I expected Dumbledore to take our suggestions and run with them. What I didn’t expect was for Dumbledore to be so decisive.
The following day before our Sunday morning breakfast we were all informed that there was a suspected outbreak of fire lice and all pets were to be brought in cages to the hospital wing for an inspection before lunch with Professor Kettleburn, the current care of magical creatures professor, and Hagrid.
I noticed Ron pulling Scabbers out of his pocket and giving him a visual look over before he shrugged and headed towards the portrait entrance of the common room.
Yet, I paled when I realized that Ahri would have to be examined as well now that she was back in her cat body.
Damn… we hadn’t considered that…
Yet, there really wasn’t too much we could do. Dumbledore had seen Ahri’s human body in the castle and hadn’t said anything with everything else going on. We could probably explain that away as she was known to be our guardian. Yet it might now raise more questions if someone noticed our cat and Ahri were never seen together… were we ready to have our full capabilities understood?
I sighed, it was too complicated to try to plan for everything right now. I was still prepared to pop away from this universe if need be. Last night I had prepared a letter I had left in a safe in our home in Hogsmeade that Dobby would give to Holly if we were forced to run. Amy had also started stalking up on biomass, just in case. Together, we were ready to run at the drop of a hat, and while not ideal, it would hopefully let the good guys win with a lot less casualties this time.
Yet as much as we were prepared to leave, I didn’t want to go. I could tell that all of my girls had enjoyed their time here and while I still planned on jumping around to grow stronger, I still wanted this world as a moderately safe place to return to between trips.
Shrugging, I followed Ron out of the dorm room before I noticed Holly heading towards the Owlrey to pick up Hedwig. She was jogging so she might even make it to the hospital wing before us.
That was indeed what happened as we all arrived behind a line of other students holding their animals, not all of which were in cages, so I felt justified about never putting Ahri in one. I knew she would understand if it ever came to that, but I wasn’t about to do it if I could get away with avoiding it.
As we waited in line I noticed that Scabbers, AKA, Pettigrew was getting a little nervous in Ron’s pocket and so I nodded at Taylor and Sabah who nodded back. All three of us had headed down after Ron. We would be the ones who had abilities that might let us help to catch him if he tried to escape. Taylor would track him, Sabah could probably telekinetically lift him, albeit slowly, and I could try to portal him away once he was out of sight. Ahri, even in her cat form, would be there to confuse and distract him as needed. Behind us, I noticed that Holly joined us looking determined with Hedwig on her shoulder.
As we slowly progressed through the door into the hospital wing, we looked around. There was still a dozen or so students in front of us which wasn’t really surprising. There were about a thousand students in Hogwarts and maybe about a quarter of them had pets. So while that meant there were about 250 animals, a large portion of those were owls so it was actually pretty rare to see many pets in the common rooms.
As we moved forward, I noticed Hagrid poking over the heads of the students already. He really was a mountain of a man. I kind of wish we could get closer to him, but with his almost legendarily bad track record at keeping secrets, it was probably never going to happen.
As we got closer to the end of the hospital wing I also I noticed there was a curtain hung blocking off a corner of the room. I glanced between Taylor and Sabah who had decided to come with me and shrugged. We hadn’t planned any details on how the teachers would setup the inspection so I wasn’t sure what was going on.
Yet, before I arrived at the front of the line I felt a tingle run across me as I stepped forward again.
I was just about to look down to try to figure out what had just happened when I heard a cry in front of me. “Oi, Scabbers!”
Instantly, my eyes started searching for the rat. We couldn’t let him escape. If we wanted Sirius free and Tom’s revival delayed we wanted him contained.
Ahri seemed to have spotted him first and jumped down heading towards the hospital wing’s door to try to intercept him when she froze. Literally froze mid step.
However, I didn’t have time to figure out what happened as I pointed at the fleeing rat and yelled “There he is!”
Sabah started running towards the rat with Taylor hot on her heels when I decided to just head back towards the hospital door. Yet as I tried to run forward it felt like I was suddenly stuck in a wall of superglue. Instantly my left side couldn’t move. I couldn’t even put my foot down, it was stuck in the air. Yet I found my right arm and leg were still free leaving me half frozen awkwardly flailing around.
The shock of being frozen meant that I didn’t have time to process much, yet I still noticed Holly get frozen a little further than I did as she also turned back. Yet it was only Holly’s right arm that was frozen instead of roughly half her body like me or everything like Ahri.
Moving my eyes while the rest of my head was frozen I noticed something I probably should have seen before. There was a very small chalk line running from one side of the hall to the other… and Scabbers, Ahri, Holly, and I were all stuck along it’s path.
Yet before I could start to panic I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, Dumbledore walking leisurely around the corner of the curtains smiling and flicking his wand, a moment later a stunned and levitated Pettigrew was hanging in front of the Headmaster.
I was still able to swallow, but I felt my heart pound as I watched the rest of the students including Taylor and Sabah move past us, completely unaffected by the line.
Dumbledore’s smile didn’t drop as he spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear. “It seems like something going on here. I am not sure what it is, but I believe it is best that everyone not involved head back to their common rooms…” There was a moment where no one moved towards the door before Dumbledore’s voice turned the tiniest bit sharp, “That means now, if you please.”
That got everyone moving, leaving Ron, Holly, Sabah, Taylor, and myself along with the two Hogwarts staff. Honestly I would have left as well if I could move, but Ahri, Holly, and I were still stuck to whatever Dumbledore had done to catch Pettigrew.
Dumbledore turned to Professor Kettleburn. “Please call the DMLE if you would, professor. I suspect that this might not be as innocent as it appears. The rest of you, please step back.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not since Holly, Ahri and I still couldn’t move. Regarless Taylor, Sabah and Ron took a few more steps back.
As amusing as he thought have considered this situation I wasn’t actually happy being stuck here. I wasn’t sure what he had done, but I couldn’t think of any way of trapping the three of us accidentally while trying to get Pettigrew. What the hell connected the four of us?
Not only that, but why was I only half caught and Holly only partially stuck. Again, it just didn’t make sense.
Dumbledore seemed to finally study us and our predicament and I saw his mouth turn down in a frown before he waved his wand.
Watching the Elder Wand swinging towards me, I couldn’t help but flinch. Yet nothing happened besides suddenly being able to move back again. Immediately, I tried to shake off the strange sticky feeling that seemed to linger across my body. Besides me, I noticed Holly and Ahri doing the same.
Having released us I saw Dumbledore turn back to study the rat a little closer. After a quick set of diagnostic charms, Dumbledore turned towards Ron. “I am sorry, but it seems someone has decided to control your rat or maybe replace him. Maybe they were trying to spy on your father or maybe they noticed your family was friends with Holly. Regardless I think it best you leave this to the Aurors. They should be here momentarily and will probably want to ask you a few questions. Can you think of some point where Scabbers started to act strangely?” He paused for a second before looking a bit more apologetic, “Regardless, I will be willing to pay for you to get any replacement pet you like next weekend. Again, I am sorry.”
Ron simply worked his jaw for a few seconds, thinking through the shocking events before he slowly nodded, “Ah, alright… then… thanks. I suppose Scabbers has been acting pretty strangely since our trip to Egypt.”
Ron still looked confused, but Dumbledore’s calm demeanor seemed contagious as the young man took several deep breaths before looking Dumbledore in the eye.
Smiling with a small nod, Dumbledore pointed towards the chairs next to the hospital beds on the side of the room.
As Ron walked over to take a seat and wait for the authorities, I was a little surprised he was willing to just accept everything, just like that. Then again, his temper had calmed down a little towards the end of the books and he was nearly 17 in this world.
Dumbledore turned to the rest of us. “I think the rest of you should wait in my office. I haven’t been able to answer the questions you asked me yesterday, and I might have some time after all of this.”
I winced but nodded along with Holly, Sabah, and Taylor. It seems we would be having that second talk much sooner than I would have liked.
Yet before we could leave we saw some red-robed Aurors appear with a flash of flame from the fireplace at the end of the hall.
I didn’t recognize them, but then again, the only Aurors I would have even the slightest chance of guessing correctly from book descriptions were Tonks from the hair, Kingsley with his dark skin, and Amelia Bones due to her monocle.
They didn’t seem to want to ask us any questions and we really didn’t want to offer statements if we didn’t have to so I turned and headed out of the Hopsital Wing.
As we left the room, I turned to Taylor. “Please get everyone else, we might as well all hear this.”
However, before she could leave we spotted Luna and Dinah arriving around the corner followed by the rest of our girls along with Hermione and Ginny.
It was good to see our seers didn’t seem too concerned, but it didn’t stop me from worrying about what we were about to find out. Why had Holly, Ahri and myself been caught by whatever had grabbed Pettigrew? I couldn’t think of anything that combined all four of us into something that wouldn’t trigger on any of the other students.
Yet as we arrived at the gargoyle that protected the headmaster’s study we found the passageway was already open. Shrugging, we rode the moving stairs to Dumbledore’s office door and slowly made our way inside.
We found an office like that described in the books. It was cluttered with a variety of nicknacks, all of which seemed to be doing something different. There were also a large variety of books along with all of the portraits behind the headmaster’s desk. However, what seemed to catch everyone’s attention, including Holly, was Fawkes the phoenix. Fawkes chirped as he watched Holly walk over to him and start to scratch under his chin.
I think we all just looked at the magical bird for several seconds. We hadn’t been able to inspect Fawkes when he had come to our rescue last year. He was magnificent. He gave of an aura of both gentle power and purity.
Yet deep in my soul I felt like something was wrong as he looked at me, really looked at me.
I heard Dumbledore suddenly speak up right behind me. “Beautiful, isn’t he?”
I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who jumped. Spinning around, we finally noticed Dumbledore had arrived behind us and was only now closing the door.
“The Aurors were very surprised to find Peter Pettigrew alive and with a dark mark on his arm. They promised they would look into it, but they said it could take some time.“ Dumbledore explained patiently.
I frowned. That was what I was worried about. Pettigrew was a pure-blood and while not wealthy, it was likely that one of his death eater companions would attempt to step in. Still, that was something we should be able to deal with later, no one should be expecting him to be caught right now, after all.
Instead of continuing the description of the arrest, Dumbledore walked over to Fawkes and stroked his head giving the bird a fond little nod. Fawkes seemed to preen under the attention before beginning his song.
Again, I felt the calm wash over my soul. It was soothing even as something itched slightly. Yet I couldn’t help but be worried about what was going to happen next.
As he watched us I noticed Dumbledore seem to relax as the song went on. That was when it hit me, he was watching us for our reaction. I remembered reading somewhere that evil spirits or humans who practice the dark arts are often hurt by the purity of a phoenix’s song.
Part of me wanted to be angry for the sudden interrogation via phoenix, but I just couldn’t stay angry while listening to Fawkes’ song. Plus we had kind of done the same thing with Amy’s touch.
Soon enough, the song ended and Dumbledore moved towards his desk and chair before slowly sitting down and steepling his fingers in front of him. “Despite everything, I like to think I am still a teacher at heart. So… what do you think happened? How did I catch him?”
I shrugged along with most of the people in front of us yet noticeably I saw four people who didn’t.
It was Taylor who spoke up first. “It was some sort of ward which could only be passed in one direction. It was something that no student or animal should trigger so it was a silent backup in case Pettigrew ran.”
Dumbledore looked pleased and gestured for us to continue.
Hermione spoke up next. “From what Holly described, it was made out of chalk. That meant it was a simple ward line which limited the types of detections it could perform. That means some distinguishing factor that is easily determinable. I don’t think an animagus ward could be simplified enough for that.”
Luna broke the discussion and turned to look sadly at me. “I am not sure exactly what will be revealed, but remember it isn’t that bad and we care about you.” besides her, Dinah nodded.
I felt a shiver run down my spine and I swallowed as I felt my breathing pickup in speed. Luna rarely spoke that clearly. What the hell was she warning me about?
Dumbledore looked a bit concerned as he let his eyes bounce back and forth between Luna and me before letting his eyes settle on Holly. “I put down an age line. One that only works in one direction. Yet both of you were only partially restricted…” Dumbledore said with a frown. He paused for a moment and then waived his wand and all the portraits behind his desk froze.
I swallowed along with Holly. I wasn’t liking the direction this was going at all. What did that mean, I was pretty sure I was in my early 20s. But if that was true, then why did the age line partially catch me? I looked at Holly before a slow creeping dread started to dominate my thoughts as I realized how something like that could have been possible.
Worse yet, I realized that Holly was about to discover the connection we had been teasing was an actual soul fragment.
Damn… DAMN… DAMN…
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Pulling his wand out slowly, Dumbledore waved it in several different patterns before he swung it around and flicked.
I nearly panicked, wondering if he was attacking us, but before I could do anything I saw a glow start to emanate from each of us.
Dumbledore kept his voice calm as he started to explain. “You seemed to know what was going on and seemed to be trying to help so I figured I should be honest with you all as well.”
I blanched as I realized this spell was doing something similar to my soul sight and I saw the black blob attached to Holly’s warm golden soul.
Looking around I noticed everyone had glanced at Holly before almost as one they had taken a step back. The small fragment was just that putrid in its aura.
I scanned the rest of my girls finally noticing something new. At the top of each of the girls heads that came from Earth Bet I realized there was the tiniest dis-coloration. It wasn’t black. In fact it was white, but not pure white… it reminded me of a sterile medical white.
I didn’t know what to think about that, but before I could consider those implications I realized everyone had turned to stare at me in horror several of them backing away in shock.
Looking down, I wasn’t sure what was wrong. I had already seen my soul. It was a gray which turned to silver towards the bottom.
Seeing my confusion Dumbledore conjured a mirror and I felt the blood drain from my face.
I had never bothered to try to see the soul behind me and… it wasn’t natural. Instead, I felt my legs start to shake as I counted one, two, three, four, five… six different colors with three soul fragments fighting the other two with the last one lashing out somewhat randomly. Looking closer I noticed that my soul that I had always just thought was a natural gradient of gray to silver… wasn’t, it was actually two separate sections.
I hadn’t noticed…
… No, I hadn’t wanted to notice.
Yet the worst part, I didn’t have a core to my soul. There was no center, it was just wisps all the way down.
Was I even a person?
Every instinct I had screamed at me that I wasn’t natural.
I was a creation… a Frankenstein’s monster…
My instincts screamed that nothing this patchwork should be able to exist… unless…
My mind swam again.
My compulsion to bind other people to myself… I had wondered why I had been given that desire.
I laughed out loud, but it sounded like a choked gasp. I had been instinctively using other souls to hold myself together and support myself.
I had interpreted my instincts correctly when I had inspected our bonds. We had been supporting each other and our growth, I just didn’t realize how precarious my own soul would be without them…
… I needed them to not only survive in these worlds but to simply exist.
Looking deeper I realized that the biggest soul fragment in silver was that of a young man… younger than I thought I was, maybe only 20 or so… the next largest was that of an ever shifting woman in gray. The smaller sections were harder to pick out. There seemed to be a man with a toxic green hue, almost like he coveted the world around him. Then there was a golden aura around another tiny fragment that felt ancient. The fragment that seemed to be fighting everything around him was red, but as I looked closer it felt almost rusted or frayed. The last fragment… the last fragment was a black as deep as Riddle’s, no, perhaps even more so. An insane soul that wanted to kill everyone and everything around him.
I opened my mouth several times before I felt my consciousness wavering, yet before I could say anything else I was hugged by a small blond missile. That hug from Luna was followed up by the others.
I blinked.
I breathed.
I knew they thought they cared, but the doubts I thought I had put away came back. Did they really care? Was I doing something to force them? How would I even know?
Luna pushed me back and I was startled to realize she had the smallest little tears in her eyes. “I know you won’t listen to us so we are going to prove it to you.”
I looked confused so Dinah continued where Luna left off. “Luna and I are not being controlled. Neither are any of the others and we are going to prove it.”
I felt something shift and I wondered if all of these feelings I had been having were parts of myself fighting each other. That made way more sense than it should. How do soul fragments even fight in the first place?
I blinked and focused back on Luna. “I saw it. You are going to leave Dinah and me with our parents somewhere else for our own adventure and we will prove to you that we do care about you.”
There was a moment of silence where I felt like I was swaying, not sure what to feel, but as I considered the idea I had to admit it was something I would want to know. It horrified a large part of me. Yet even the parts of me that wanted to treat them as family wanted to know. It also made sense to send the youngest two. The fear of controlling them was even higher due to only being just shy of 14 and 15 respectively when we met.
Yet, tearing out Luna and Dinah to make sure I wasn’t somehow controlling them, was not going to be easy. I could imagine how much it would hurt…
I paused. Was that the reason it hurt so incredibly much to move my own soul into the gem way back when? I had theorized it was because I had to be conscious the entire time, but it made more sense that it was because I was moving it around with virtually no inner support, no core. No one else had felt anything… was it because they were stable and I was anything but? No wonder it was excruciating.
As I nodded slowly, I could see the conflicted faces of everyone around us. “I won’t force anyone to leave, but… I need to know what is going on with our bond.”
Looking around, I could almost see the defiance of Taylor and Amy. They looked ready to throttle me for even considering leaving them behind, but I was surprised to see that Sabah and Ahri in her cat body only looking ever so slightly less indignant at the suggestion they should leave.
At that point we heard the hum of Dumbledore and I froze. I had completely forgotten that he was even in the room.
Turning my head to face him I asked sheepishly. “Uh, sorry about all of that, Headmaster. I am afraid we needed a moment to have a bit of a Family discussion.”
Yet, the twinkling eyes and smile put me at ease. Much more at ease than I would have thought with my near panic attack. Hell, if I hadn’t had the girls supporting me so much last year, I might have actually broken down completely.
Dumbledore finally hummed. “I won’t ask about your… unusual soul as it clearly wasn’t your doing. I also believe that you have put just about all of my remaining fears about your care for each other to rest. It is very clear that you care about all of your… Family… and as I have told Holly before. Love is the greatest and most powerful form of magic.”
I part of me winced at a line that might have come off of a motivational poster, but I did have to admit that Love can push people to do and achieve things well beyond what is thought of as possible.
I sighed. “I appreciate that, Headmaster, but I don’t really want to talk about us or our secrets anymore.”
Dumbledore smiled, a little amused, but with a hint of sadness. “I see, however I think we should. Now that we have confirmed the somewhat dire situation, I believe it best we work together, because, ultimately I think we will need your help here.”
I paused and actually had to close my mouth when I realized it was hanging open at how open Dumbledore was being.
Dumbledore actually shrugged at me and I had to shake myself as he kept talking. “So, I think I am willing to take that oath, young man. In fact, it might be a good idea for all of us to take an oath to not reveal anything said in this room today to anyone else without each other’s permission.”
Blinking, I realized he was going to tell us about Horcruxes. Something that he did not want to get out under any circumstances. He knew that we knew and it seemed that he was willing to take an oath to protect our Family secrets to ensure that we didn’t share anything about Tom’s soul jars in turn. I was honestly shocked until I sat down and thought about it. I had been distracted by the fanfictions where Dumbledore is often evil, but in the books he does take suggestions, even if he only rarely acts on them. He was also willing to overlook a lot of decisions that Harry and his friends made as long as it was part of trying to defeat Tom.
Considering all of this, I realized that this was probably the best scenario we could get as long as we made sure the oath would mean he wouldn’t go after us directly.
Determining the oath that each of us would swear took a few minutes. Dumbledore’s unbreakable oath was simply that he would not seek to hurt us through action or inaction or reveal anything we told him was secret today without warning us explicitly first that he was going to do so one week in advance.
I had to admit that I was a little disappointed we couldn’t get him to swear to leave us alone completely. However, after I thought about it, having him unable to stop or restrict us in any fashion was impossible given his history. No matter how much he liked us, he was not going to be willing to sit back and let us do whatever we wanted. It was probably giving him flashbacks to Grindelwald. Especially, when he had only known us for such a short amount of time.
To my relief he didn’t actually make us swear an unbreakable vow back, just promise we would keep the details secret. We made Holly, Hermione, and Ginny swear the same things about our secrets, but I was less worried about their motives as they hadn’t said anything in the entire year we had known them.
So, finally, with all the restrictions set up, it was time. “So what, Mr. Dumbledore, do you know about the multiverse theory?”
He was slightly taken aback up at that. “Not much. Something about each choice is a fork. However, I remember something about how it implies there are multiple versions of ourselves out there.”
I blinked and then nodded. “Actually, that is exactly the point I was going to be bringing up. Part of the reason we know a possible future is because this has happened before… or at least a slightly different version of this has happened before or currently happening… or will happen.” I sighed. “Look we don’t know the specifics, but they aren’t actually all that important. Now this alternative to your world was seen by someone in another universe as a vision that they wrote into books, actually really popular books at that… then when we arrived we realized that this world seemed to be playing out very similar to said books and Luna and Dinah confirmed it.”
Everyone looked confused so I tried to simplify it. “Look the details don’t matter, we can talk about the details more later. What you should focus on is that we saw a possible future and have come to try to help if we can.”
I took another breath. “As for who and what we are. Each of us has some fairly unique abilities but now is not the time to go into detail. In general, our abilities are being able to heal, build, scout, fight, and travel between worlds. So obviously we have been traveling around visiting worlds and helping a little where we can while exploring, learning, growing, and enjoying our time together. However, we also give women we like the option to join us. We will eventually find a place and probably start our family there for the women who want children. Finally, we are older than we look, except for Dinah and Luna, everyone is actually 5 to 10 years older than we look, but we wanted the full Hogwarts experience.”
Dumbledore looked truly surprised for a few moments before he smiled, eyes twinkling, but I didn’t miss the dangerous gleam in his eye. “So you are looking at adding more girls, girls from the school to your group then?”
I was a little worried about his reaction, but I wasn’t about to lie about this. Especially not infront of Holly, Hermione, and Ginny. I answered with a simple, “Basically, yes.”
Seeing his surprise at my blunt agreement was fun, but I decided to explain before he got the wrong idea. “We have built our group, a group which we have decided to call our ‘Family’. And we are recruiting women who are strong, smart, and kind or we think might become so given the chance. On this world, we have tentatively offered Holly, Hermione, and Ginny along with Lara Croft so far the chance to join us. Yet in the end it is just an offer. Quite a few people have declined us before.”
Then, pointing at Luna, I shrugged a little self-consciously. “On the other hand, Luna has already joined us. Although… as you all heard, I was a little worried about my influence over them. However, with all due respect, that is going to be Family business.”
Humming, Dumbledore chuckled, relaxing slightly. “Yes, honestly this conversation was only as lighthearted as it was because I saw how well everyone had taken care of Luna and how happy she looked over the last year. I will admit that I saw her after the loss of her mother and I am glad to see she is doing so much better.” Looking away, he sighed again. “As long as everyone is willing and happy… well then, I guess all I can do is wish you good luck… After all, I never had much luck with the ladies.”
All of us raised our eyebrows at the man and he had the good grace to chuckle again. Compared to what Harry knew in the books, virtually everyone in the magical world here seemed to know that he preferred men.
Dumbledore smile turned down as he turned to face Holly and hesitated for a moment before he sighed. “Unfortunately, now I have to explain the abomination that… how did you put it? Lord Moldypants… did to his soul. You see, cold-blooded murder, murder of an innocent that has never done anything wrong to you is such an act of pure evil that it tears apart your own soul. If you then take that soul fragment and place it inside an object, called a Horcrux, you will be tied to this world even if your body is killed. This is what Tom did and it is why he survived that fateful Halloween evening. The problem is I believe he was planning on making another Horcrux when he visited your home that fateful Halloween night and that fragment of soul latched onto you. It is in your scar, even now.
Just as I feared, Holly swayed in her seat at the shock, looking close to vomiting across Dumbledore’s fancy rug.
However, before anyone else could do anything Dumbledore continued. “Yet, I believe we now have hope.” Dumbledore turned to us. “I believe that our friends here have implied that they know of a way to ensure that you survive the Horcrux removal.”
Holly’s head snapped over to look at us and I winced. “Ok, so let's back up a bit. We have a rough idea of how you survived in the books, yet it was a difficult and frankly ridiculous method to try in the first place. So we also have several ideas on other methods that might work. However…” I swallowed. I had to trust Dumbledore’s oath here… “I am also a soul mage. So I might be able to do something directly as well.”
Everyone looked a little worried at my warning, but there wasn’t an easy answer.
Dumbledore hummed a little tiredly. “But you do know where the rest of his Horcruxes are?”
I nodded. “We have actually collected two of them, they are sitting in a lead containment box we found here in the castle. We also know where the three others are right now. One is easy and we can get it at any time, but the other two will be tricky. Also, if nothing changes, Tom will make another Horcrux next year as well, this one will be a massive snake that he keeps near him virtually all the time.”
Dumbledore looked suitably horrified at the number of times Tom had carved a section of his soul away. I didn’t blame him, he was less of a real person than I was at this point. No wonder he was insane.
I turned to Holly. “The person who saw your life…” I winced, “well… an alternate of your life where you were a boy…”
At that, Holly looked like I had slapped her with a fish but didn’t interrupt.
There were a few giggles, but I continued regardless. “The way you survived in the books wasn’t completely clear, but is generally understood to be one of three ways. First, and most straightforward, is that you were simply hit with the killing curse. The killing curse tears a soul from the body, however you had two souls in your body so it only forced out one. It sorta makes sense, even if in the books it was a bit less straightforward as it brought you to limbo momentarily before you returned to life. The problem is that it isn’t something I would like to try on a hunch.”
Obviously there are near universal agreement that trying the killing curse on Holly was less than ideal so I continued. “The second theory was when Tom used your blood to revive himself while having a part of his soul attached to you, he essentially made himself into a pseudo blood horcrux for you. This was enough that when he, himself hit you with a killing curse, it kept you alive.”
Holly looked incredibly uncomfortable and I realized that I needed to warm these girls up to the idea of a soul anchor if I wanted them to actually join us. “That said, as a soul mage I don’t actually find the concept of soul anchors inherently immoral or evil. It is just another way of prolonging your life in the same way that the Flamels did with their Philosopher’s Stone. It is the splitting of the soul into pieces with a cold-blooded murder that I believe is truly an evil that should not exist.”
No one outside our group looked particularly happy with my opinion, but no one disagreed so I continued to the last option. “The final reason you might have survived was because you had the loyalty of all three Deadly Hallows at the time making you Master of Death. Plus, you were killed and Tom used the Elder Wand which belonged to you at the time.” I said while looking over to Dumbledore who still had his wand out on the edge of his desk.
Everyone turned and looked at Dumbledore who actually blinked and looked at the wand at his side. There were a few moments where he paused and hesitated, but only for those few moments. “I think I would be willing to turn it over if it gives you a better chance to survive, but while I was never able to confirm if your cloak was the actual invisibility cloak from the legend you imply you know where the stone is.”
Dumbledore looked almost desperate to know where the resurrection stone was and I sighed. “We will tell you when you have someone to help you get it. Retrieving it killed you in the books, but you should be aware that just like the Wand which seems to encourage people to kill the wielder to steal it, the resurrection stone subtly encourages people to kill themselves so they can be with their loved ones.”
Dumbledore swallowed, but slowly nodded. “... I see…”
I turned to Holly. “Ignoring the other crazy ideas like how you survived… like it was because the prophecy said you would, or your mother made a contract with a Devil, Fae, or Angel, or the phoenix tears in your blood from last year, or that you were never human in the first place… ” Everyone looked a little shocked, but I didn’t stop for questions. “The ideas that might actually work were first, talking to the Goblins since they must have run into these items before and they might have found a way to remove the souls without destroying the vessel since they would want the artifact in question. Another idea was an exorcism of some sort. A third idea was talking to other wizarding groups, especially those in the far east since the books never talk about them. It was also suggested that you go to a Muggle doctor and have the section of flesh and bone below the scar removed and regrown in case the Horcrux is mostly attached to the skull. Finally, a soul mage like myself should be able to tear it out, but even that isn’t necessarily guaranteed.”
Everyone stood looking at me in astonishment, and I shrugged. “Your story was famous and a lot of people had quite a few ideas on better ways to get it out of your head than simply waiting for Tom to try to hit you with that one specific curse… because if he hit you with, say a blasting curse… well it wouldn’t have gone nearly as well.”
I winced along with everyone else at that mental image.
Dumbledore sighed. “You have given us a lot to think about. I will start to investigate those methods you suggested. However, I fear I might not find anything too soon. It is still the darkest of arts and banned in just about every wizarding community across the world. It always produces wizards who have stripped away their very humanity. Inevitably these supposed Dark Lords end up causing untold loss of life before they are defeated.” Dumbledore looked visibly saddened at the thought, and I wondered how often he had seen it happen.
I nodded slowly. “I guess we should get going then…”
At Dumbledore’s slow nod, already lost in thought, all of us started filing out of the room. We walked down the stairs and through the hall to the moving staircases. Yet before we could head in different directions, Hermione stopped me. “Hey Max… can you wait for a moment?”
I blinked and looked back. My girls stopping around me.
Hermione paused, obviously thinking about something, before she seemed to finally make up her mind and looked at me in the eyes. “I would like to go with you when you next jump.”
I blinked. “You did hear us when I worried I was controlling my girls, right? Plus, why now all of a sudden.”
Hermione, however, didn’t look fazed. “Yes, it is clear you have some sort of bond… and it is pretty deep, maybe soul deep.” at my surprise she rolled her eyes, “you implied as much up there. And this wasn’t sudden. I have been thinking about it for some time now.”
I frowned, but had to agree, we hadn’t said it was a soul bond, but the clues were all there. I had also seen her looking pensive since before school started.
“What are the benefits?”
I sighed and looked at Taylor, Dinah and Luna who nodded at me that we were clear. “I can bring you back if you are killed. That is the main one. But our souls seem to reinforce each other and seem to be strengthening each other. Finally you would be Family and we take care of our Family first.”
I was encouraged to see that Sarah was actually looking a little thoughtful at that.
Hermione took another deep breath. “What about that omnilingual ability?”
I paused and then had to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Of course, the bookworm would be much more interested in that than being safe from most forms of death. “Yes, although in full disclosure I can probably figure out how to give it to you without joining us. Sabah got it before she fully joined and Sarah has it now. I just have to figure out the details since I seem to be doing it on instict.”
Hermione took a deep breath. “I am interested. I just want to see what it is like before I commit.”
I nodded and shrugged. “Well, as I said, Sarah here has most of the benefits but isn’t fully part of the Family yet either. She is with us temporarily to decide if she wants to join and if my girls decide they want to accept her.”
Hermione nodded firmly. “Ok, I would like to do that as well.”
I blinked, it was still surreal whenever this happened. Women suddenly deciding they wanted to join us didn’t seem real. Yet I just nodded. “Ok, we were tentatively planning on visiting our first world, Earth Bet, over Christmas. You are more than welcome to come along for that trip if you want.”
I glanced at Holly and Ginny, but Holly shook her head. “I have to admit that it would be fascinating to visit another world, but I want to visit with Sirius over the Holidays.”
Ginny grimaced. “That does all sound interesting, but I have plans with my Family for Christmas. They didn’t like me leaving over the summer with no warning. Plus… well, I want to be a professional quidditch player out of school and so I don’t think I could join you… not for a while at least.”
I nodded and shrugged. “It is an offer that will probably remain open for you both indefinitely as my girls enjoyed spending time with you and we will probably come back here fairly often.”
I hummed and turned back to Hermione. “Why don’t you come along and you can find out more details from Amy and Taylor?” I turned to Holly. “Why don’t we head back down to Hogsmeade again? We can probably pop into our cottage and visit your… dogfather.”
At the chorus of agreements, I walked the now larger group of girls down the entrance hall so we could catch a ride to the village.
Amy was already talking quietly, but I heard her say. “Yeah, it is actually kind of nice knowing we saved him, just as much as he saved us… really just a lot of saving all the way around.”
Yet as we walked down the steps of Hogwarts I heard Luna say something that gave me pause. “Yep, saved by the waifu… now roll credits…”
I actually shivered at the idea someone was watching us… or… or us being in our own story. Turning around I sighed as I rubbed my forehead.
“Luna… part of me wants to know what you mean by that, but for my piece of mind… don’t tell me more about that unless we are in danger.”
Her smile was both amused and consoling. “Of course, Max.”
Interlude Pettigrew:
Peter didn’t know where it had all gone wrong. One minute he was sitting safe and warm in Ron’s pocket, the next he was being chased down by Bloody Dumbledore.
Now he was sitting in the DMLE holding cell in the Ministry of Magic. He wasn’t even sure how long he had been here. It had probably been days.
It was only his Pure Blood status that was ensuring he wasn’t already being questioned, maybe under veritaserum.
The Aurors had already ensured that the cell restricted his animagus form or he would have already escaped. Worse Dumbledore had taken the Dark Lord’s wand and the Aurors had taken his.
He didn’t know how to get out of this one now.
At that moment he heard a soft thump from around the corner.
His ears twitched at the sound and he found himself tilting his head to look down the hall.
Yet before he could wonder any further, a black-cloaked individual rounded the corner. Nothing was visible in his hood.
Peter wondered momentarily if he was here to save him, but he squeaked as he smelled the blood from what must have been the Auror guard.
As the man raised his wand at Peter he felt his stomach drop and a small warm spot grow in his trousers.
Before he could do anything else, he heard a gravelly voice spit out “Stupify” and everything went dark.