Ripples in the Pond

The world around him came back into awareness slowly, almost as though his senses had been dunked into a jar of molasses and left there to stew. Soothing notes of lavender and bergamot met his nose, and Harry felt his eyes slam open properly as the unfamiliarity of the scent hit home. Where was he? His heart thudded frantically in his chest, fear coming to slip its icy fingers around his lungs and squeeze ever so slightly as he felt around the… box, he seemed to be trapped in.

He was used to tight spaces though, and this time there was no duplicating curse on treasure and gold to make it crush him. Along with a Flagrante Curse for added effect. He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly as a familiar calm washed over him. How had he ended up there? His eyes snapped open once more, a throb of longing panging in his chest as he remembered telling Hermione goodbye – along with the distinct feeling that it would be a goodbye forever.

Yet that wasn’t quite the right time to pay attention to those feelings of misery, sorrow, and the slightest tinges of regret. If the Dursleys had been good for something, it was making it so that he could ignore those complex feelings for a little while, if only to focus on the task in front of him when necessary. Anger not withstanding, he mused, remembering his third year at Hogwarts before the silky feeling of whatever fabric he was lying on distracted him from his thoughts.

There was a cushion underneath him, he knew, firm enough that he was reminded of the hospital wing beds at Hogwarts. Yet he wasn’t at Hogwarts anymore. He had taken a mysterious hand to get away from those white-robed wizards and witches who had been after him because he had horns… and possibly because he had repulsed magic in some strange and weird way. Who knew? Maybe he was a demon for all he knew. Yet he hardly wanted to hurt anyone or longed for anyone’s demise, so he didn’t really think the chase and barrage of dangerous spells and curses fired his way by those white-robed witches and wizards were in any way warranted.

That fact had always been true – besides, perhaps, his third-year and a couple of others until he had learnt that pity was kinder than unadulterated hate. It took so much energy to hate someone, and yet it had felt like relief when he had peered beneath the cracked, snake-like façade of Lord Voldemort and saw a sad, almost pathetically lonely man once called Tom Riddle and felt pity instead. Ron had thought he was mental for that, and Hermione had pursed her lips—and there was the strangest sense of numbness in his chest at the idea he’d never be able to see their faces again.

Sighing and trying to avoid the familiar feeling of tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, he fumbled around the strange box he was lying in, all the while feeling a sinking sense of dread as he felt the padding on all sides besides above him because—wasn’t he inside a coffin? That was the only kind of box to have that shape and that amount of padding within, weren’t they?

“I better hurry up and find that uniform before someone spots me,” a low, almost frantic voice sounded from wherever was outside of that strange coffin.

Was he not buried in the ground in a coffin? Harry could only wonder, wondering then why he wasn’t already reducto-ing off the lid and making a break for it. If only so he could figure out what the bloody hell was going on with him. Where was he and why was he in a coffin? He sighed softly, blinking as a distinct hiss of air sounded. The lid loosened from the top of the coffin, and then gravity shifted, and Harry found himself landing on his feet at the bottom of his coffin.

The lid of the coffin clattered to the ground noisily, and Harry blinked as he found himself face to face with a floating cat-like creature which couldn’t be an ordinary cat – if only for the fact it was floating and talking. “What?! You ain't supposed to be awake!” the strange cat remarked, and Harry blinked once more, because the apparent cat was barely two heads shorter than him. Had he really shrunk that badly in his last bout of sleep? He tilted his head, stepping out of his coffin then and finally having the chance to take in just where he had ended up.

He almost could have called it Hogwarts from the grey exposed brickwork, but the archways and decorations were a far cry away from the school he had known and loved for seven and a bit years. They were more… gothic in nature, and the sconces were lit with an eerie green fire which flickered and flared whenever he looked at every one of those sconces. Part of him almost thought he heard the flapping of small leathery wings, but he doubted a place which didn’t look abandoned would have an infestation of anything.

“Not doxies, please not doxies,” he muttered, fond memories of all the doxy wrangling stirring to the forefront of his mind.

“Hey!” the strange cat called, fur seeming to bristle, and Harry vaguely realised he’d been ignoring the strange creature who was only seeming further and further enraged. Why, Harry wasn’t entirely sure. “Stop ignoring me, and gimme that uniform!”

Harry blinked for what felt like the thousandth time, the shift of fabric against his skin when he moved suddenly that much more noticeable to him. He looked down, eyes widening when he felt the slightly too large hood shift past his horns to cover his face in that much more shadow. “Ugh,” he mumbled, staring at the ornate gold stitching on purple and black fabric. What was he wearing, and why was he wearing it? He frowned, thoughts on the matter grinding to a halt when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. He looked up to spy a wall of blue fire surging towards him. That explained why his uncanny sense for danger was acting up, he decided.

He couldn’t dodge – it was too late, and the wall of fire was far too wide to evade – and Harry felt something familiar stir in his gut as those flames washed over his skin. Yet the burning pain never came, nor did a lick of fire take a hold of his clothes. All he could do was watch as something within him repulsed and dissipated those blue flames into nothing more than fading blue sparks.

“Fwah?” the cat murmured, looking as shocked and stunned as a cat could.

Harry didn’t quite know what possessed him to lift his hand – nor, if anyone were to ask him in the coming days, could he accurately remember exactly what he had done except pull on that something within him. Green fire blasted out from his outstretched hand, and it was only then that he came to the bizarre revelation that he did not have his wand. Glass rained down as the external windows shattered, numerous other coffins rattling where they were; floating above the floor and the wreckage of the wall he had seemingly accidentally broken. “Oops,” Harry muttered, looking between his hand and the embers of green fire which had just carved a path through that strange room with a strange mirror and several duplicates of the very coffin he had come from—

Were there people in there too? Like he’d been?

“You dare to challenge the Great Grim!” the cat bellowed, and Harry thought he heard movement from elsewhere in whatever castle he had ended up in.

“You attacked me first!” Harry declared to the flame-breathing cat – whose ears were lit with blue fire, he finally noticed, even as he made a break for the door he could see. He didn’t particularly want to be nearby when someone inevitably spotted the latest mess he’d made… He swallowed thickly at the thought, even as the question as to where he was stirred again.

He darted out into the corridor, hurrying away from the madness of it all, even as his heart beat frantically in his chest. His legs were tiny, he was reminded, a scowl curling at his lips even as he heard the angry muttering of that strange cat behind him. Why that strange cat had to have opened his coffin – and wasn’t that such a bizarre thing to think, part of him mused – of all the other ones floating there in that strange hall was something which could probably be boiled down to his absurd luck. The Potter Luck, as he, Ron, and Hermione had termed the strange circumstances which always led to him ending up neck-deep in trouble.

Yet was he really a Potter? Harry could only wonder as he recalled the name that darkness had called to him as. He remembered the egg in the photo that he had seemingly hatched from, and all he could do was ponder on his own thoughts, even as he found himself in a library.

In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the best place he could have brought a fire-breathing cat to. Yet as it was…

“Finally caught you!” the cat proclaimed. “As if a puny human could outrun the Great Grim. Now stay put—agh!”

Something black flashed in the corner of his eye and Harry could only blink at the whip which had curled around the menace of a cat. Or rather, the Great Grim as the cat had called itself – or perhaps, himself. Cats had genders, didn’t they? Harry blinked, brain feeling alarmingly like it was five seconds away from leaking out of his ears as he stood there, increasingly perplexed as to what the bloody hell was going on.

“That hurts!” the cat screeched, and Harry blinked once more at the sight of the gaudy stranger who had rounded the nearest bookshelf. He probably could have given Professor Dumbledore a run for his money with the oddity of what he was wearing, Harry mused, wondering then if somehow he had wound up in a place where there were numerous eccentrics who could give the deceased headmaster a run for his money in the competition of who was stranger and more flamboyant. He almost chuckled at the thought, staring into those eyes shadowed by the crow-like mask which revealed the bare minimum of his lower face – and concealed startlingly bright, golden eyes. The same sort of eyes which reminded him of his own reflection in one of the many mirrors of Grimmauld Place; strange, haunting, and just the other side of natural.

“It’s a lash of love, is what it is,” that strange man said, ebony hair with the oddest blue tinge to it flaring out slightly from underneath the top hat the man wore. Nestled within those dark locks were ears with the strangest point to their tips, and something within him chose that moment to whisper about fey things which lingered just beyond the boundaries of his world. Yet the suit he wore, along with the draping cloak which almost seemed to resemble feathers at its ends were more something suited to the muggle world than the wizarding one, and nothing about the stranger gave him any indication of just where he was. “Ah, I’ve found you at last, our missing student! Splendid—” his words cut off all of a sudden, the man stopping to peer at him, brought up short by something. “You are… awfully small. Too small, to be bluntly honest,” the man said, ignoring the struggles and screeches of the cat caught in his whip. “But the trail led here… I don’t suppose you woke up inside one of the gates, little one?”

“Gates?” he echoed, thoroughly confused all of a sudden, even as his brain pointedly ignored the fact he’d been called little one. He was short, that much he knew – had always known, more so when he had learnt of malnutrition and the ways it could stunt growth. Though some sort of strange magic had seen fit to shrink him to under three-foot tall—and yet his height was hardly his main concern right now… What was a gate? His mind back went to the coffin he had woken up in there. But coffins were different things to the gates in fences… He frowned, staring into those golden eyes which were looking at him with a wary curiosity.

“There was a room full of them. Did you awaken there?” the strange crow-man asked, heedless to the fact that Harry had no idea what he was talking about.

“Do you mean those coffins?” he asked, hazarding a guess – if only for the fact that he had the strangest of feelings that he was likely the one that strange person was looking for. It certainly tied up with his constant, uncanny luck which had landed him in all sorts of weird and wacky situations before.

“Yes,” the man said, twirling his staff in his free hand with a smile. “The design is meant to symbolise the parting of your former life and your rebirth as a student of my prestigious academy,” he explained. “Such a magnanimous idea,” the man continued, and Harry had the distinct impression that the stranger in front of him was responsible for that magnanimous idea. “But it would appear that you are indeed my missing student. Never, in all my years, have I encountered someone with such recklessness that they would break out of their own gate and make a run for it. Does the concept of patience elude you, little one?” Golden eyes peered down at him. “Though… are you certain you are of an appropriate age and education to be attending higher education?”

Harry blinked, pieces of the puzzle slowly starting to be slotted into place as he stood there, peering up at the stranger who – if his intuition and guesses were correct – was actually the headmaster of a school. The same school he had ended up in through some bizarre circumstance. And to think he’d been comparing him to Dumbledore. Harry paused. Was there some requirement for headmasters of eccentric schools to dress in an elaborate, strange manner? “I’m seventeen,” he said by way of explanation, fighting the urge to fold his arm and stomp his foot – because that would just be childish, and he was seventeen by that point in time.

“Meo-yow!” the cat screeched, his voice that much louder than it was before. “If that kid is too young and stupid, then let me take his place!”

“Such an unruly familiar…” the crow-man said, tutting quietly as the cat continued in his struggles to free himself from the black cord wound tightly around his body. “But seventeen…” he murmured, gaze shifting onto Grim, the strange cat, when he started squirming

“As if I’d ever serve some lowly human! Now lemme go!” the Great Grim demanded, and Harry could only stare at the cat – the same cat, he realised dumbly, who almost shared a namesake with his dead godfather. Sirius—or, rather, Padfoot, had been called ‘The Grim’ so many times that it had been a long running joke between them, no matter if his godfather had occasionally called him James by mistake. Then Sirius had gone and died, and Harry had been left alone.

“Yes, yes. They always say that,” the crow-man murmured, exasperation seeping into his voice, and then the whip shifted, blocking off the cat’s mouth, preventing him from getting another word out. “New student. Come along. Make haste! Your orientation has already begun. Let us return to the Mirror Chamber. No matter how short you are, you are one of the ones chosen…”

“Orientation?” Harry echoed, knowing only asking the strange man – who was more than likely the headmaster or owner of the property at the very least – would put all his many questions to rest. “Excuse me, but who are you and where am I?”

The man stopped, turning back to face him from where he’d begun walking back the way Harry thought he’d run in the first place what felt like hours ago. “Hm, are you still half-asleep?” he asked, peering at him once more with those eerie golden eyes of his. “The time-space teleportation must have muddled your memories. These things happen, I suppose. Come along. I shall explain things as we walk, truly my magnanimity knows no bounds…”

Harry blinked, his brain taking a few moments to digest what had been said before he stirred his legs into action.

“This is Night Raven College,” the crow-man explained, gesturing then to the walls and pieces of artwork depicting various battles and buildings which were hung at irregular intervals. Overall, it reeked of grandeur in a slightly different sense to Hogwarts – familiar enough to make him feel less like an interloper, yet strange enough that he couldn’t help but notice all the differences. “It is a fine institution for students all over the world who demonstrate a rare aptitude for magic. It happens to be the most prestigious academy of its sort in all of Twisted Wonderland,” he continued, and Harry couldn’t miss the bounce to his step as he all but bragged about the school, gesturing to the various paintings and finery with that bird-headed cane of his. It was almost as if he were the strangest mix of Lucius Malfoy and Professor Dumbledore, Harry mused, and then immediately wanted to bleach the thought from his mind. “I am Dire Crowley, the headmage of this fine institution, after being entrusted with its care by the chairman.”

“So this is a college?” Harry questioned, even as they walked through a courtyard with four gargoyles positioned at the edges of the roofs surrounding it. “Which comes after secondary school…” he murmured, trying to remember if he’d heard anything of the sorts in the Wizarding World. All that had mattered were NEWTs – and he still didn’t have his, technically. “How did I meet the requirements then?” he muttered, scratching at his head for a few moments before reminding himself that he didn’t quite think he’d come to that college in a normal way. “Was it just OWLs…?”

“The Dark Mirror perceives those who have talent,” the headmage said, as if it were an obvious fact, and Harry remembered the mirror within the darkness which had told him to take its hand. “Those who are selected are summoned to the campus through those gates – that merely take the shape of coffins – which can appear anywhere.” Crowley tilted his head. “Do you not remember the black carriage coming to meet you?”

Harry frowned, distantly remembering the faint sound of hooves clopping when he had grabbed a hold of that hand. “Maybe…” he mumbled.

“That black carriage serves to receive a student chosen by the Dark Mirror, and it too bears a gate that connects to this campus… And as you know, sending a carriage to meet someone on a special day is a time-honoured tradition.”

“Of who?” Harry blurted out, idly wondering where his brain had gone as he stared at Crowley—Professor Crowley, perhaps? He frowned, still trying to pick out anything and everything of importance from their short conversation so far.

“The Thorn Fairy, of course,” Crowley answered, and Harry’s face remained as blank as ever – because that name or title meant nothing to him – not that the headmage seemed to notice as he cast open the door to the room he’d been in before. Only now, the floating coffins were all open, and their occupants had left. “Now, let us attend to your orientation,” he said matter-of-factly, striding into the room with a wicked grin on his face.

Left with nothing else to do, Harry followed after him, idly noting that, yes, everyone in the room was taller than him. Then there was the fact that no one had seemingly noticed neither him nor the headmage what with how their attention was all fixed on several different people of apparent importance, or on the large, ornate mirror which had a masked face floating within its surface.

Harry wondered for a split second what that mirror did. The Mirror of Erised had shown him what he had once desired more than anything – a cruel wish of something which could never be – and he had little doubt there was something more to that mirror as opposed to, say, the Dursley’s bathroom mirror.

“Where’s the headmage gone?” a group of three students close by the door were muttering amongst themselves.

“Maybe he had a tummyache?” a boy with red eyes and a purple and gold turban-like headband offered, and Harry had a split second to spy the quirk of the headmage’s lips before the man was speaking with an eerie joviality.

“For shame! I most certainly did not,” Dire Crowley declared, revelling in the startled faces some of the students made. “Did none of you notice that there was a student missing?” the headmage asked, tutting quietly and clicking his tongue, and Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end as those golden eyes – along with numerous others – fell on his short form. “You are the only one who has yet to be assigned a dorm. Step up to the Dark Mirror. I'll watch your weasel.”

“He’s not my weasel,” Harry mumbled, feeling the slightest beginnings of a headache forming at his temples. “Besides, he’s a cat, isn’t he?”

“The Dark Mirror awaits,” Crowley reiterated, apparently not having heard him at all, and Harry could only sigh even as he felt dozens of stares boring into him.

He stepped forwards, the strange ceremonial-like robe he was wearing feeling awfully heavy all of a sudden. “But this place might have answers,” he muttered, reminding himself of that fact, stomach twisting, and he reminded himself whatever was ahead of him couldn’t have been worse than the stares of Hogwarts, nor the animosity which had overtaken the castle he didn’t think he could call home anymore upon his name being pulled out of the Goblet of Fire.

He had stepped through that darkness and taken that hand to escape witches and wizards who’d been hell-bent on injuring him for something he might have been. He had taken that hand because of the silent, unspoken feeling that the answers to his questions were in front of him. His hands curled into fists, and he turned then, fully facing that strange mirror which didn’t show him his reflection. Rather, all that was in front of him was that mask with hollow black eyes, the intricate pattern on its surface eye-catching – though it wasn’t as if it gave any indication to its purpose, unlike the inscription which had been on the Mirror of Erised.

“State thy name,” the mask in the mirror spoke.

“Harry Potter,” he said, putting the pieces together in an instant as he stood in front of that mirror which was the equivalent of the Sorting Hat for Night Raven College.

The Dark Mirror paused, and Harry shivered as he felt those black eye slits staring into him. “Not that name. Your original name,” the mirror said, and Harry froze at that, mind blanking for a few seconds.

“Say your true name,” Dire Crowley spoke, appearing far too close to him right then and there. “It isn’t common that we have a student who has two names, but needs are as needs must. Say your true name, little one. It’s safe here,” he said, and there came a distinct round of snickers from behind him. Harry didn’t need two braincells to realise they were sniggering at the use of little one from the Headmage.

Harry blinked, throat suddenly feeling incredibly dry as he remembered that darkness whispering to him using a name he hadn’t thought too much of back then. A name which had felt familiar to him – which meant that could only be the name the mirror wanted. “I—” his voice cut off. “Gladius,” he said, frowning all the while. “Gladius Draconia.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Oh dear…” Crowley murmured.

A shiver slid down his spine, air feeling as though it had dropped some ten degrees as he looked into the mirror – and the mirror looked right back. “The nature of thy soul is… Diasomnia!” the mirror declared, and Harry breathed out a sigh of relief.

Part of him had almost been expecting something like his fateful fourth year in which the unordinary had happened to him. His luck was a funny thing, but it seemed to be behaving for the meantime—

The flapping of leathery wings sounded, and Harry had the briefest of moments to realise that something was happening before there came a load of yelling as what looked like thousands of bats descended from the ceiling. One by one, the green flames of the braziers lighting the room went dark, an eerie hissing sounding as the room went pitch black and the screams started up.

“What the bloody hell?”

“Get these things off me!” another person yelled, and Harry stiffened as he felt a presence behind him. An arm closed around him, lifting him up, a soft yelp escaping him as he experienced an odd pulling sensation in his gut – not too dissimilar from apparition or portkey travel. He scrambled for balance, fingers digging into the robes of the person holding him, startling ever so slightly when a soft hum of amusement escaped the one holding him there.

A crackle of fire sounded, the chirping sound of bats fading along with the sounds of their wings beating. Light came back to the room, green braziers relit, and Harry blinked at just how far away from the Dark Mirror he was now. He was closer to the back of the room, behind a section of seating.

Blue fire flashed in the corner of his eye. “Blasted weasel,” he vaguely heard the headmage cry, but rather than paying attention to the unfolding carnage on the other side of the room, he only had eyes for the one holding him.

Red eyes stared into his own, the pupil as slitted as his own now was, and they looked at him with surprising warmth for someone whose appearance was utterly unfamiliar to him. “Gladius,” the stranger holding him murmured, one hand – his only free hand – going to cup his cheek. “I thought you lost forever…” he whispered, and Harry only felt his brow furrow at that even as he caught sight of the small, vampire-like fangs set within his mouth.

“Who are you?” he asked, noting that his arms had automatically encircled that not-quite-stranger’s neck to stabilise himself. The sensation of being carried and held was a strange one, and part of him couldn’t help bust feel as though he were somehow experiencing being carried or lifted up by a parent – an experience he had most definitely missed out on amidst the Dursleys and life at Privet Drive.

“Ah, yes,” he murmured. “You were but an egg the last time I saw you, little one… and evidently you have not been long hatched…”

“So I really did hatch out of an egg,” Harry mumbled, remembering those photos which were undoubtedly collecting dust in Grimmauld Place. His heart twinged slightly at the thought of everything left behind, brain being too busy comprehending all the information given to him in the past hour or so.

“Why wouldn’t you?” the familiar-stranger questioned, mystified by his mumbling. “Though to answer your earlier question – you can call me Lilia.”

Harry blinked. “Humans don’t usually hatch out of eggs,” he said plainly, watching as those red eyes narrowed, pink highlights shifting as that strange fey familiar-stranger stared at him for just a little while too long.

“But you aren’t human, Gladius,” Lilia said, and Harry blinked once more as he stared, wide-eyed into those gentle red eyes which looked at him with such warmth.

He continued to stare at Lilia, brain feeling as though it actually was leaking out of his ears that time, and all Harry could do was continue to blink. “What?”

Because what kind of statement was that?