Prophecy Babies and Powers He Knows Not
Monday, 10 August 1998
Harry had never thought that years of nonstop nightmares and Voldy-visions followed by a year of being constantly alert while sleeping in a tent would be good practice for parenting, alas.
Teddy is, of course, the perfect baby. No one would ever be able to convince Harry otherwise. But even perfect babies can be deeply annoying at times. This was one of those times.
It was 4:00 in the morning and Harry was awake for the third time that night. It was starting to look like sleep just wouldn’t come. Teddy didn’t necessarily scream, he rarely truly cried. But he was restless. Harry couldn’t really complain, he was also restless. But he tended to save it for when he was actually awake. Teddy was only ever fully still when he was being held, specifically when he was being held by Harry.
Harry was about four seconds away from throwing “safe sleeping” to the wind and casting a sticking charm on the hyperactive infant to adhere Teddy to his chest and then sticking them both to the bed when he heard movement outside his door.
Years of living in a less than hospitable home followed by the terror of war had Harry drawing his wand and creeping to check who was outside his door, moving as silently as possible he pulled the door open and came face to face with “Neville? What are you doing here? It’s four in the sodding morning?”
“Harry, mate,” Neville responded, with no small amount of exasperation, “I’ve been here all night, you showed me to my room not six hours ago.”
“I have an infant Neville, I’ve lost my grasp on reality, forgive me.”
Neville just breathed out a laugh, shaking his head.
“But that doesn’t explain why you’re wandering about in the middle of the night, are you alright Nev?”
“Yeah, Haz, I’m alright. I’m just getting some water. Are you okay? You look exhausted. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Unless you want to come deal with the most hyperactive child I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, then no. You should get some sleep, at least one of us should be functional to talk to King Ragnok tomorrow and the goblins are still quite peeved at me for the whole robbery and dragon theft fiasco.”
“Harry, you are the only person I know who could break into a vault, and not just any vault but one of the oldest vaults in the bank, then steal a dragon and fly it through the roof of Gringotts and only get away with a fine. Most people would be beheaded.”
“Honestly, Nev, if I didn’t think it sounded insane I’d think Ragnok was actually amused by the whole thing.”
“Knowing your strange luck, he probably was.” Neville responded with a laugh, “but I think we should both be functional for our first official act as Lords Slytherin and Gryffindor,” he pauses to shake his head, “do you think that will ever get less insane?”
“No, I sincerely doubt it will.” Harry deadpanned back.
“You’re probably right mate,” Neville shot back with a grin, “how about I come sit with Teddy for a bit while you sleep, he settles down when someone is holding him right?”
“You don’t have to do that, Neville, we’ll be alright.”
“I know you will be, Harry, but you’re not alone right now. Or at least you don’t have to be. Eventually you’ll learn to ask for help but for now, I’m perfectly happy forcing help upon you.”
With a sigh that does little to cover his appreciation for his friend, Harry pulls the door open and lets Neville in. He’s asleep before his head hits the pillow.
Harry comes to a few hours later to the sounds of Neville explaining the functions of aconite and Teddy humming as if the 3-month-old boy can understand the lecture.
“Nev, I love you like a brother, but I’ll hurt you if you turn my son into an herbology swot.”
“Oh, sod off you mouthy git,” Neville responds with a grin, “did you get some sleep?”
“I did, thank you, you’re a life saver, I take back what I said about hurting you, I’d never hurt you, you are the light of my life, I will love you forever.”
“Laying it on a little thick there, Potter.”
That specific inflection on Potter can only belong to one person, though it comes with significantly less bite recently, “Malfoy what are you doing in my bedroom?”
“It hasn’t been Malfoy for awhile, Potter. Remember the whole dissolution of the Malfoy family and you naming me as your heir last week? I knew you were dense but I thought you at least had a short-term memory,” Draco chides before adding with his signature smirk, “this must be one of those previously unknown effects of surviving the killing curse, Scarhead.”
“You know, Draco, if it wouldn’t be a waste of my heroic efforts to get us both out of that fiendfyre, I’d murder you in cold blood.”
“You say the sweetest things, Harold.”
The thwack of Harry’s pillow hitting the back of Draco’s head followed by maniacal laughter from the blonde can be heard echoing through the house.
“You know, Haz, I’m not sure if this method of antagonizing each other is any less annoying than when you used to curse each other in the hallways.”
“Don’t forget the murder attempts, my dear Neville, now give me my boy and go get ready for the day. We have a lot of shit to do, and I want to do approximately none of it.”
“Why don’t I sit with him a little while longer while you shower and get ready and then you can sit with him until we have to leave, he’s staying with Andi and Narcissa today, right?”
“Yeah, I thought Diagon might be a bit much for him, plus I didn’t want to just leave him with someone random while we’re in our meeting. I’ll take you up on that opportunity to shower though,” Harry says while he rolls out of bed with a joint-cracking stretch.
“You hear that, Teds? Your dad’s an old man.”
“Oi! Your Uncle Nev is a dirty liar, cub,” Harry barks out, then gives up on concealing his laugh, “you be good, I’m gonna go shower, I’ll see you soon sweet boy,” he adds with a kiss on top of Teddy’s messy curls.
“I’m not a liar,” Neville whispers, “but I’m sure happy to be your Uncle Nev little cub,” he adds as he presses his own kiss on the boy’s head.
* * *
Once Harry and Neville were both ready to go, they made their way downstairs to pass Teddy off to his gran and meet up with their friends for a trip into Diagon.
Several people had made Grimmauld their home aside from the extended Black Family (Narcissa, Andromeda, Draco, Harry, and Teddy); Blaise and Pansy showed up at some point and just never really left, Neville was there more often than not, Goyle had officially moved in after his father’s trial in early June (he’d escaped trial by not being marked and largely staying in Crabbe’s shadow throughout the war), Theo had done the same thing. Ginny and the twins were over a lot when they weren’t helping out at the Burrow or running the shop.
The other Gryffindors in their year came over at least once a week, they’d banded together in the wake of missing Harry, Hermione, and Ron for a full year and having to lead a resistance in the school and had grown even closer in the wake of the final battle. They’d all be returning for an Eighth Year and had pledged to start over as friends, all of them together instead of separating into groups as they’d done in their First year.
McGonagall had told them that the Eighth Years would all be living in converted faculty rooms. When the school was in its hayday, there had been hundreds of kids per class instead of the mere 50 or so they got in the wake of two, now three, wizarding wars. There had been multiple teachers per core subject and more options for auxiliary subjects. Now, those rooms sat open as abandoned classrooms and unused living quarters. They’d also get the secondary faculty lounge at the base of the tower as their combined common room. After seven years of being at each other’s throats, they were all exhausted and were quite looking forward to spending their final year at Hogwarts attempting to get along. The general philosophy was ‘if Draco and Harry can sit in a room without cursing each other, the rest of us probably can too.’
Neville and Harry walked into the floo room conversing quietly about their upcoming meeting with the Goblins and about all the things they needed to take care of before September 1st when their conversation was halted by a missile by the name of Hermione Jean Granger launching herself at Harry.
Ron and Hermione had been in Australia since the day after Harry’s birthday, tracking down Hermione’s parents and reversing their obliviation. They’d gotten word from the pair a week prior that they’d located her parents and had been able to restore their memories, they were incredibly lucky that Hermione was a level-headed and precise witch otherwise it could’ve gone Lockhart levels of bad.
A yell of, “HARRY,” was his only warning before he was knocked to the ground by his best friend. Accepting his fate, Harry just laughed and wrapped his arms around Hermione, asking “how’s it going, ‘Mione?” with a smile on his face.
Hermione, in true Hermione fashion, launched into a series of stories, questions, and answers to her own questions where no one had a chance of getting a word in edgewise, used to these antics, Ron just shrugged before grabbing Neville by the arm and hauled them both into the dog pile. After a few minutes of chatter the fire flashed green and the Patil sisters stepped through the floo, upon taking in the scene, Parvati shrugged and wedged herself between Harry and Neville.
The group of shocked Slytherins looked to the lone Ravenclaw like she might have an answer, she simply shrugged and said “Gryffindors,” with a soft smile. That seemed to be answer enough until Dean and Seamus walked in the front door and bee-lined for the pile of their classmates.
“This is sickening.”
“Shut it, Black.” Harry started.
“You’re just jealous,” Neville continued.
“that the lion den is warm”
“and cozy”
“and just so much better”
“Than your dreary pit of snakes!”
“Harry is literally Lord Slytherin!” Draco shot back, “and please quit it with the twin speak, you’re giving me a headache, and you’re not even twins!”
“Never!” Neville and Harry responded in unison before the lions descended into giggles.
“Since when do they do that?” Padma asked her sister.
“I think they started it as a joke in Fifth Year as a way to throw the Weasley twins off their game during DA meetings and somehow it stuck,” Padma said, looking to the other Gryffindors for confirmation.
“I thought it started Fourth Year when they hung out a bunch while Ron was being a twat,” Seamus added before ducking Ron’s swat at the back of his head.
“Oi! We’re all aware I was a twat, no need to bring it up,” Ron shot back before pausing to think, “I thought it started third year when they hung out a bunch while Hermione and I were fighting over her cat trying to kill the Death Eater that slept in my bed for three years?”
“Ronald must you continue to speak about the Pettigrew incident in the most disturbing way you can conceive?” Hermione asked with a look she tried to pass off as disgruntled but was incredibly fond.
Ron just shrugged in response.
“This is the only time you’ll hear me say this so pay close attention,” Harry said.
“Ron’s right.” Neville finished.
“Yes!” Ron whooped while pumping his fist in the air before Harry’s statement sunk in, “hey, rude,” he continued before sitting quietly for a second, “I’ve always wanted to ask how you guys pull it off? I mean the twin speak that Fred and George do is because they’re magical twins, they had a bond that Fred described once as passive leglimency, they had a sense of what the other was thinking or feeling and could read each other’s thoughts to an extent, so it makes sense that they’re able to follow the other’s train of thought to speak sentence between the two of them, how in Merlin’s name do you two pull it off?”
“We’re honestly not sure,” Harry said with a shrug.
“Yeah,” Neville continued, “when we started spending time together in Third Year we talked some about our parents because of the whole Sirius Black is a deranged felon who happens to be Harry’s godfather and he’s coming to kill him drama.”
“What an incredible summary of that situation, Neville.”
“Why thank you, Hadrian,” Neville said with a laugh, “but then we started talking about what godparents meant in the magical world, and I mentioned that my mother was Harry’s godmother and Harry’s mother was mine. We both grew up incredibly lonely and always wanted siblings so we started joking about being godbrothers and then we remembered that our birthdays are one after the other,”
“So we joked about being godtwins instead; not quite brothers, not quite twins but still something,” Harry added, “then Dean mentioned it would be funny if we could do the twin speak thing that Fred and George do so we thought why not, could be funny if we could figure it out.”
“By fifth year we were weirdly good at it, but we didn’t understand until the end of that year how alike we actually were.”
“Neville, if we’re gonna have this conversation with everyone, we should maybe get off the floor.”
“What do you mean?” Theo asked, looking concerned and something else Harry might describe as jealousy if that wasn’t an insane concept.
“It has to do with what happened when we were babies and what happened at the end of the Battle, if you guys want to hear the full story we have time now, we don’t have to be at Gringotts for a few hours, but we should maybe move into one of the sitting rooms so we can all be more comfortable.”
“We’d like to hear the story,” Draco said, “as long as you two are comfortable telling it.”
Neville and Harry looked at each other for a moment before Neville shrugged and Harry nodded.
“We’ll explain as much as we can,” Neville said, “there are some parts that we’ll never fully understand because anyone who could explain is dead or incapacitated.”
“And when we say anyone we mean anyone.”
* * *
Five minutes later, all of the Gryffindor Eighth Years, most of the Slytherins, and a lone Ravenclaw were seated in the family tree room at Grimmauld Place with tea.
“I’m not sure how to start this story,” Harry spoke into the silence.
“Start at the beginning,” Parvati suggested softly, she’d heard bits and pieces over the last couple of years but hadn’t ever heard the whole thing.
“That’s the issue, I think,” Hermione responded, “they’re not quite sure what the ‘beginning’ is.”
“You’re right, Hermione,” Neville sighed, before turning to Harry, “maybe you start with what you know from wherever you feel most comfortable and I’ll fill in the gaps?”
“That’s as good an idea as any, Nev.” Harry sat quietly for another moment before leaning back further into the couch he was sitting on, sandwiched between Neville and Hermione.
“Take your time, Hades, we’ve got time and we’re all just grateful you’re choosing to trust us.”
“Yeah, exactly what Draco said,” Blaise added, “this seems a lot more serious than you two teaching yourself twin speak to pull one over on the Weasleys.”
Harry couldn’t help but laugh, “you could certainly say that Blaise.” But that seemed to be the push he needed.
“Neville and I are tied together by prophecy,” Harry began. “You all grew up knowing be as the Boy-who-Lived, a moniker I hate by the way. I hate it because it was born from the night I lost my parents. The reason I bring this up is that Voldemort didn’t decide to go after my parents on a whim,” he paused for a breath, “some of you may have heard that our home was under Fidelius because we were being targeted, what most don’t know is that it wasn’t my parents he was targeting, it was me.” He stopped for a moment while everyone let that sink in.
“But he wasn’t only after Harry,” Neville cut in softly, “I was also an option.”
Everyone’s heads snapped towards Neville at that, even Ron and Hermione, it seems, hadn’t heard the full story as it related to Neville.
“Shortly before Neville and I were born,” Harry began again before he was cut off by Neville, “wait, Harry, how do you know the timeline?”
“Snape used his dying moments to tell Harry to collect certain memories, one of them answered the timeline question,” Hermione answered. Most of the Slytherins in the room were obviously confused by their Head of House’s involvement. Draco, the man’s godson, was not. He’d long suspected that Severus was tasked with protecting Harry in some manner and had gathered enough half-truths to realize that Lily Potter had been someone he held dear.
“What Hermione said,” Harry continued, “shortly before we were born Dumbledore was interviewing someone for the Divination post at Hogwarts, it wasn’t a great interview and he was about to reject her application when her eyes went glassy and she started to speak a true prophecy…” he trailed off.
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…” Neville began.
“Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…” Harry continued, “there’s more to the prophecy that we’ll explain in a second, but there was a Death Eater sitting outside of the room where this interview was taking place, at this point in the prophecy, the owner of the bar noticed he was listening into the interview and kicked him out, he took what he had heard back to Voldemort and it was enough for Voldemort to determine that the unborn child of either the Potters or the Longbottoms was the Child of the Prophecy.”
“He decided to cut the child off before they could become the ‘one with the power to vanquish’ but I’m not sure how our parents knew this, all I know is that Dumbledore told our parents they needed to go into hiding because our families were being targeted,” Neville said, “I’m not even sure if he told them it was the children he was targeting or not.”
“He didn’t,” Harry continued, “at least I don’t think he did. I do, however, know how they knew they needed to hide.”
“Severus told Dumbledore, didn’t he?” Draco asked.
“Yes. As soon as Voldemort decided that he was going to go after my mother, Snape turned away from his cause. He begged Voldemort to save my mother, going so far as to tell him that he could kill me and my father as long as he spared my mother.”
“That’s revolting,” Theo cut in, “who offers up an infant?”
“I think he knew that Voldemort wouldn’t spare any of us so he went for the most likely option, strangely enough Voldemort did tell my mother to move aside and he’d spare her, but she obviously told him, in no uncertain terms, to fuck right off.”
“Harry I sincerely doubt Lily Potter’s last words were ‘fuck off’,” Hermione said with a slight smile at her best friend’s total lack of tact. At least some things never change.
“You’re right Hermione, and I do know her last words by heart because I heard them every time I was near a dementor in third year, but I don’t think I’ll be sharing them with anyone.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable, Harry,” Parvati said from where she was sitting at Harry’s feet, “are you alright to continue the story?”
“Yeah, thanks Parv,” Harry said, then took a steadying breath before continuing, “Snape knew it was unlikely that Voldemort would spare any of us, so after making his case there, he turned to Dumbledore. Dumbledore promised to protect my family, all of us, in exchange for Snape becoming a spy. Dumbledore had heard the whole prophecy but wasn’t sure how it would be interpreted, approaches and born don’t necessarily mean literally born, it could have been someone coming in from abroad or someone joining the fight, but the most likely interpretation was, of course, a child born at the end of July would be the one with the power to vanquish. And, as soon as Voldemort interpreted the prophecy in that manner, Dumbledore knew he’d need to follow suit.”
“The Dark Lord put a great amount of faith in the Divine. He was obsessed with fairy tails and prophecies, he spent his last year on an insane scavenger hunt for the Elder Wand because he genuinely believed in the story of the three brothers. What a headcase,” Draco said with a scoff.
Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Neville were stock still.
Noticing their reaction, Draco breathed out, “no.”
“What does the Wizengamot call me, Draco?”
“Lord Peverell, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I promise I’ll come back around to that, we think it has something to do with the later part of the prophecy in some twisted way, but just keep my title in mind.” Harry answered before saying, “now, where was I?”
“Dumbledore knew he needed to follow Voldemort’s interpretation,” Daphne prompted.
“Right, thanks Greengrass,” Harry said with a smile, “so, he knew that Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy to mean a baby. There were only two babies who fit the bill. Alice and Frank Longbottom and Lily and James Potter had both faced off with Voldemort himself three times and come away standing, and both couples had a son born at the end of July. Neville on July 30th and me on the 31st. Dumbledore was nearly certain that Voldemort would interpret the prophecy to mean me but asked both families to go into hiding just to be safe. Now I’m genuinely not sure if he was expecting Voldemort to just wait until we turned 17 to show up and vanquish him or what, but over the next year, he kept tracking us down.
“I don’t know where the Longbottoms were, but I know that my family left Potter Manor and went into hiding at the cottage in Godric’s Hollow. Dumbledore suggested that the house be placed under Fidelius and offered to be the secret keeper, my father refused and said they’d take care of it. He trusted no one but their closest circle at that point. My mother ended up placing the charm and they told Dumbledore that Sirius was the secret keeper. That wasn’t the case though, my Dad and Sirius decided that would be too obvious, so they told him that it was Sirius but switched it for Peter Pettigrew at the last second.” He paused to take a breath and let his anger at the rat simmer out.
“The problem was, Pettigrew was Voldemort’s spy in the Order. Soon after the Fidelius was placed, he told Voldemort our location and on Halloween night he showed up, you all know that story, or as much of it as I’m going to share.”
“Then,” Neville cut in, both because this was his part of the story and to give Harry a moment, “a few days after Halloween, some of Voldemort’s most faithful followers showed up at my house and tortured my parents for information on where their Lord had gone, they didn’t believe he was truly gone.”
“I mean, they were right, their method of information gathering was just utterly psychotic,” Harry said, everyone was slightly shocked when Neville laughed.
“Jesus Christ I forgot they were both like this,” Hermione said under her breath.
“Then, after that happened, Neville was raised by his gran and a series of less than caring Great Uncles and I was raised by my mother’s muggle sister who hated magic and her whale of a husband who tried to literally beat the magic out of me, but that’s a story for another day,” Harry continued, ignoring the looks of shock and pity on his classmate’s faces, missing the look of sympathy and understanding on Theo’s face.
“I grew up hearing stories about my parents and about how I would’ve grown up with Harry as my brother if things had been different, I had no idea where Harry was but I thought he’d have grown up hearing the same things so when we got to school and he had no idea who I was, I decided it was because he didn’t think I was good enough for him and pushed it away, I didn’t realize that wasn’t the case until we were talking in third year.”
“I was so excited when you told me we were godbrothers, I had no family that actually liked me and as happy as I was to be basically adopted by the Weasleys, I still wanted family that was my own.”
“We get that mate,” Ron cut in, “I always wanted that for you too. And now you have it.”
Harry just smiled at his first friend, thankful for all the family he’d gathered, starting with him.
“Anyways,” Harry said, clearing his throat and blinking away tears, “through our first couple of years at school, I realized that Voldemort had a strange obsession with me but every time I asked Dumbledore about it he got super cagey. It came to a head after the end of the Tournament in Fourth Year. I’d just watched Ced die.” Harry paused, if he closed his eyes right now he’d hear kill the spare and see that flash of green that took the light right out of those bright grey eyes.
“Ced?” Draco asked.
“Later,” Harry breathed out, “you can ask me about that later.”
“I know this part,” Neville started, letting Harry take a moment to gather himself, “after Voldemort resurrected himself, Harry begged Dumbledore to tell him why it was always him. Why was he the one who got targeted as a baby, why was he the one Voldemort’s shade was focused on while he was possessing Quirrell, why was he the one who ended up facing off with a basilisk at 12, why did he get entered in this tournament, why did he get used to resurrect a madman?”
“Why did I have to watch everyone I ever loved die right in front of me?” Harry added, barely above a whisper.
Placing a comforting hand on his brother’s knee, Neville continued, “but Dumbledore still wouldn’t tell him. Then there was the whole Harry is a paranoid mental case thing.”
“And then the ministry sent dementors to my muggle neighborhood and then expelled me when I cast a patronus while they tried to Kiss me and my cousin.”
“Yeah that’s a story we’re getting more on later,” Draco cut in.
“Will do,” Harry responded with a wry grin, “anyways, at the end of that summer, Dumbledore moved all of us into this house, except it was basically a ruin at that point, and it was the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Then, when we got to school, he started ignoring me. I had no idea why at the time, but then, long story short, Voldemort started sending me visions.” He paused for a breath, “the visions actually started the summer before fourth year, when Pettigrew created a homonucleus for Voldemort to use as a body, you should all thank your lucky stars you never had to lay eyes on that thing,” he said with a shudder, “but they got more frequent as he gained power, especially after he gained a body after the Tournament.
“Throughout Fifth Year, between training an army and getting my hand shredded by Umbridge’s illegal blood quill, I was also getting fed visions by Voldemort. Some were real, like when I watched Mr. Weasley getting attacked by Nagini.”
“Shout out to Longbottom for beheading that thing,” Draco interrupted, “I still have nightmares about that beast slithering into my bedroom in the middle of the night.”
“You’re so very welcome, Draco dear.” Neville said with a laugh.
“Anyways,” Harry continued with a slight grin, “some visions were less real.” The grin disappeared, “during our History of Magic OWL, he sent me a vision of Sirius being held and tortured in the Hall of Prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. If Dumbledore had deigned to tell me that there was a prophecy that the Order was guarding or Snape had even mentioned that Voldemort could send false visons, I probably would’ve acted differently, but I was 15, I was in pain, I had just watched the closest thing to a father I had in the world being tortured in my mind’s eye, and it looked and felt real. So after that exam, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, Luna, and I flew Thestrals to the Ministry, broke in, stole the Prophecy, fought off an approximate fuck ton of Death Eaters until the Order showed up, then well I was distracted by Lucius fucking Malfoy’s third attempt on my life in as many years, dear Auntie Bella sent Sirius through the veil.”
The room was silent.
Until Draco spoke up, “at some point, we’re going to return to the story on my lovely father’s several attempts on your life, but we can save that for another day.”
Harry just laughed before sobering up and continuing, “when we finally got back to the school after I faced off with Bellatrix and Voldemort and got saved by a signature last minute arrival by Dumbledore, the old bat finally decided I was old enough to hear the prophecy.” Harry laughed again, this time edging on manic, “after I’d watched my mother die at one, essentially killed Quirrell with my bare hands at 11, fought and killed a basilisk at 12, battled off a hundred dementors at 13, got entered into a death tournament against my will and watched my boyfriend die in front of my eyes at 14, finally now, after watching my god father fall through a mysterious veil never to be seen again and then got possessed by Voldemort himself, I was finally ready to hear the why.” He cut himself off to take a breath, “Merlin, putting it all together like that,” he shook his head, “if he wasn’t already dead I might be tempted to take him out myself.”
At that, Neville wrapped his arm around Harry’s shoulders and pulled him close before continuing, “so Dumbledore showed Harry the memory of when he heard the prophecy. Somewhere in the melee of the Department of Mysteries we lost the original orb, anyways, once Harry heard the prophecy he connected the dots and realized it could’ve been either of us, he told me the whole prophecy that night and we’ve been even more like brothers ever since.”
“So yeah,” Harry continued, “that’s the story of why we’re so alike,” he then continued with a laugh, “but I guess it doesn’t actually explain why we can do the twin speak thing, does it Nev?”
“No, Haz, I guess it doesn’t.” Neville responded with a smile.
“So, wait,” Pansy cut in, “what was the rest of the prophecy? And what does it have to do with you being Lord Peverell?”
“How much time do we have before we need to meet the goblins, Nev?”
“It’s only 9:00 now, we aren’t scheduled to meet them until 1:00.”
“Okay, I can tell this part of the story if you guys would like but it’ll take a minute so we’ll have less time in Diagon.”
“That’s fine by me,” Padma said, “we can always go back tomorrow, I’d like to hear your story.”
After getting general sounds of agreement form everyone else in the room, Harry continued.
“The full prophecy was; the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…” Neville began.
“and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.” Harry finished.
“Now,” Harry started, “Dumbledore was pretty damn convinced that the ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’ was, and I’m being entirely serious here, the power of love.”
“You’re joking, I know you’re joking,” Padma said.
“I’m not, I truly wish I was. I mean, maybe it could be with my mother’s sacrifice, that explains how I ‘vanquished’ him the first time, but it doesn’t really explain the final vanquishing, that I think ties into my being Lord Peverell, my having the allegiance of three incredibly powerful items made by three brothers.”
“You’re saying the Tale of the Three Brothers is real?” Draco asked incredulously.
“To an extent,” Harry responded, “a long time ago, three brothers by the names Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus Peverell lived in Godric’s Hollow.”
“Harry dear,” Blaise cut in, “isn’t one of your several middle names Ignotus?”
“You’d be correct Blaise, I’m descended from the Third Brother. At some point, a female descendent of Ignotus married a Potter and the families blended. I know that a descendent of Cadmus married into the Gaunts, who were descendants of Slytherin. Voldemort’s mother was Merope Gaunt. That’s not totally how I’m Lord Slytherin though, I won that by conquest. I don’t know what came of the oldest brother’s family, I have a theory but it’s kind of insane. Anyways, those of you who know the tale from Beedle the Bard know that the three brothers met death and were given gifts, the oldest brother was given a wand of Elder that would grant immense power, the second brother was given a stone to bring back his beloved, and the third brother was given a cloak that allowed him to elude death.”
“Harry, please tell me that the invisibility cloak that you used to throw snowballs at my head outside of the Shrieking Shack in Third Year isn’t the Cloak.” Draco all but begs.
“Well,” Harry starts looking rather sheepish, “I didn’t know it at the time.”
“Merlin,” Draco chokes out.
“Only you, Potter,” Seamus says with a laugh and a shake of his head.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Harry says with a slight grin before continuing, “over time, the story got warped, people began to believe that to win the allegiance of the Elder Wand, you had to kill its previous owner. That wasn’t the case, you simply had to disarm them, you had to win the allegiance of the wand which doesn’t necessarily mean killing its previous owner.”
“No.” Draco said.
“Yes.” Harry answered.
“Could one of you fill us in?” Pansy cut in.
“Severus killed Dumbledore, but he wasn’t the one to disarm him,” Draco whispered.
“Exactly, then, when we were captured at Malfoy Manor, I disarmed Draco,” Harry continued, “but Voldemort still believed that you had to kill the previous owner which is why he had Nagini kill Snape in the middle of the Battle. But, now that I think about that, wouldn’t that have made his damn snake the master?” he trailed off, “you know what, no, I’m not spending more time digging into the thought patterns of that psycho.” Harry took a breath, “so, after disarming Draco I, without realizing it, was the so-called ‘Master’ of two of the Hallows.”
“When you say ‘Master’,” Theo cut in, a look of realization on his face.
Harry simply nodded before continuing his story, “now, while the common story says that these gifts were from Death herself, the truth of the matter is that the Peverell family magic was just strongly focused on necromancy, the brothers created these gifts themselves and, while they are incredibly powerful and do genuinely work, they aren’t actually gifts from Death.”
Harry noticed that Theo looked incredibly skeptical about that explanation, he was going to have to deal with that later, but he didn’t need the real story getting out, he didn’t need the world to know that he wasn’t just the true Lord Peverell, he was the Master of Death.
Taking a breath, Harry continued, “the final gift was Cadmus’, the Resurrection Stone. When Dumbledore died, he left the three of us items in his will. Ron got his de-luminator which ended up leading him back to us while were on the run, Hermione got his copy of the Tales of Beetle the Bard with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows drawn on one of the pages which helped us figure out some of this mess, and he left me the snitch I caught in my first game at Hogwarts and the Sword of Gryffindor, which, in hindsight, is hilarious because it can’t actually be bequeathed and it only comes to true Gryffindors in times of dire need,” he trailed off before shaking his head, “anyways, I had no goddamn clue what I could possibly do with the snitch.”
“Snitches have touch memory,” Theo cut in, “you didn’t catch your first snitch with your hand, you caught it with your mouth,” he finished before realizing the implication of him knowing that and ducking his head to hide his slight blush.
“Exactly,” Harry responded, characteristically not clocking Theo’s behavior. Hermione, however, shot the Slytherin a knowing look.
“So,” Harry continued, “when I touched the snitch to my lips it was engraved in Dumbledore’s writing to say ‘I open at the close,’ that meant nothing to me until I was literally walking to my death in the Forbidden Forest, when I pulled out the snitch and told it I was on my way to die, which I knew I had to do because of the memories Snape gave me, I’d rather not get into that whole can of flobber worms, the snitch opened and revealed the stone.” He paused for a moment, his expression becoming stony, “something in me told me I needed to turn the stone three times, so I did and when I opened my eyes the shades of my parents, Remus, and Sirius were there. They stayed with me until the moment the killing curse hit me. I went down and went to a weird version of Kings Cross where I talked to Dumbledore and he told me I could stay or I could go back, I obviously chose to go back, and I woke up on the forest floor and got carried back to the school by Hagrid right before Neville told Voldy to go fuck himself and then beheaded the snake. The snake was key, it was Tom’s last anchor to life, once the snake was dead he was mortal again.”
“The important thing,” Harry continued, “was that the Elder Wand was loyal to me, the wand doesn’t want to harm its Master. In that final duel, when my disarming spell hit Voldemort’s killing curse, the curse backfired because the wand didn’t want to harm me, he was killed by his own spell, by his own arrogance.”
“How’d you come back?” Draco asked, “I still don’t quite understand that part.”
Harry looked to Ron and Hermione, asking the silent question, can we trust them with this? At Hermione’s slight nod, Harry turned back to the group, “throughout his life, Voldemort created several Horcruxes, items of the darkest, most unforgivable magic imaginable which would anchor his soul to life. Horcruxes are seen as a violation of nature, they’re an insult to Death and Magic. He created the first one when he was still a student at Hogwarts, the creation of such an item involves an incredibly foul ritual culminating in the murder of an innocent in cold blood followed by another ritual to seal the soul shard into an item, Voldemort purposefully created six. His goal was to have seven pieces of his soul.”
“Because seven is an incredibly powerful number,” Theo whispered, before realizing something and speaking up to ask, “you said purposefully?”
“That night in Godric’s Hollow, he’d already created five, my death was meant to be the sacrifice that would create the sixth, but when my mum refused to step aside, she enacted some incredibly Old Magic, incredibly powerful sacrifice that protected me from Voldemort. When he fired the curse at me, the protection activated and his soul was already so unstable from making five horcruxes and preparing to make the sixth that when his soul shard separated and his curse backfired off my mum’s protection, he essentially vaporized and the loose shard, instead of being ready to attach to whatever item he’d prepared, latched onto me. That’s why my scar never healed, why it flared in his presence, why I could see inside his head.” Harry paused to breathe, to steady himself, “when he resurrected himself using my blood, he stripped some of my mother’s protection, Dumbledore had some harebrained theory that he linked the two of us even further which could possibly help me deflect another curse from him, that theory might have some credence, but essentially when he fired the curse at me in the forest and I didn’t fight back, he only killed the piece of himself that was trapped in my scar. It wasn’t a full horcrux because he never finished the ritual, but it was enough. He turned Nagini into a horcrux using the death of Bertha Jorkins sometime either during or shortly before our Fourth Year.”
“We weren’t actually on the run,” Ron spoke up, “we were hunting Horcuxes.”
“In second year, when he fought the basilisk, Harry ended up destroying Voldemort’s first horcrux, a diary from his school days that was left in the care of either Abraxas or Lucius Malfoy and then handed off to Ginny for some unknown reason,” Hermoine added.
“Then, the summer before Sixth Year, Dumbledore discovered his second horcrux, it was a Gaunt family heirloom, a ring that held the Resurrection Stone,” Harry continued, “except Dumbledore was drawn by the stone for reasons I know but don’t feel comfortable sharing with anyone, it’s not my place,” he paused and took a breath, “but he didn’t check the ring for curses first and when he put it on, it cursed his arm, Snape was able to isolate the curse but even without the whole situation on the Astronomy Tower at the end of that year, he would’ve died within the year.”
Pausing for a moment, Harry looks up and waits until Draco makes eye contact, “at some point during that year, he found out what you were up to, Draco, he made Snape promise to kill him so you wouldn’t have to, he didn’t want you to have that on your conscience but understood the position you were in with your father and with Voldemort invading your home, he never once blamed you.”
At Draco’s nod, Harry continued the story.
“Right before Dumbledore died, like literally right before, he took me with him to find the third Horcrux, it was hidden and heavily protected in a cave that a young Tom Riddle had visited as a child with his orphanage, from what Dumbledore could tell from his research, this cave was the first place Tom ever purposefully used his magic to hurt and scare someone else. The matron of the orphanage told Dumbledore that Tom went into that cave with a couple of children and when they left, the children were never the same.”
“What do you mean orphanage? Wasn’t the Dark Lord raised in a manor?” Pansy asked.
“Parkinson, I hate to break it to you, but Voldemort was the son of a muggle named Tom Riddle and Merope Gaunt who was nearly a squib. Yes, the Gaunts were descended from Slytherin, but their wealth had been squandered over the years and the only remaining members of the family lived in a shack at the very edge of Little Hangleton.”
“You’re telling me that Voldemort, the man who terrorized everyone on both sides over his pure blood agenda, was barely even a half-blood?” Padma asked.
“That is exactly what I’m telling you. His mother fell in love with the rich muggle who lived in the manor house in town, dosed him with love potions, got pregnant with our dear Voldypants, stopped dosing him, got ditched because Tom was – rightfully – freaked out by the situation, then went and sold Slytherin’s locket for 10 galleons at Borgin and Burkes before going to an orphanage to have little Tom Junior and then she died.” Harry took a breath, trying to bring himself back to the point of the story, “Tom Marvolo Riddle, which can be scrambled to read I am Lord Voldemort, very clever there, I’ve gotta give him that one, was raised in a London Orphanage until he was visited by Dumbledore at 11 and told he was a wizard. From the very moment he was told he had magic, he latched onto the idea that he could use magic to get people to bend to his will, I’ve seen the memory, it was deeply unsettling.”
“Anyways,” he continued, “we went to this cave, took a boat through a lake of inferi, I then had to pour the Drink of Despair down Dumbledore’s throat while he relived his worst memories and was haunted by his regrets, then I got slightly attacked by the inferi at which point Dumbledore rallied enough to send a truly insane flame whip through the cave so we could escape. I genuinely don’t remember getting back to Hogwarts. But when we got there, the Dark Mark was above the Astronomy Tower, Dumbledore made me stay hidden under my cloak while I watched him die then, after all of that, I realized that the locket we’d retrieved was a fake.”
“What do you mean?”
Harry turned to the new voice, seeing Andromeda and Narcissa huddled in the doorway, he wasn’t sure how long they’d been there, he figured they had a right to hear this part of the story, “hello, Andi, Aunt Cissa, you both have a vested interest in this part of the story, I’m guessing you’ve picked up on parts of it, but you should hear the whole thing.”
The sisters took a seat on the couch next to Draco, across from Harry and waited for him to continue.
“The locket that we recovered from the cave was a fake, the real one had been stolen by a follower of Voldemort right before he died. This fake had a note in it, essentially saying that this follower had discovered what Voldemort had done and that he had stolen and planned to destroy the original horcrux with the hope that it would leave Voldemort mortal. The note was signed R.A.B.”
“No,” Andromeda breathed out.
“Reggie,” Narcissa said, voice barely a whisper.
“I didn’t know who R.A.B. was until Ron, Hermione, and I came to Grimmauld Place after Bill’s wedding. We were planning to camp out here until we had a plan, that got thrown because we ended up having to break into the ministry,” at the looks on everyone’s faces, Harry just shook his head before continuing, “that’s beside the point. While we were here, we saw Regulus’ nameplate on his door and then spoke to Kreacher who told us the whole story of how Voldemort had asked for a house elf for a task, how he’d taken Kreacher to the cave and made him drink the Drink of Despair, how Kreacher only made it home because Regulus had ordered him to return home once he was done with his task, Regulus then nursed Kreacher back to health before ordering him to take Regulus to the cave so he could retrieve the locket, he drank the potion himself and ordered Kreacher to leave him there and take the locket and destroy it. Kreacher spent nearly 20 years unable to complete his master’s last order.”
“Regulus turned against Voldemort?” Andromeda asked, needing confirmation.
“He did, he was the first person, as far as we can tell, to discover Voldemort’s horcruxes, he gave his life trying to make it right.”
After giving the Black sisters time to digest that news, Hermione continued their story, “so we knew two of the six Horcruxes had been destroyed and we had a third in our possession but no means to destroy it so we ended up on the run, being affected by the dark magic rolling off that locket for months before we happened upon the Sword of Gryffindor which we used to destroy the locket.”
“Then, skipping past all the insane shit in the middle and our brief stint as prisoners in Malfoy Manor, we ended up making a deal with a Goblin to help us break into Gringotts in exchange for the Sword,” Ron continued.
“Griphook helped us break into Gringotts then double-crossed us, leaving us behind in the depths of the bank, we had the Horcrux that was hidden in the vault, but no means of getting out,” Harry continued.
“Until Harry over here had the bright idea to liberate a dragon,” Ron said, “we rode a dragon out of the bank, straight through the roof, and then got dropped in a lake somewhere near Hogwarts. Harry had a strong suspicion the last inanimate horcrux was hidden somewhere in the school so that’s when we snuck back through, Hermione and I went down to the Chamber to stab the one we got at the bank with a basilisk fang while Harry and Luna looked for the one in the school. Harry talked to the Grey Lady and found out that the last one was hidden in the Room of Requirement, which is where we met up with you, Draco. Technically, Crabbe destroyed that Horcrux with fiendfyre.”
“Then, Snape died, I watched his memories, realized I’d been raised as a lamb for slaughter, and marched into the Forest to die. You’ve all heard that part of the story, well most of it, Narcissa risked her hide lying to Voldemort saying I was dead when she knew I was alive.” Harry said with a smile toward the woman in question, “so I guess,” he continued, “a mother’s love, two, Voldemort, zero.”
Andromeda couldn’t help but laugh at the boy’s cheek any less than Narcissa could help the fond smile she directed his way.
“Then, as they said earlier,” Neville continued, “the last horcrux was the snake which was taken down by the nifty little Sword the Sorting Hat likes to drop on the heads of Gryffindors who are riling up insane Dark Lords.”
“You know Neville,” Harry said, “I’m not entirely sure that’s the Sword’s directive.”
“Harry, I think I’d know better than you, I am Lord Gryffindor after all.”
“How can you two possibly be joking right now,” Daphne asked.
“You get used to it,” was all Hermione could respond.
“Anywho, that’s our tale. I am the Chosen One, Neville and I can mysteriously twin speak while not being twins, and the Sword of Gryffindor likes giving children concussions, any questions? No, okay, let’s head to Diagon.” Harry said with a grin.
“I actually have several questions,” Draco said.
“No, you don’t.” Harry said, his grin edging into the shit-eating category.
“Yeah, Draco, I don’t think you have any questions.” Neville added.
“Lord Gryffindork over here and I have a very important meeting with some Goblins and I’ve resolved to do less to piss off the Goblin Nation after I stole their dragon and busted through their roof.”
“You know, Haz, I think that’s a good outlook to have in life.”
“Why thank you my dear Neville, I appreciate that.” Harry responded.
“Why are they like this?” Draco asked Ron and Hermione.
“Mate, I couldn’t even begin to tell you,” Ron shot back.