Work Text:
1998
Lord Voldemort’s funeral takes place after sundown. A cremation, rather, because a funeral implies more fanfare than a hastily constructed pyre outside the Forbidden Forest.
As one, the Aurors cast their spells, erupting a fire that fills the silence with the crackle of burning wood, in contrast to the clamor of celebration parties raging in the distance. Soon, all that remains of the once powerful wizard are unfulfilled ambitions and distorted memories. Just another casualty of time, gone like the empire he would never finish building.
While the other attendees depart, Harry lingers, drawn by the desire for a moment alone with his former nemesis. He bows his head before the scorched wood, searching for something to say, something profound and insightful. However, grander words elude him, so he says only, “I’m sorry.”
A gust of wind blows, carrying his message far away. Not anticipating a response, Harry turns to leave.
He will not realize, until much later, that he was not alone.
On his way back to the castle, Harry detours to the White Tomb to return the Elder Wand.
The jagged crack that runs the length of the tomb has not yet been mended. Exposed to the cool night air, the former headmaster’s face is peaceful, oblivious to the bloodshed that took place around him.
“Harry Potter. If I may have a word.”
Harry spins around to face a dark-haired, dark-skinned centaur, who looks thoroughly unimpressed with the wand pointed at his bare chest.
“Hello, Bane.” Harry lowers his wand. The centaur is an ally, if never a friend. “Okay.”
Without another word, the centaur walks into the Forbidden Forest. Harry hurries to follow, navigating the brambly path under the glow of Lumos. The forest once seemed so foreboding to Harry, full of menacing shadows and disconcerting noises. But after many near-death experiences, plus an actual death, it no longer feels forbidding. Tonight, its usual activity is muted, and the air smells particularly fresh, laden with the fragrance of late spring and the petrichor from earlier rainfall.
When the trees thin into a small clearing, Bane stops. After ascertaining they are alone, he holds out his hand. “This belongs to you.”
In his palm rests a small black stone, etched with the symbol of a circle and a line enclosed within a triangle.
Harry takes an instinctive step back. Bane frowns. “Do you not recognize it?”
“I do, but it’s not mine. I don’t want it.”
“Your name is written in its magic. Thus it belongs to you, and to you alone.”
“I don’t want it,” Harry repeats. “I never intended to recover it. You can keep it.”
Bane scoffs. “Centaurs have no need for human-made artifacts,” he says, not withdrawing his hand.
Harry caves and takes the stone. “Thanks,” he mumbles, shoving it in his pocket.
“You are the first human I know who tried to turn down a Hallow,” Bane remarks, gaze piercing.
“I have no use of them anymore. I only plan to keep the cloak.”
“Yes, I understand you made a promise to Albus to return the wand, but I advise you to hold onto it. A dead man needs no wand, while you will require all three Hallows.”
“Why?”
“There are many trials and tribulations in your path. Should you survive the year, you will attain the future you seek.”
“Survive?” Harry repeats, frustration simmering. “I’ve already defeated Voldemort. I’ve already died. What else am I supposed to do?”
“I am only a messenger of the stars. I cannot give away their secrets.”
Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes. Would it kill the centaurs to be helpful rather than vindictively cryptic once in a while?
“However, because you helped us, I will gift you two clues,” Bane says. “There is a Muggle saying that blood is thicker than water. While that cannot be denied, what Muggles neglect is that magic creates the most unbreakable bond of all.”
Feeling a sudden chill, Harry wraps his jacket more tightly about himself. “What’s the second clue?”
“Beware the number three.”
“Three? Why three?”
Bane merely points to the sky. “We are graced by the presence of the η-Aquarids. In twelve moons, when they again cross our orbit, your fate will have become clear.”
Harry raises his head as well. Unfortunately for him, the stars remain impossibly inscrutable.
“I must now ask you to leave. This forest remains the sacred land of centaurs. The next time you trespass, you will meet with misfortune.”
While Harry is tempted to point out that Bane led him here, he decides it’s not a good idea to get into semantics with someone who took down Death Eaters with a crossbow. “Thank you,” he says instead.
Bane nods curtly and disappears into the trees.
Back at the tomb, Harry hesitates. Though he had every intention of fulfilling his promise to his former headmaster, he cannot disregard the centaur’s warning.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he whispers.
Dumbledore, ever wise and peaceful, does not respond as the tomb seals over him once more. His wand hand remains empty.
Just beyond, the calm surface of Black Lake shines like an obsidian mirror, perfectly reflecting the first of the night’s meteors as they streak across the pre-dawn sky.
1948
Nobody knows where the stone came from.
It simply appeared one day, according to Carcatus Burke. “Someone probably dropped it off without being noticed,” he suggests, throwing a sharp look at Tom as if he should have been more watchful.
Tom’s face betrays only politeness. “What should we do with it?”
“Sell it, of course. If anyone is interested.”
No one is. While Tom makes half-hearted attempts, the stone is too unassuming, too ordinary for the likes of patrons who frequent Borgin & Burke. Eventually, it is relegated to a dusty drawer in a corner cabinet, forgotten beneath a yellowed ledger until Tom is cleaning out old inventory to make room for a new shipment.
He fishes the stone out, intending to put it in storage, when it glows and starts pulsing like a heart.
The decision is split-second and difficult to explain. Instead of tossing it into the storage bin, Tom drops the stone in his pocket. Burke hasn’t noticed other things he pilfered, so he doubt this one will be an exception.
In the privacy of his flat, Tom examines his new trinket. Its surface is uneven, with some areas filled with grooves, and others smooth to the point of iridescence. A few diagnostic spells reveal that it holds no trace of magic.
Tom shoves it away with a sigh. Aside from its mysterious glow and a faint resemblance to meteorites displayed in a Muggle museum, it has no redeeming qualities. At most, he can use it as an ingredient in a potion or ritual in the future.
Leaving the stone on his nightstand, he returns to his study of soul magic.
That night, Tom sleeps fitfully. In his dream, he stands in the center of a ruined temple, situated on an island in the middle of a nameless sea. As he gazes up at the starless sky, a voice speaks in his head, as if he’s again wearing the Sorting Hat.
Salazar’s blood sings in your veins, it says, softly and seductively, yet there is no one to appreciate its melody.
Tom doesn’t question the source of the voice. He cares only that its message resonates, for his deepest fear is a consignment to obscurity.
“Tell me then,” he says. “Tell me what I need to do.”
Very well, but you may regret the answers you seek.
Without warning, a fire sweeps through the island, scorching the temple and incinerating everything in its path until Tom jerks awake, panting and aching for something he cannot grasp.
Unsettled, Tom locks away the stone in his trunk. However, it consumes his thoughts to the point of distraction. He detests any mystery to which he has no solution.
He scans the minds of everyone in Borgin & Burke, employees and customers alike. He searches the wizarding wing of Guildhall Library, consulting books on subjects spanning from Astronomy to the darkest ritual magic. He even revisits the meteorite exhibit in the Muggle museum, in hopes that some connection can be drawn.
He finds no satisfying answer. At most, he can theorize that the stone is a shard from a passing comet, but that accounts only for its appearance. Because comets are not inherently magical, he has no explanation for the stone’s reaction to his touch, nor his strong suspicion that it’s connected to his dream of the burning temple.
The wise choice would be to move on. Return the stone to the storage cupboard and focus on other matters, such as the search for his mother’s locket or the grooming of his future army.
But he cannot. The stone’s secret haunts him, as does the whisper that promised grandeur and threatened destruction.
Eventually, after a month of eyeing the trunk, Tom gives in. He retrieves the stone and, upon physical contact, it heats almost to the point of pain, a greeting as well as a reprimand.
He slides it under his pillow.
That night, Tom is unsurprised that sleep again transports him elsewhere. This time, he’s in Knockturn Alley, winding through familiar streets. For some reason, everything is cast in sombre shadows despite the midday sun, and the few passerbys walk with raised hoods and lowered heads. The scene has the quality of a dream, yet its edges are not blurred.
Tom stops in front of Borgin & Burke. Through the window, he sees an elderly man bent over the counter, sorting through a case of vials. Despite the dank hair that frame his face, Tom instantly recognizes the features of Endres Borgin, Burke’s much younger business partner.
Borgin raises his head and Tom ducks away, heart racing. A possibility is presenting itself, but he’s not ready to acknowledge it.
Out of caution, he casts a glamor on himself before emerging into Diagon Alley.
In contrast to the eerie stillness of Knockturn Alley, Diagon Alley is in the throes of a celebration. Tom has only enough time to scan the streets, mentally cataloguing what feels familiar and what doesn’t, before a buxom woman hugs him. She yells something in exuberance that he doesn’t catch and dashes away, waving a copy of the Daily Prophet in the air.
At the glimpse of the headline, Tom freezes. Lord Voldemort confirmed dead, it reads. Funeral to be held at Hogwarts.
He stalks the woman. When she pauses to hug another passerby, he Summons the paper. By the time she notices its absence, he has slipped away to peruse the article in the corner of The Leaky Cauldron.
Learning Lord Voldemort’s crimes and eventual demise is a surreal experience. For instance, names are eerily familiar, even though he has never met the people or visited the places mentioned. Tom is reminded of a brief encounter with a sorceress in Eastern Europe, who offered to read his fortune for an exorbitant sum and, when he refused, tried to entice him with fragments that made no sense without context.
“Do you need anything else?”
Mutely, Tom shakes his head. The wizened barkeep gives him a toothless grin and gathers up the dirty dishes.
After the barkeep leaves, unaware of his customer’s intense scrutiny, Tom returns his attention to the Daily Prophet. Slowly and deliberately, he rereads the date until he can ignore the truth no longer.
2nd May, 1998.
Tom arrives at the Forbidden Forest just as his funeral is underway. Disillusioned, he joins the small crowd that has gathered.
The pyre has already been lit, and the unfurling flames create a column of fire that render the sky in blood-red hues. In its center, the outline of a body can be discerned: broken, unclaimed, and already forgotten.
It is a surprisingly fitting sendoff. Even as a child, Tom was drawn to fire, to its exemplification of beauty and destruction. No other element is worthy of transporting Lord Voldemort into the world beyond death.
Everyone is silent. No one mourns. Drawing upon fuzzy memories from orphanage days, Tom chants under his breath:
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…
In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life...
Hours seem to pass before the fire exhausts itself into cinders. The Aurors gather the ashes and the crowd disperses. Driven by the need to see, to understand, Tom begins to approach the remains of the pyre when someone beats him to the same destination. A messy-haired and bespectacled boy whose features are too shadowed to distinguish; a boy who, for a while longer, will remain a stranger.
The boy bows before the pyre. I’m sorry, he may have said, but the exact words are lost to the wind.
Long after the boy has departed, Tom stands vigil and wonders, why?
As soon as Tom opens his eyes, he knows he’s back in his own time. Through the windows, he hears the hum of traffic increasing in volume as East London stirs awake. Soon, morning will begin, and he will return to a humdrum existence of charming rich customers out of heirlooms or money.
For now, he lingers in bed and lets his mind wander back to 1998. To Knockturn and Diagon Alley, largely untouched by the passage of time; to the article on the Daily Prophet, painting the fall of an empire in impersonal strokes; to Hogwarts, a place of hopeful beginnings and irrevocable endings; and finally, to the luminous green of the boy’s eyes, vivid even in the darkness.
You may regret the answers you seek.
Tom fists his hand about the stone so tightly that its rough edges grind into his skin, nearly drawing blood.
“Yes,” he says aloud, answering a question not verbally posed yet nonetheless heard.
Outside, the last of the night’s meteors streak across the pre-dawn sky, invisible under the rising sun.