a vibrant red almost as bright as his hair.
Most of the Gryffindors wandered away after that, but Hank, Hermione, the other Gryffindor first years and the Quidditch team settled into chairs and sofas around the table as Ron started to cut up slices of cake and exchange them for various gifts.
Most of the gifts were small: a homework diary from Hermione, a small animated sketch from Dean and Kellah, and a luxury eagle quill from Percy, but Hank's was something of a standout.
"A Chudley Cannons hat!" Ron exclaimed as he unwrapped it, then jammed it on to his head. "Cool!"
"I'm glad you like it," Hank said, amused.
Lochaber,
March 5, 04:30 GMT.
When Hank woke, he felt a cold breeze on the back of his neck. "What the…?!" he exclaimed, and sat bolt upright, immediately spotting Peeves the Poltergeist floating near him, his spectral lips pursed as if blowing.
"What did you do that for?!" Hank hissed furiously.
Peeves puffed out his cheeks, blew hard, and zoomed backward out of the room, cackling.
Cursing Peeves, he rolled over and tried to get back to sleep, but gave it up after a while, and got up, dressed, picked up his Starsweeper, and headed out of the dorm.
As he passed through the door, he spotted Crookshanks perched on Neville's bedstand picking up a scrap of paper and dropping down to the ground and padding back to Hermione's bed.
Hank whiled away the hours until dawn meditating in front of the fire, then eventually decided that it must be time for breakfast, so he headed through the portrait hole alone. "Stand and fight, you mangy cur!" Sir Cadogan – the animated portrait who had replaced the Fat Lady after Black's attack – yelled from behind him, as walked down the corridor.
"Oh, shut up," Hank yawned as he stepped onto the staircase and started down it, his head still fuzzy from lack of sleep.
He revived a bit over a large bowl of porridge, and by the time he'd started on toast, the rest of the team had turned up.
"Good conditions today," Wood – who wasn't eating anything – commented. "Hank, Cho Chang is playing as Seeker, she's pretty good… I really hoped she wouldn't be fit, she's had some problems with injuries…"
"Yeah, she mentioned that at the Babel Club on Monday," Hank confirmed. "I think I've got her measure though."
"Well, I hope so," Wood said darkly, and the rest of the team nodded.
10:45 GMT.
At a quarter to eleven, the Gryffindor team set off for the locker rooms. It was a clear, cool day with a very light breeze; there would be none of the visibility problems that they'd had during their match against Slytherin, and Hank was starting to feel his anticipation build as a shout from the direction of the main gates distracted him as a slim red-headed girl rushed toward him with Hagrid lumbering in her wake.
Seconds later, Linda flung herself into his arms. "Hank!" she squeeled, her excitement clear in her voice. "Sorry I'm late."
"It's okay," Hank assured her as he folded his arms around her to support her. "We're just on our way down to the match, I'm sure we can catch up later."
Linda nodded. "Aunt Lana says I can stay all weekend; she fixed it up with Professor McGonagall."
"Can we get moving?" Oliver asked impatiently. "The match is supposed to start in a few minutes."
"I suppose so," Linda agreed cheekily and stepped out of Hank's arms. "I'll go and find Hermione and the boys."
"I'll go with yeh," Hagrid added from behind the pair. "I've got a feelin' I'm gonna want a good seat fer this one."
"Well, that's the plan," Hank agreed and turned to follow the rest of the Gryffindor team into the changing rooms.
11:00 GMT.
They walked out onto the field to tumultuous applause, and Hank nodded a greeting to Cho as he lined up opposite her. She smiled back, and he felt a slight lurch in the region of his stomach that he didn't think had anything to do with nerves.
"Wood, Davies, shake hands," Madam Hooch said briskly, and Oliver shook hands with the Ravenclaw Captain, Roger Davies, a tall brown-haired, brown-eyed third year.
"Mount your brooms…" ordered Madam Hooch. "On my whistle... three, two, one…"
Hank kicked off into the air and the Star zoomed higher and faster than any other broom; he soared around the stadium and began squinting around for the Snitch, listening all the while to the commentary.
"They're off, Alicia Spinnet with the Quaffle, blocked Randolph Burrow… passes to Katie Bell, who dodges Roger Davies…" announced Lee Jordan as Hank closed the gap between himself and Katie, then sped past her following a glint of gold ahead of him, then Cho cut in front of him, forcing him change direction.
"Show her what you can do, Hank!" Fred yelled from behind him as Cho cut in front of him, forcing him to change direction.
Hank nodded, then urged the Starsweeper forward as he zipped round one of the Ravenclaw goalposts and Cho fell behind.
"… dodges Jeremy Sutton… and shots…" announced Lee Jordan. "Katie Bell scores! Gryffindor leads ten points to zero… Angelina Johnson with the Quaffle."
At that moment, Hank spotted another glint of gold – the Golden Snitch – flitting close to the ground near one of the barriers. He dived, with Cho only a few broom-lengths behind him… he was only ten feet away and was about to take one of his hands off the broom when a Bludger, hit by one of the Ravenclaw Beaters, came pelting out of nowhere. Hank veered off course, avoiding it by an inch, and in those few, crucial seconds, the Snitch had vanished.
There was a great "Ooooooh" of disappointment from the Gryffindor supporters, but much applause for their Beater from the Ravenclaw end.
George Weasley vented his feelings by hitting the second Bludger directly at the offending Beater, who was forced to roll right over in midair to avoid it as Angelina banked around the Ravenclaw goal area and slotted the Quaffle through one of the hoops to give Gryffindor an extra ten point lead.
12:16 GMT.
Hank dropped lower, narrowly avoiding a Ravenclaw Chaser, scanning the field frantically, then he spotted a glint of gold, a flutter of tiny wings… the Snitch was circling the Gryffindor goalpost. Hank accelerated, eyes fixed on the speck of gold ahead, but just then, Cho appeared out of his blind spot, blocking him.
"HANK, THIS IS NO TIME TO BE A GENTLEMAN!" Wood roared as he swerved to avoid a collision. "KNOCK HER OFF HER BROOM IF YOU HAVE TO!"
Hank turned to look at Cho, she was grinning.
The Snitch had vanished again. Hank turned his Starsweeper upward and was soon twenty feet above the game. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cho following him. Well, if you want to tail me, make me do all the work… you'll have to take the consequences… he thought as he dived again, and she tried to follow. Hank pulled out of the dive very sharply and she hurtled downward only three broom-lengths behind him, then two, one… then he pulled back on the handle of his broom and rose fast as a bullet once more.
Just as he levelled out, he saw the Snitch again, glittering way above the field at the Ravenclaw end. He accelerated and many feet below, so did Cho. He was winning, gaining on the Snitch with every second…
"Oh!" screamed Cho, pointing.
Distracted, Hank looked down. Two Dementors… two tall, black, hooded dementors, were looking up at him.
He didn't stop to think. He realised one of his hands from his broom and pointed it at them, fingers spread. "Mi vokas protektanton!"
Something silver-white, edged in green, something enormous, manifested in front of him and shot directly at the Dementors.
"Merlin's Beard!" exclaimed Lee. "What is that?!"
Hank – his mind was still miraculously clear – looked ahead, focusing on the Snitch. He stretched out the hand still grasping his wand and just managed to close his fingers over the small, struggling, winged metal ball.
Madam Hooch's whistle sounded. Hank turned around in midair and saw six scarlet blurs bearing down on him; next moment, the whole team was hugging him so hard he was nearly pulled off his broom. Down below he could hear the roars of the Gryffindors in the crowd.
"That's my boy!" Oliver kept yelling. Alicia, Angelina, and Katie had all kissed Hank; Fred had him in a grip so tight Hank felt as though his head would come off. In complete disarray, the team managed to make their way back to the ground. Hank got off his broom and looked up to see a gaggle of Gryffindor supporters sprinting onto the field, Linda in the lead. Before he knew it, he had been engulfed by the cheering crowd.
Linda hugged him around the middle, grinning broadly as Ron yelled, yanking Hank's arm into the air. "Yes! Yes!"
"Well done, Hank!" said Percy, looking delighted. "Ten Galleons to me! Must find Penelope, excuse me…"
"Good for you, Hank!" roared Seamus Finnigan.
"Ruddy brilliant!" boomed Hagrid over the heads of the milling Gryffindors.
"That was quite some Patronus," said a familiar voice behind Hank.
He turned around, guiding Linda around with him, to look at Remus who looked confused but pleased. "The Dementors didn't affect me at all!" Hank said excitedly. "I didn't feel a thing!"
"That would be because they, er… weren't Dementors," Remus told him.
"What?!" Hank exclaimed.
Remus nodded, then turned slightly and indicated behind him. "Come and see."
Hank shifted Linda around so that they could walk side-by-side as Remus led them out of the crowd until they were able to see the edge of the field.
"You gave Mr. Malfoy quite a fright," said Remus, trying to hide his amusement.
Hank stared. Lying in a crumpled heap on the ground were Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and Marcus Flint – the Slytherin team Captain – all struggling to remove themselves from long, black, hooded robes. It looked as though Malfoy had been standing on Crabbe's shoulders, and Parkinson on Goyle's.
Standing over them, with an expression of the utmost fury on her face, was Professor McGonagall. "An unworthy trick!" she was shouting. "A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor Seeker! Detention for all of you, and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake! Ah, here he comes now!"
If anything could have set the seal on Gryffindor's victory, it was this. Ron, who had fought his way through to Hank's side, doubled up with laughter as they watched Malfoy fighting to extricate himself from the robe, Crabbe's head still stuck inside it.
"Come on, Hank!" said George, fighting his way over. "Party! Gryffindor common room, now!"
"Right," said Hank, and feeling happier than he had in ages, he and the rest of the team led the way, still in their scarlet robes, out of the stadium and back up to the castle, with Fred and George breaking off when the group reached the Entrance Hall.
"Where are they going?" Hank asked Ron as they stepped onto the grand staircase.
"Not sure," Ron admitted. "It's usually best not to ask."
Hank pondered that for a moment, then conceded that the lanky redhead might have a point.
13:00 GMT.
"What was that thing that you conjured?" Hermione asked as she settled down with the two Langs and Ron in a quiet corner. "Professor Lupin called it a Patronus?"
"It doesn't really have a name per se," Hank replied from the oversized easy chair that he and Linda were sharing. "Remus calls it that because I used the Patronus Charm, which creates a Patronus – a spirit protector or guardian that uses a lack of consciousness and its nature as a construct of pure positive emotion – combined with the Green Flame spell from Cho's ancestor's book, as the basis for my spell."
Hermione blinked, briefly silent as she digested that information. "I didn't know that you could create your own spells… slight variations, yes… I've seen you do that in class… but not all new spells."
"I try to avoid it," Hank admitted. "It's… risky. But I wasn't prepared to leave myself defenceless against the Dementors again and there's no way that I could pull off the Patronus Charm. According to Remus that's 'far beyond NEWT-level', I haven't got anything close to that level of experience."
Hermione deflated a little at that. "Could I learn your spell?"
"Eventually, maybe," Hank replied reluctantly. "But I've been apprenticed to Zee since I was eight – there was a incident between me and a substitute teacher over one of my classmates – and even then the results when I tried anything complicated were often… painful."
"Sorcery is not something to mess around with," Linda added. "I lost the ability to communicate with almost everyone for weeks after my first introduction to it."
Hermione nodded her understanding. "What was the thing that your spirit guardian took the form of… is that usual?"
"Patronuses typically take animal forms," Hank replied. "Mine usually took the form of diamond-shaped shield in practice sessions… I didn't get a good look at it this morning."
"I definitely reminded me of something," Linda interjected and raised her hand up to eye-level. "It certainly wasn't a regular animal, might have been magical I suppose… Zeig uns den Beschützer meines Cousins…" A small projection of the creature, tinted the crimson red of her own power, popped into existence and hovered above her outstretched palm.
"Merlin's Beard!" Ron exclaimed.
Hank peered at the creation for a moment, then nodded. "That looks like Ghimshom, which would make a certain amount of sense, given that I used the Green Flame to power it…"
"That could just be my power though," Linda reminded him. "If I remember correctly… Wedhinzil seems more like the enemy of the Dementors."
"I agree," Hank replied.
"Who are Ghimshom and Wedhinzil?" Hermione asked.
"A long time ago, on a planet far, far, away…" Hank began, pausing slightly when Linda elbowed him in the side and Hermione gave him an odd look. "There was a being called Rao, father of most of that planet's pantheon of gods, and amongst his most favoured was Ghimshom… a bird of chaos fire, was created for a singular duty: necessary renewal and birth; to clear away that which is harmful or fallow; that something greater may grow in its place… and so that the chaos fire within her would not burn rampant or uncontrolled, her father instilled in her one controlling force… love. Her love was fierce, and amongst those she loved the most was her brother, Vohc."
Hank paused for a moment to take a drink and have a few bites of lunch, then continued. "Vohc's hands were guided by endless curiosity and boundless desire to create, to craft, to improve upon that which he had built before, and inscribe their father's signature upon the material world. The Builder, the maker of things in the twilight, in the space between day and night was in turn inspired to ever-greater feats of creation by his own love for her in turn."
"Where does Wedhinzil fit in?" Hermione asked.
Hank sighed. "That's where things get… complicated," he replied. "Through the eons, the Children of Rao played their game of creation and destruction… Vohc, compelled by the will of his father and inspired by the love of his sister, faced his task with joy. In devotion, he crafted ever more delicate and elegant engines of creation: the perfect sunset; the lushest jungle; the hardiest beast; the mightiest river… Ghimshom, compelled by the will of her father and her devotion to her brother, faced her task with joy and razed Vohc's constructions, inspiring him to ever greater feats of craft. Theirs was a divine contest, played in harmony, a precise mechanism that shaped the planet Krypton until two became three…
"Wedhinzil, literally 'The Father's watchful eyes in the darkness', was charged by Rao to seek out and destroy the evil and corruption that hid in the shadows, as hidden to daylight eyes as his prey," Hank explained. "But Vohc, who toiled in the twilight was one of the few who could see Wedhinzil and they eventually became friends and Vohc – seeking to solve his friend's loneliness and so built a bridge between Wedhinzil's shadow realm and Ghimshom's daystar glow… and in that act of kindness created the seeds of betrayal, hatred and vengeance…"
"Vohc beheld the love between his kin, and was inspired once more, a raw, bottomless and hungry feeling as powerful as the fires of chaos yoked within him. He searched the planet for the perfect location to give form to his inspiration, to the crowning achievement of his existence, the ultimate expression of the pure, unselfish love that he held for his muse… and seeing his tribute, Ghimshom praised her brother's work and marvelled at the creature, then raised her hands to rain down fire on it as was her duty and her nature… For the first time, Vohc pleaded for what he had made… he implored her to look close, to see the truth of his craft, that she would know the depth and strength of his love. 'And this is the expression of my love,' declared his muse. 'From this renewal, you shall create that which is greater'. Thus, he saw his offering burnt to ask before him, and with it his love for Ghimshom… and the void in its place was filled with something new to Rao's creation… boundless sorrow, and the seeds of madness…"
"In deepening madness, they grew a cold certainty. Ghimshom had destroyed his greatest creation, and in so doing had poisoned his love for her… to punish her in return he must destroy her greatest love… his brother, Wedhinzil. He set his hand to a new creation, a magnificent crystal spire, that he charged with vast reserves of power before presenting it to Ghimshom for judgement. But this time, when Ghimshom struck out with divine fire, the fabric of nature tore and howled in agony and a new space of phantoms and emptiness was created… Vohc's monument to the void that their father abhorred and as the spire shattered, a single fragment pierced the shadows, imprisoning Wedhinzil within an impenetrable void….
"Ghimshom chose Wedhinzil, and Vohc turned away from his father's design, becoming an abomination: The Breaker, the Betrayer of Kin, the First Heretic in the eyes of Rao."
His audience sat quietly for a moment digesting the story until they were distracted by the arrival of Fred and George, who were carrying armfuls of bottles of butterbeer and pumpkin fizz, and several bags filled to the brim with Honeydukes sweets and other snacks.