"What do you mean, Natty?" Alex asked his Gryffindor friend as they met up on the train--this being the first time Alex rode the Hogwarts Express--heading back to London.
Natsai Onai--one of the companions in the Hogwarts Legacy game--sighed a bit as she recounted what she had felt from Erebus during the time both he and Alex came to help her deal with Harlow. Apparently, before leaving Hogwarts, Erebus had caught up to see her in the hospital and given her some kind of potion that managed to help speed up her recovery from Harlow's Cruciatus curse. During the time that they were alone in the hospital, Natsai heard him speak of events that she didn't fully know about.
She heard him speak of future events with a tone full of confidence--albeit she didn't think Erebus had seen these events through Divination like her mother could.
"I mean what I said, Alex," she responded in her soft Ugandan accent while the four of them--Natsai, Sebastian, Poppy, and Alex--pondered what this meant. "From what I could understand, Erebus was concerned about things. Things that haven't happened yet."
"What kind of things could make him so concerned, Natty?" Poppy asked in her sweet yet gentle tone. It was very clear that the Hufflepuff of the four of them felt a strong sense of loyalty for her friend she met this year just like Alex. "He helped Alex deal with Ranrok down below Hogwarts, right?"
"He also helped with my sister, too," Sebastian added with a tone full of respect--unlike most Slytherins could give. "Used an artifact that healed her."
Alex nodded lightly to them both. "Erebus managed to help us out a lot this year. It didn't seem like much, but he did help us out in fighting the goblins and poachers. What I don't get though is why he said stuff about events that haven't happened yet."
"Or why some of the others forgot about him?" Sebastian inquired. "Surely you all have noticed that too?"
The other three nodded lightly in affirmation. They had indeed noticed on how everyone else in their year--students and some staff--had forgotten about Erebus' presence during that year, but it did leave one very big question in their minds.
'Why are we the only few who could remember it all?'
Alex theorized that it might be because his Ancient Magic had some kind of passive effect on the four of them, but there was also one other theory subtly forming in his mind. Something both impossible yet not.
"So, who and what is Erebus really?" Sebastian asked Alex. "He didn't say much, but you and I both know he isn't normal."
That caught both Natsai and Poppy's attention.
"He took on a Unforgivable Curse head-on and managed to walk away from it like it was no problem," Sebastian mentioned--shocking both Natsai and Poppy.
"Which one of them was it?" Natsai asked--now very worried.
Stolen story; please report.
"The Killing Curse," Sebastian responded.
Both Natsai and Poppy paled. 'WHAT?!?' they both thought.
Alex pondered that as if reminding himself of what he had revealed to both him and Professor Fig earlier on in the year. How he was there to learn about magic and that System he had.
"But that curse..." Natsai stuttered in shock. "Just how?!"
"Because he's not from our world," Alex responded in a confident tone as he thought about it. "He told both Fig and I earlier this year."
There, Alex told them what he knew about Erebus' origins. How he wielded a strange blade made of light that cut through the goblins like paper and killed Ranrok after he took in the Ancient Magic from the repository, his strange look in his eyes as if looking at the halls of Hogwarts with both fascination and remembrance, and that strange power he used during the troll attack in Hogsmeade.
Most importantly, both he and Sebastian even told Natsai and Poppy about the strange ship that was immensely bigger on the inside along with Erebus' companions.
"This...This is too much..." Poppy said out loud with Natsai rubbing her temples in the information overload. "So, Erebus isn't from our world? Where did he come from then?"
"I don't know," Alex muttered in response. "All he said was that his world was gone."
This revelation made the room they stayed in grow colder in sorrow. They were all friends with Erebus and could tell throughout the year that he carried a great burden, but even with the little information they had about him, all four of them cared greatly about him.
=+=
Two years later... End of the 1894-1895 school year...
Two years passed since Erebus' disappearance from the world and the subsequent memory wipe of most of the Hogwarts residents. Ever since Professor Fig passed on at the end of the Goblin Rebellion and Alex took on the secret of the repository, the rest of the school years came and went by rather quickly.
Alex and his parents had to deal with inquisitive Ministry officials concerning the events of that final attack underneath Hogwarts Castle alongside his three friends, but their investigation all pointed out that Ranrok's rebellion was over anyway. What didn't change was the laws concerning wand use--staying the way it did in canon--and the four friends wonder about the past.
Even now--in their seventh and final year at Hogwarts--they couldn't help but wonder what it was that made Erebus so concerned. Sebastian had been abandoned by his Uncle and twin sister in the village of Feldcroft after the events of the catacombs, but Alex's parents were all too willing to let him stay there until he turned 17. That action made Sebastian thankful and set him on the path to becoming an Unspeakable in the Ministry.
Poppy Sweeting soon became one of the world's finest magical beast caretakers--working in nature preservations to help take care of magical beasts. She even got to ride a Heberdian Black in the Hogwarts Valley at some point.
As for Natsai Onai, she managed to help guide a young and impressionable Albus Dumbledore in his magical journey that last couple of years--setting him up to become the very same Albus Dumbledore who'd encounter Tom Riddle and become the headmaster during the time of Harry's attendance to Hogwarts. She had even enlisted her friend Alex Fross' help in teaching him some things about magic not many Gryffindors could've known.
Alex Fross--however--became a socialite and had become very popular with the younger students as he was the only student in Hogwarts to start attending as a fifth-year. Not much changed from his previous year studying magic and being famous for his adventures with Professor Fig, but something would change at the very end of the school year in 1895.
Something that would put these four friends on a collision course with their missing friend in the future.
At the same time--just before they were due to board the train for the last time--all four of them received a letter addressed to each of them directly. It only said one thing.
"Come to the Map Chamber."
Making their way to the Map Chamber, all four of them came into the mostly empty chamber to only find a mysterious figure cloaked in black there waiting for them. The figure looked upon them all with a smile and said only one thing that made them hopeful.
"Would you like to see Erebus again?"