Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Harry sat up with a start and looked around Dumbledore’s office.
“I’m alive,” he croaked.
“And grounded,” Niamh said her arms folded. “I warned you not to put yourself in danger.”
Harry looked at his father for help.
“Don’t look at me,” Arawn said holding up his hands. “You brought this on yourself.”
Harry sighed. “Fine, I’m grounded. How is Ginny?”
“Aw,” Tom’s shade mocked. “He’s concerned. How touching.”
Harry looked at the teenage spirit. “What is that?”
“A magical construct Voldemort designed to drain the life out of someone to restore his own.”
“Dark, so what do we do about it?”
Niamh held up the fang that had pierced Harry’s arm. “This should have enough poison left to destroy the diary.”
Tom’s eyes widened. “You can’t,” he said quickly. “I told you. It won’t fix the girl. The life I’ve taken won’t be restored.”
“So, we’re supposed to let you take the rest of it?” Arawn said his amber eyes were cold. “I don’t think so. No, I think we’re gonna watch you fade away into nothing.”
“Besides,” a voice said from the doorway. “I think I can help.”
Everyone turned to see Myrtle Warren floating into the room.
“Myrtle?” Harry asked. “What are you doing here?”
Myrtle smiled sadly. “Did you know I was a Ravenclaw when I was alive?”
Harry shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“I was,” Myrtle said. “You were so brave going to save the school. I want to be brave to.”
“That’s good,” Harry said. “I am proud of you.”
Myrtle turned to Arawn. “I know who and what you are. You are Arawn Lord of Annwn. Long ago, you ruled the fae and helped souls pass over when their time came. At that time, you were known as Gwyn Ap Nudd were you not?”
“I haven’t been called Gwyn Ap Nudd for over a thousand years. I haven’t been the king of the fae for even longer and the great spirit willing, I shall never be again. How did you know who I am?”
“I read,” Myrtle said smiling at him. “Arawn wasn’t mentioned much in the Mabinogion, but he seemed honorable.”
“I tried to be,” Arawn observed. “Gwyn wasn’t mentioned in that text at all.”
“No, but when Gwyn appeared in folklore Arawn vanished. I concluded that they were the same person.”
Arawn chuckled. “If you’d lived, you would’ve been an amazing witch.”
Myrtle smiled, tears filling her eyes. “I guess we’ll never know now, will we?” She cleared her throat. “It is Gwyn Ap Nudd I need, son of Nuada, son of Morrigan. You alone may have the power needed to save Ginny Weasley.”
“Okay,” Arawn said. “How can I help.”
“When a ghost chooses to stay behind, we keep some of our life energy. It’s what binds us to this plane. You can transfer the life I have left into Ginny. It should be enough to fix what Tom did.”
Arawn gazed at the ghost, his amber eyes wide. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he whispered.
“You aren’t asking,” Myrtle said. “I’m doing this of my own free will. All my family is gone. I don’t like being dead. I’m always alone. I want to see my mother again. Most ghosts choose to stay behind, but I never got that choice.”
Harry swallowed. He stepped up beside Arawn. “We can find another way.”
Myrtle glided forward and took his hand. “This,” she said, shaking their clasped hands. “This is what woke me up, made me realize how empty my existence was. I haven’t felt the touch of another person since I died. Please, let me do this. Let me do something meaningful. Let me do something good that I’ll be remembered for. Maybe someday, people will remember me for being more than just Moaning Myrtle, the ghost that haunted a toilet.”
Harry wiped a tear from his cheek. “Dad,” he said softly. “She needs to do this.”
Arawn nodded. “I know.” He turned to Niamh. “Do it.”
As Niamh approached the desk where the diary lay, Tom sneered at her. “How touching,” he began. “The little ghost…”
Niamh didn’t let him finish. Raising her hand high above the diary, she drove the fang deep into the book. Ink spurted into the air. Tom’s shade screamed as it dissolved into mist.
When Niamh plunged the fang into the book, Arawn placed one hand on Myrtle’s head and the other hand on Ginny’s. A thin stream of blue light flowed from Myrtle into Ginny.
Myrtle’s form began to fade. “Thank you,” she mouthed at Arawn. Just before she vanished completely, a bright smile spread across her face.
“Mum,” she mouthed. With that last word, she was gone. Arawn lowered his hands to his sides as Ginny groaned.
The redhead sat up and looked around confusedly. “What happened?” she asked rubbing her eyes. Seeing Dumbledore sitting in front of her, her eyes widened. “Sir?” she squeaked. “Am I in trouble?”
Dumbledore held up a hand. “My dear,” he said gently. “You aren’t in any trouble. We just had to take care of something.”
“But what?” Ginny began.
“I’ll take her to the hospital wing,” Luna offered.
“Good,” Dumbledore said. “I shall send someone to aid Madam Pomfrey shortly.
Luna led a very confused Ginny out of Dumbledore’s office.
“Well,” Daphne said. “As fun as this was, what do we do about Niamh?” She pointed at the ruined diary. “Our only evidence that Ginny was being controlled is gone. Without that, Fudge will continue to blame Niamh for what happened.”
“I’ll do what I should’ve done at the start,” Niamh said. “I’ll give an oath that I had nothing to do with the attacks at the school.”
Dumbledore stood. “We might as well get this over with. I’ll call Fudge.”
**ROE**
“So, the attacks have been stopped?” Fudge asked.
“Yes,” Dumbledore said.
“But you won’t tell me how they were stopped?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
“Try me.”
“Voldemort,” Fudge flinched at the name, “left an artifact behind that would reopen the chamber of secrets. That artifact has been destroyed.”
Fudge glanced at the diary on Dumbledore’s desk.
Dumbledore nodded. “Yes Cornelius, that is the artifact.”
“But how?” Fudge began.
“I’ll be happy to explain later. For now, I would like Niamh’s name to be cleared.”
“Dumbledore!” Fudge exclaimed. “You know what she is?”
“A very intelligent and kind lady.”
“She’s fae,” Fudge snapped. “They abandoned the magical world centuries ago. And just when she shows up, students start being petrified.”
“Technically,” Niamh said dropping the glamour hiding her. “The attacks were going on before I came back.”
“So, you say,” Fudge said spinning his bowler hat.
Niamh scowled. She raised her right hand into the air. “I, Princess Niamh of the golden hair, swear on my power that I did not have anything to do with the attacks on students, neither directly nor indirectly. I further swear that I new nothing of the attacks until returning from Elphame.”
There was a flash of light. When it faded, Niamh conjured a sphere of water over the minister’s head. The water sphere burst, soaking the minister from head to foot.
Fudge glared.
“That was the least I could do since you put out an arrest warrant on me.”
Fudge dried himself off with a spell and turned for the door. “I’ll send someone from the Unspeakables for the artifact. No doubt they will want to study it.”
As the door closed behind him, Dumbledore turned to Harry, Niamh, and Arawn. “What are your plans now?”
Arawn glanced at Harry before speaking. “We’ve seen the future. Voldemort and his followers are the reason for a lot of the problems. We have been passive for a long time. I think it’s time we take Voldemort and his followers out of the picture.”
“How will you find him?”
Arawn smiled. “We have our ways.”
**ROE**
Voldemort was slithering through the forest while possessing a snake. He was a lot stronger than he had been, but he would need help to restore his body without the diary. That was alright though. Surely, one of his followers would come to aid him. Suddenly, he felt his control of the snake slip away. The next thing he knew he was a spirit once again.
“What?” he whispered.
A large black crow flew down and landed on the ground in front of him. Arawn, Harry, and Niamh stepped out of the trees. Harry stared right at Voldemort.
“You look like hammered crap.”
Voldemort stared at the group in front of him. How had they found him? He’d hidden so well. No one should’ve been able to find him. Not even his followers knew where he was.
“So,” he said trying to stay calm. “Here we are. You found me, but you can’t stop me.”
“Really?” Harry asked. “How do you figure that?”
“I am Lord Voldemort,” Voldemort said quietly. “I am immortal. I will save the wizarding world.”
“You are only immortal so long as your followers live,” Arawn said. “I have to admit, binding yourself to your followers through the dark mark was a stroke of genius.”
A thread of fear ran through Voldemort. “You can’t stop me,” he said. “You cannot break the binding.”
“You are right,” a cracked aged voice said. Voldemort looked in that direction and saw an old woman where the crow had been. “We can’t break the spells you used right now. That would take time.”
“We also cannot kill all the Death Eaters at once,” Niamh said. “That would cause too much trouble for us, and we are trying to stop that future from happening.”
“So, what do you plan to do?” Voldemort said.
“Simple,” Niamh said pulling a lemon out of her pocket. “The spells only keep you alive if you are still Tom Riddle.”
“What do you mean?”
Harry stepped forward. Taking the lemon from his mother, he cut out a single seed from the fruit. He held up the seed.
“Ever studied Celtic folklore?” Harry asked. “Specifically, have you ever read the Mabinogion?”
“I don’t have time for Muggle fairytales,” Voldemort hissed.
“Well,” Harry said casually. “If you had read the Mabinogion, you may have read the story of Taliesin.”
“Who?”
“The fae Ceridwen had a servant Gwion Bach. You see, Ceridwen had a hideous son named Morfran. She created a potion hoping to make him wise in compensation for his ugliness.”
“So,” Voldemort said. “What’s your point?”
“Shh,” Harry said. “I’m not done. This potion was unusual. The first three drops of the potion would bestow great wisdom and magic on the drinker, but the rest of the potion would be poisonous.
Now, this potion was supposed to simmer for a year and a day. Gwion Bach was supposed to stir the potion. While he was doing so, some of the potion splashed on his hand. He put his burned finger in his mouth. He knew at once what he had done due to the magic of the potion. Using the magic he’d gained, he fled from Ceridwen.
After a fierce chase, he turned himself into a grain of corn on the ground. Ceridwen took the form of a hen and ate the grain.”
“So, he died. Tragic,” Voldemort said indifferently.
“No,” Harry said. “The magic of the potion protected him. Ceridwen became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Taliesin.”
“Fascinating story, but you can’t bore me to death.”
“We know,” Niamh said, “but we are giving you another chance to grow up.”
Harry held up the seed. “We’re going to seal your soul inside this lemon seed and feed it to a muggle. You will grow up with no magic, no memory of magic, and no memory of the wizarding world.”
“You can’t,” Voldemort snarled.
“We can,” Morrigan said, “and we will. We could do much worse, but this takes you off the board.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Harry said. He turned to Morrigan.
“Do it.”
Morrigan took the seed from him and drew a symbol in the air.
“No,” Voldemort shrieked as he was sucked into the seed.
“What do we do?”
Arawn took the seed. “If Morrigan will help, I’ll take it back in time and ensure that a muggle eats it.”
“Why back in time?” Harry asked.
“If he is a muggle, we don’t want him able to influence the future just in case he remembers his past life. If we take him back in time, he already influenced the past because we already took him back in time.”
“That logic makes my brain hurt,” Harry said.
Morrigan turned to Arawn. “I’ll need a bit of a boost to open the portal. I am nowhere near full strength.”
“We’ll help,” Harry said taking Niamh’s hand.
Morrigan gazed at her son seriously. “You’ll have to get back the long way.”
Arawn shrugged. “I’ll go to the Americas. That should be far enough away not to interfere with the timeline if I live as a mortal.”
Nodding, Harry, and Niamh each placed a hand on Morrigan’s back. Morrigan gestured and a circular portal appeared in the air.
Arawn kissed Niamh’s cheek, hugged Harry, and stepped through the portal.
As the portal closed, Niamh and Harry collapsed to the ground unconscious.
**ROE**
July 1808
Nancy Lincoln choked as she took a sip of lemonade.
“Are you alright?” her husband, Thomas asked.
“Fine,” Nancy coughed. “I just swallowed a lemon seed.”
Thomas chuckled. “My Mother choked on one once. My Father joked that she’d grow a lemon tree in her belly.”
**ROE**
Arawn smiled as he watched the young couple from behind a powerful glamour. Nodding to himself, he turned away from the couple. His work was done. Hopefully, some good will come from this. If not, well, he would be watching.
**ROE**
April 15, 1865.
Arawn looked up from the newspaper as a man in a straw hat entered the small store he ran.
“Hello Aaron,” the man said. “Have you heard about the president.”
Arawn nodded. “Yes, terrible what happened to him, but his legacy will live on.”
“From your lips to Gods ear,” the man said as he began to look around the store.
Arawn smiled to himself. A loving family could really make all the difference.
**ROE**
Harry awoke in the hospital wing and turned to see his mother lying in a bed nearby. Seeing he was awake, Niamh smiled at him.
“Is everything alright Mum?”
“Everything is fine. Your Dad is in Annwn.”
“I thought he was in the past?”
“He was. He lived through the past and time caught up.”
“How is he?”
Niamh shrugged. “Happy to be home.”
“So, what should we do now?”
Before Niamh could respond, Fudge burst into the room. “Harry James Potter,” he said in a loud voice; “Niamh of the golden hair, you are under arrest.”
“For what may I ask,” Dumbledore said as he entered the room.
“Several members of pureblood families have ended up in hospital suffering from magical exhaustion.”
“Will they recover?” Dumbledore asked.
“Yes, the healers have said that they will make a full recovery, but that is not the point.”
“Then perhaps you should tell us what the point is?” Niamh asked.
“The point is that you attacked members of the magical community.”
“How would we have done that? We were out of the country until today and then we’ve been unconscious until a few minutes ago.”
“A likely story,” Fudge shouted. “Aurors.”
Harry tried to sit up, but his head swam. He fell back on the pillows. As the aurors approached, he did the only thing he could think of. He sank his teeth into the closest wizard’s arm and jerked his head violently to one side.
Blood flew in the air and the auror screamed. Seeing a fist swinging towards him, Harry created a shield of air just in time.
There was a loud crunch and another auror howled in pain.
“The iron you idiots,” Fudge yelled.
Harry struggled as several hands grabbed him roughly. He groaned as the cold iron manacles snapped shut on his wrists and ankles.
Dimly, he heard thuds, grunts, and screams. There was a flash of red light, and everything went black.
**ROE**
Cold. That was the first thing Harry felt when he awoke. He tried to move and heard the clinking of chains.
“Harry?” Niamh’s voice came from beside him.
Looking over, Harry saw his mother chained to the wall next to him. Her hair stuck up in all directions, her lip was cut, and she had the beginnings of a black eye.
“Mum?” Harry asked. “What happened?”
Niamh grinned causing the cut on her lip to reopen and blood to spill down her chin. “You’re not the only one that fought back against those jerks.”
Harry looked around the bare stone cell they were in. “Where are we?”
“Azkaban. Apparently, Fudge convinced the ministry workers we may flee back to Elphame.”
Harry concentrated. “The iron is interfering with my connection to Elphame.”
“Mine to,” Niamh said calmly.
“What do we do?”
“Well,” Niamh said. “I’ve spent these past few years gaining support in the wizarding world. Hopefully, it will be enough to help us get off these trumped-up charges.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then we stop playing nice,” Niamh said gravely.
“Mum,” Harry said nervously. “A war is what destroyed the world in the future.”
“Ginny survived and Voldemort has been dealt with. That changes thing drastically.”
“But if they call in the muggles…”
“Mundane folk,” Niamh said firmly. “Anyway, I’ve spoken to the prime minister. He’d be happy if the wizards aren’t causing any trouble for the country anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
Niamh smiled grimly. “It means that we have everything to gain and nothing to lose.”
Harry relaxed back in his chains. He really hoped his mother knew what she was doing. “Will the mundane folk help with our trial do you think?”
Niamh shook her head. “They won’t help us, but neither will they act against us.”
Harry shifted in his chains trying to get more comfortable. “I don’t like this. A lot of things can go wrong.”
“Trust me,” Niamh said reaching out a hand to squeeze his shoulder. “Everything is gonna be alright.”
There was a clinking sound and the door to their sell swung open.
“Dad,” Harry said as Arawn stepped inside.
“What are you doing here?” Niamh asked.
“I came to check on you as soon as I heard what happened.” His eyes fell on Niamh’s cuts and bruises. His expression darkened.
“Hold still,” he said as he ran his fingers across her face. A faint blue glow followed the path of his fingers. Niamh’s black eye and cut lip faded away as if they had never been. Niamh touched her healed face. “Thanks.”
Arawn shrugged. “A very minor healing talent goes a long way. Now come on, I’m getting you out of here.”
Niamh shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.
Arawn blinked in surprise. “Why?”
“Because we didn’t spend all these years cultivating support in the wizarding world just to run away. You and I both knew something like this could happen.”
Arawn sighed and sat down between them with his back against the wall.
“What are you doing?” Niamh asked.
“I just spent one hundred years away from both of you. I’m not leaving you two alone any more than I have to.”
“Dad,” Harry said. “This is a prison.”
Arawn snorted. “I’ve stayed in inns worse than this.
Niamh chuckled. “You probably have. What do we do now?”
Arawn stretched his legs out in front of him. “We wait.”