8Well, hello everyone! I bet this is a rather large shock for a lot of you (myself included), but here is chapter 1 of my new version of HoG! I'm quite looking forward to some of your reactions to this, due to the fact I have changed a fair number of things, and made the story overall a bit more serious and less… childlike. [In case you couldn't tell, I did not like my old writing style]. I do apologise if the new way I have written this is not to everyone's taste. I am going to go into a lot more detail into things rather than just putting in time skips because I wasn't sure what to write. There will also be less of a focus on the frivolous relationships of Harry and more on what he's actually doing. I won't ruin all the surprises though. A massive thank you as well to Hoppy159 for your advice on LibreOffice- it's awesome! You helped me get this chapter out much faster, so this chapter is dedicated to you!
On that note, I hope you all read and enjoy my makeover of Harry Potter and the Heart of Gondor! (Any suggestions for a different title, please suggest away)
For new readers: There will be background slash, but it won't be prominent and can be ignored.
Disclaimer- I do not own anything I have written, apart from some magic that is perhaps unheard of.
There will be a few things different, but it will be explained fairly properly. The main difference will be the change in point of view- I didn't like writing in first person, so I'm going back to third.
Chapter 1 – The War, Then and Now.
The war started when Harry was 16, at the end of his sixth year.
He had just finished a detention with Professor Snape on the day of the Quidditch Final, and was dreading going back to the common room. Harry had been the captain of the Quidditch team this year, and felt that he had let everyone down for not being able to play in the final, or even watch the game to cheer his team on. So instead of going to the common room where he would no doubt be faced with scorn and ridicule for abandoning his team, he decided to take a walk around the grounds of his home away from home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
It was while Harry was walking around the black lake that evening that he was stunned from behind and kidnapped straight off of Hogwarts grounds.
When Harry woke up, it was dark and he found himself tied to a statue of a grim reaper, in the middle of an old, decrepit graveyard. It was a fairly small graveyard, filled with old gravestones and a few pathways that he could see. There was an ominous atmosphere in the area, making the hairs on the back of Harry's next stand straight. In front of him lay a massive cauldron, filled with a sinister, bubbling clear liquid.
Standing to the side of the cauldron was Peter Pettigrew, the man who had betrayed Harry's parents to Lord Voldemort when Harry was just fifteen months old, and was the reason for him growing up an orphan in an unloved household. Pettigrew had just dropped what looked to be a large package into the cauldron, which fell slowly to the bottom with a dull 'thunk' noise.
Before Harry could even get his bearings fully, he felt a searing pain in his scar and a red spell was being shot at him, knocking him unconscious again, but not before he saw Pettigrew starting toward him with an empty glass vial and a knife aimed toward his arm.
The next time Harry woke he was still restrained, but the graveyard was otherwise empty. He had a burning cut on his arm that was steadily leaking blood and a residual pain in his scar. There was a dull throbbing throughout his body and a fuzzy feeling in his head, but he ignored it as he started to shimmy his way out from under the scythe holding him captive.
He froze as he heard a sharp crack in the distance, straining his ears to hear anything. A vague shouting could be heard in the distance, but it was too far away to make out yet. With that thought in mind, Harry continued his struggle to get out from the restraint of the statue.
He had just managed to get his injured arm free when the shouting became understandable:
"Harry! Harry, where are you? Harry! Shout if you can hear me!"
"Harry Potter! Harry! Point me Harry Potter." and came from two different male voices.
A huge feeling of relief swept over Harry as he recognised one of the voices to be that of his old professor, Remus Lupin. It took a couple tries for Harry to wet his dry throat enough to be heard as he called back to Lupin and his companion.
"Sir! I'm over here! Near the east of the graveyard- closer to the manor!"
He heard a vague thump and then steady footsteps coming closer toward him. Before long the scarred face of Remus Lupin came into view, his eyebrows furrowed and a harried and worried expression on his face. Behind him followed a large African man dressed traditionally, with a vaguely panicked countenance. Harry's attention was brought back to Lupin as the man reached him, gave him a quick once-over and started helping him get the rest of his stuck body out from the statue.
"Are you alright, Harry?" He asked softly, gently helping Harry down from the base of the statue, and catching him when he stumbled slightly. Harry nodded, unable to speak past the lump in his throat for a moment. The man behind Lupin took the moment to study Harry and catalogue his injuries while keeping a weather eye on the rest of the graveyard.
"Remus, we should get him out of here and back to Hogwarts as soon as possible. We need to get his arm looked at, and it looks like he has been under the Cruciatus Curse." He spoke quietly. He had a deep baritone voice, that still managed to sound slightly jovial despite the urgency of the situation. A pained look flashed briefly across Lupin's face before he agreed.
"Quite right. Are you okay to walk, Harry? We need to get past the inner layer of wards that bastard put up to keep us away from you." He spoke softly, as if to a spooked animal.
Harry nodded in agreement, but kept a grip on Lupin's arm to steady himself, finding that he felt a surprising amount of weakness even taking into account blood loss. A thought crossed his mind, making him pale slightly.
"Professor, how long have I been here? I was knocked unconscious twice." Harry questioned, unsure whether he actually wanted to hear the answer or not.
Lupin grimaced slightly. "Four days." He answered lowly.
Harry swallowed. It had not seemed like four days, but the weakness of his body could be attributed to fatigue, hunger and dehydration, he supposed. He nodded in understanding, resolving not to think about it until he was somewhere safe, and kept his focus on the graveyard and putting one foot in front of the other. Walking was taking all of his energy at the moment.
Before too long, they reached the apparent edge of the wards, and Lupin took a tight hold of Harry, glancing around to ensure nobody was watching. He exchanged a quick look and nod with the other man and twisted sharply on the spot, pulling himself and Harry through what felt like a straw. It seemed to last too long, and he started to panic that he may not be able to breathe again, when at last the sensation stopped and he went slamming to the ground, dragging an unsuspecting Lupin down with him. The last thing he saw was a great black dog bounding toward him before the weakness and dizziness caught up with him, causing him to black out right then and there.
After Harry woke up in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts in one of the private wards, he found that he had indeed been gone for four days, and that his body had been put through a lot of harm and stress in that time period. It took a few days for Professor Dumbledore, his then Headmaster, to ascertain that Harry had a slightly faulty memory block placed on him. It didn't take long for Harry to piece together that the things he remembered were where the faults in the memory charm were. It was obvious he was not meant to have remembered anything at all. After telling this to Dumbledore on one of the times the Headmaster came to check on him, it was thought that Harry was not meant to remember anything of the ritual at all, to leave any weaknesses caused by the type of ritual unknown and to give Lord Voldemort time to recuperate and gather his army.
It took Harry a full week of bed rest to be able to walk around without his body trembling and collapsing on him, and he spent the first day he was awake in the Hospital Wing catching up on the food and liquids he missed. While there he had many visitors; Remus Lupin and his great black dog, the Headmaster, his head of house Professor McGonagall, and his best friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, along with a number of other classmates. Professor Dumbledore came to visit once a day, and would discuss things with Harry, the main topics being what he wanted to do about Lord Voldemort and his schooling. By the end of the week, a course of action was decided on; Harry would leave Hogwarts and train in secret in a secure place, giving him time to spend with his godfather and learn everything he could to help with the war.
Once fully healed, Harry was escorted to the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, 12 Grimmauld Place, which was the ancestral home of his godfather, Sirius Black. He was taken there by Remus Lupin and the newly introduced Kingsley Shacklebolt. The Order of the Phoenix was the group created by Albus Dumbledore in the first war against Lord Voldemort, to combat him and his followers, known as Death Eaters. Harry's parents, James and Lily, and Remus, Sirius and Peter Pettigrew had all been part of the Order in the first war. It was disbanded with the first fall of Lord Voldemort. The group had been revived in Harry's fifth year due to Dumbledore's suspicion that Lord Voldemort would rise again soon.
It was here, in Grimmauld Place after Harry had caught up with Sirius and Remus Lupin, that his training began. It started off easy to get him used to learning and exercising every day, and then got more intensive. After a month of basic training, a routine was established for Harry and his tutors to get the maximum benefit out of minimum time. During his training Harry would learn about duelling and transfiguration from Lupin, potions and defensive spells from Sirius, reflexes and the basics of fighting with small weapons from Kingsley Shacklebolt, and about horcruxes and Occlumency from Professor Dumbledore. Harry and Professor Dumbledore also started theorising about the new link that had opened between Harry and Lord Voldemort, what it could mean and if they could ever use it or vice versa.
Though it was a rigorous training schedule, Harry still found time to horse about and get to know Sirius and Remus. They would spend their free time together, with the two older men telling Harry stories about his parents and the antics they all used to get up to at school, carefully leaving out any mention of Peter Pettigrew. Harry filled the two in on his years so far at Hogwarts, having not gotten a chance to before now, and did his best to avoid mention of the Dursley's, his mother's family.
Other than the occasional visit from one of Harry's friends during the Summer, and a small birthday party to celebrate Harry's seventeenth birthday, a whole year went by like this, with vigorous training and growing closer to each of his teachers. By the end of that first year, he was on first name basis with all of them, and had ultimate trust in everyone, and vice versa. Little did Harry know, he was about to lose one of the adults he was closest to.
On 31st October, 1997, sixteen years to the day that Lord Voldemort attacked Harry's family in Godric's Hollow and made him an orphan, the Dark Lord decided to make his great comeback. Unknown to Harry at the time, the Dark Lord set a trap to ensure he would get the item he was searching for from the Ministry of Magic's Unspeakable Department. He spent an inordinate amount of time the few weeks before that night crafting a full-proof vision of Sirius Black being kidnapped and tortured in the Department of Mysteries within the Ministry of Magic, which he then sent to Harry on the day that Sirius was away on a mission. Due to there being no sure and quick way of communicating with Sirius, Harry chose to believe the vision and took Remus with him, after much arguing, to go and get his godfather back from the claws of Lord Voldemort.
It was a trap.
The vision led Harry and Remus to the Hall of Prophecy within the Department of Mysteries, and to the exact corner where there rested a prophecy concerning H.J.P and the Dark Lord Voldemort. Just as Harry's hand came away from the shelf with the prophecy, the two were ambushed by the majority of Voldemort's inner circle- Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix, Rudolphus and Rabastan LeStrange, Antonin Dolohov, Fenrir Greyback and Augustus Rookwood. It became a battle straight away, with the Death Eaters trying their hardest to get the prophecy from Harry's hand. Harry and Remus ran as fast as they could while still protecting theirs and each-others backs, and in one moment where Harry saw a gap in the fighting, he managed to conjure a Patronus and send it to Dumbledore with one phrase: S.O.S. M.o.M..
It didn't take long for the two of them to start getting overwhelmed, even as they focused on only defending and finding some place to hide and wait for reinforcements. As they ran through the rooms of the Department of Mysteries, they stumbled into a room that held an archway with a fluttering veil in the middle. They quickly took up a hiding spot behind the veil, making sure not to physically touch anything even in their panic, due to the unknown nature of the room. They froze and tried to catch their breath, with a shield spell on the tip of their tongues ready to cast.
They waited with baited breath for the Death Eaters to find them, praying all the while for their reinforcements to arrive quickly. Harry took the chance to send another, more detailed Patronus to Dumbledore, giving him information on where they were and how many enemies were there.
It wasn't long before Harry and Remus heard the stomping feet of the Death Eaters running through the door and down the steps toward the archway. It only took one glance between the two to decide to try and take as many of them down as possible, and so with that decision in mind they forcefully stood up and swung round the edges of the archway, firing spells quickly and non-stop at the Death Eaters trying to find them.
A furious battle raged, with Harry and Remus at a disadvantage of more than three to one. They both made sure to keep their silver bladed daggers in hand to be ready for any move Fenrir Greyback would make. Greyback was the werewolf who bit Remus when he was a child, and has been hunting him since then to try and finish what he started. He has made Remus' life a living hell since the age of seven, and Harry was determined to try and remove this stain from the surface of the planet.
Though outnumbered and out-skilled, Harry and Remus managed to only-just hold on until their reinforcements arrived. Though they were injured, they were still alive when Sirius managed to fight his way to stand at their sides. Each of them felt relief at seeing the other again, and took that short moment to make sure they were alright. That moment was a moment too long for Sirius, who had been battling his cousin, Bellatrix LeStrange. The woman did not have an ounce of empathy in her body, and took ruthless advantage of her older cousin's brief distraction. A quick stunning spell to the chest of Sirius, and he went toppling into the veil in the middle of the archway, his body disappearing and not coming out the other side.
Time seemed to freeze for Harry and Remus in that brief moment, as their brains tried to understand what just happened. They had only just been reunited with Sirius, he couldn't be gone…
There was a sound like a small explosion and a burst of bright white light, which took Harry a moment to realise were coming from him. His magic expanded over everyone in the room, singling out enemy and ally, and freezing all enemies within the room, bringing a quick and concise end to the fighting. Harry took the opportunity to run toward the archway, thinking that if he could just reach in and grab Sirius he could stop the thought that was spreading through his head that Sirius wasn't coming back, just like my parents…
The only thing that stopped Harry from rushing into the archway after Sirius was the strong arms of Remus that wrapped around his waist and held him back. Though Harry struggled, he couldn't get free, and it took him a few moments to understand the words Remus were whispering in his ear, and when he did, he froze.
"He's gone and he's not coming back, don't make me lose you too please, Harry, please don't make me lose you as well, please, he's gone..."
It took everyone a moment to realise that the Death Eaters were frozen and couldn't move, but when they did they looked around in confusion and alarm, wondering what caused that big blast of pure light magic. It didn't take long for everyone's gazes to fall on Harry and Remus, and follow their line of sight to the archway in the middle of the room, and realise that where those two were, Sirius Black was quick to follow…
As the realisation set into each mind, most people looked away and started gathering the Death Eaters to be arrested, ensuring the restraints held on them and they couldn't get free, especially on Greyback. The only person to get closer to Harry and Remus was Dumbledore, and that was only to put a hand on each shoulder and direct them toward the exit of the room and start guiding them toward the main entrance to the Ministry of Magic.
As they were led away, nobody noticed the small orb that had fallen out of Harry's pocket rolling toward the archway in the middle of the room...
As they got to the Atrium of the building, the majority of the fireplaces burned green and spat out a plethora of ministry workers as well as the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge. As the people started clamouring for Dumbledore's attention to find out why the Dark Magic detectors within the building had gone off multiple times, and ask why Harry Potter was here in the middle of the night, a loud swish on the other side of the room heralded the arrival of Lord Voldemort, in all his ghastly glory.
The room quietened as if a mass Sonorus had been cast on everyone. Everyone froze like a rabbit caught by a Lumos. The only ones to move were Lord Voldemort, Dumbledore and Harry, each moving closer to the middle of the room, where there was a convenient gap that the majority of the people could see into. Due to the silence of the room, the high voice of Lord Voldemort was easily heard throughout as he started to speak.
"Where is the prophecy, Potter?" He hissed coldly. A shudder rippled through the room at the sound of his voice, a few people whimpering in fear and the realisation that, yes, Lord Voldemort is alive again and in this very room…
"You will not get it tonight, Tom," Dumbledore stepped in calmly, subtly pushing Harry behind him, shielding him with his body. "It is unobtainable at the moment. Perhaps you should leave and try another day?" He continued pleasantly. He leisurely pulled out his wand in preparation of Lord Voldemort not accepting his answer, the incantation of the most powerful shield charm he knew on the tip of his tongue.
"I think not, Dumbledore. What have you done with it?" Lord Voldemort answered crisply. He sounded remarkably sane for spending fifteen years as a disembodied spirit, with only a slight emphasis to his s's and c's when speaking. This was slightly worrying if it was a sign of his mental state, as a sane Lord Voldemort is a genius Lord Voldemort who can think things through rationally and is not paranoid to the point of murdering his own followers.
Harry could see Dumbledore tense slightly in reaction to the unexpected sight of Lord Voldemort speaking amiably. He heard Dumbledore's intake of breath before, "It has been destroyed. It was smashed during the battle downstairs. Therefore you will not be getting the prophecy tonight, Tom, and likely not ever," he said, with his hand unnoticeably tightening on his wand.
Lord Voldemort's eyes narrowed briefly before his impassive mask slammed down on his face. "If that is the case, then I will just have to take it from you," He threatened without a twitch. Between one blink and the next he had disappeared, making Dumbledore take a step forward in surprise. He looked around swiftly to try and find where the Dark Lord had gone, not believing for an instant that he would leave that easily.
Harry watched all this with a detached air, feeling something unexplainable building in his body, that quickly turned into excruciating pain. It was so painful he didn't feel himself fall and hit the floor, or Remus shouting in alarm and trying to stop his body from twitching as the horrible pain burst through him. The pain was worse than anything he had ever felt before, though his body seemed to remember a pain similar while his mind did not.
As he floundered in the pain, trying to find a place to hang on and bear it, he felt a new presence in his soul rush forward and take control of his body, using him as a mouthpiece and conduit for magic. He couldn't control what this demonic being was making him do or say, he could only go along for the ride. He felt his magic gather and expel from his body in a frighteningly powerful Legilimens spell, and felt the spell and his consciousness come against an impressively strong barrier. The spell was stronger than the barrier.
As the spell shaped itself into a spike and managed to pierce through the barrier, Harry saw as if from someone else the memories of this mind. He saw first and foremost what this person was seeing right now; himself rolling on the floor with Remus trying to stop him and calm him down, his mouth open in a silent scream. The spell pushed past this memory with nothing more than a twinge of annoyance, setting itself upon the other memories. It took Harry a few moments to realise that he should be fighting back against this presence inside him, and stop this violating of the mind that was happening through him. Even though he himself was not the one controlling the spell, he felt horrified enough that it may as well have been.
Harry tried to gather some much needed strength, but the presence inside him, Voldemort, it has to be Voldemort, noticed and divided enough of its attention to cause more pain within his body. Harry writhed and keened, even as he tried to follow along with and stop the spell being cast. In the back of his mind, he took notice of the memories that were being pushed in front of the spell, trying to stop Lord Voldemort from finding the memory he wanted. As Voldemort turned all his attention toward the spell and an iota of the pain disappeared, Harry managed to focus his mind on the memories to try and distract himself from the agony.
He watched through the eyes of the owner of the memories, seeing classes and dinners at Hogwarts, feeling the satisfaction of a student learning something new, tasting the great food the House Elves make every day at the school. It took Harry a moment to realise where the seat in the Great Hall was, and therefore whose memories these were. He felt a large amount of horror, and then shame, as he realised these memories were those of his beloved Headmaster and mentor, Albus Dumbledore.
While thinking through this, the memories turned to more personal moments, in an effort to discourage Dumbledore and make him think of the prophecy. As Harry watched, he saw the teenage years of Dumbledore, the beginning of his friendship with Gellert, the fight between him and his brother and the death of his sister. The memory of the sister made Dumbledore's mind go back through more memories of her, leading all the way back to the cause of her magical chaos. As Harry saw what happened to the then young girl, he felt rage build up inside him and start to combat the pain in his body. He felt when Lord Voldemort took notice, and the increased effort he took to find the memory of the prophecy.
As Dumbledore thought of his father and mother, there was a tiny connection to Sybil Trelawny due to the fact Dumbledore's mother used to make sherry and Trelawny drinks a lot of sherry, but it was enough to link the memory of his mother making sherry and Trelawny's job interview. The thought of alcohol made Harry think of Sirius and his love of Firewhisky, and the time the man got Harry to try the beverage. With the memory of the prophecy from Dumbledore's point of view running through his head, Harry let thoughts of Sirius flow through his mind and help take him away from the pain. As he thought of Sirius, he thought of Remus, how he tried to stop Sirius from giving Harry too much alcohol even though he was already seventeen, and the days spent learning about his parents and the pranks that they all pulled together. It took a moment for him to realise the pain was receding, and receding fast, but when he did he focused on the feeling filling him at the thought of his two parent figures and realised that he loved them both very much. When the realisation swept through him, the essence of Lord Voldemort that was in his body was expelled forcefully and painfully.
A ringing silence pervaded the room and Harry's mind as Lord Voldemort appeared on the floor of the Atrium, panting heavily and with his robe dishevelled. Harry took the moment to breathe in the lack of pain and the feeling of warm arms around him.
As the Dark Lord stood up slowly, an almost unnoticeable expression of pain and disgust on his face, a feeling of satisfaction and triumph washed over Harry. A wave of shock and horror went through him as he thought of the contents of the prophecy he was hearing for the first time and realised that the Dark Lord had heard the prophecy fully. He looked up just in time to see Lord Voldemort smirk at him where he lay in the cocoon of Remus' and Albus' arms, before he spun on the spot and disappeared with a small pop.
In the aftermath of the battle at the Ministry, Harry, Remus and Albus managed to get back to Headquarters with little effort, due to the scrambling and arguing that erupted after Lord Voldemort showed to the public that he was, in fact, back and alive. As Remus and Albus settled Harry into a chair in one of the sitting rooms at 12 Grimmauld Place and started healing him, the only thought going through the head of both Harry and Lord Voldemort was and either must die at the hand of the other…
The next day, after Harry had gotten plenty of rest and been mother-henned by all of his teachers and a few members of the Order just to be safe, he managed to grab hold of Albus and have a chat with him about what he'd seen while being a passenger in his own body. He apologised for not being able to stop the Dark Lord and being made to see those personal memories that were no doubt meant to be private. What followed was a long, serious talk between the two that included information about both of their childhoods and school years, and on Albus' side, romantic interests. It was a day of cleansing for the both of them, and helped to remove a large weight of the guilt that Albus carried around himself, and some of the crushing grief surrounding Harry.
After that day, the relationship between Harry and Albus was closer to Grandfather and Grandson than mentor and student, and the relationship between Harry and Remus was even closer to father and son than it had been before as they leaned on each other to get past the grief of losing the other faction of their family unit.
Once healed completely and given some time to grieve, Harry threw himself back into training, specifically in Occlumency so that he would not fall prey to Lord Voldemort's attacks on his mind again. He quickly burnt through all that his teachers apart from Albus could teach him, leaving him on par with, if not above, Kingsley and Remus in power and technique, with the only one able to beat him being Albus.
During this training period, it became obvious how Lord Voldemort had thought through the prophecy. The Dark Lord started waging war completely against Wizarding and Muggle Britain, with himself leading almost every raid with any importance. He became reckless and didn't care if he got hurt or almost killed. Voldemort took the line 'and either must die at the hand of the other' from the prophecy to mean that only Harry alone could kill him, and as he believed nobody knew of his horcruxes, he thought himself to be invincible.
Once Harry found himself beating his teachers more often than not, he and Albus decided it was time to start properly hunting for Lord Voldemort's horcruxes. In quick succession they found and destroyed Slytherin's locket, found in Grimmauld Place itself, the Gaunt's ring, found in Lord Voldemort's grandparents hut, and the Diadem, found in the Room of Requirement in Hogwarts. Harry realised that he had already beaten a horcrux before these; the diary from the Chamber of Secrets. The Dark Lord's familiar, Nagini, was thought to be one of the last horcruxes, and Harry and Albus determined that Hufflepuff's cup, wherever it may be, would be the last. It didn't take long for one of the smartest wizards to walk the Earth and the one person who arguably knew Tom Riddle best to figure out that the last horcrux would be in Gringotts Bank, run by the goblins.
It was decided that Harry would go to the goblins in his capacity as the Heir Apparent of the title Leader of the Light, and try and gain their allegiance or their neutrality. He did not take into account the option that Lord Voldemort may have gotten to the goblins before Harry and Albus. Harry convinced the goblins to let him into the LeStrange vault to hunt for the horcrux. He and Albus had determined it was the most likely vault of Lord Voldemort's followers to hold a horcrux. On the way down Harry passed the many downfalls of thieves, the best being a live dragon guarding each lower level vault individually. He managed to get into the vault before the goblins turned on him and tried to lock him in, in order to gift him to their new liege. Harry fought hard, and managed to use the bodies of goblins to keep the vault door open while he rushed around to find and grab the Hufflepuff cup with a silk bag to block out the effects of a horcrux. He fought his way past the remaining goblins on this layer to the dragon guarding the vault, and blew away the chains holding it captive. He managed to climb on the dragon's back and dodge out of the way of the goblins just before the dragon realised it was released, and it took off, crashing through floors of the bank and the roof towards freedom. Once it soared past London and was over a body of water, Harry slid off and fell toward the ground, spinning in mid-air in order to apparate to 12 Grimmauld Place.
After destroying the penultimate horcrux, Albus decided to partially step down and share leadership of the Order of the Phoenix alongside Harry, to allow for both of them to have time to fight and rest enough. It didn't take long before Harry was on par with Albus strength-wise, and then slightly more powerful due to Albus starting to slow down with age. The only things that Albus had left to teach Harry was obscure magicks that couldn't be taught from a book, such as blood magic and some rituals.
After the shitstorm that was Harry's negotiation with the Goblins, it was decided that Albus would try and find other allies. He thought it would be best if he sought out other countries governments and asked for any help, officially. Very few countries agreed, due to their not being able to see that Voldemort would take his war to the rest of the world once he had won over Great Britain.
By the time Harry reached the age of nineteen, he was one of the most powerful wizards in the world, and by far the most powerful teenager in the world. Him and Albus had destroyed all but one of the horcruxes belonging to Lord Voldemort, or so they thought. By this time, the Dark Lord had managed to take over the Ministry of Magic, release all his Death Eaters that were held captive, and had destroyed Hogsmeade and Godric's Hollow. It was only a matter of time before he came for Hogwarts.
Throughout the years since Hogwarts, the small amount of free time Harry had was spent with either Remus or Ron and Hermione. They became a part of the Order of the Phoenix when they turned eighteen, and took on some missions while training themselves from the books in the Black library. While Ron was slightly jealous of how quickly Harry became powerful and such an integral part of the Order of the Phoenix, both him and Hermione understood that it was Harry's role in this war; to be the figurehead and eventually defeat Lord Voldemort. They often wished this responsibility wasn't on Harry's shoulders, but vowed to always be there for him and help him deal with it when they could, even if that was only making him eat breakfast every morning or going to bed at a reasonable time, when Remus wasn't mothering Harry.
On 8th May, 2000, Voldemort and his entire army breached the Hogwarts wards and launched a full-scale attack. The size of his army shocked the Light side, and made a lot of them lose all hope they had left.
Lord Voldemort had managed to demand the alliance of the majority of dark and neutral creatures on this plane of existence; the vampires, multiple werewolf packs, the goblins, the giants, the acromantula.
The Light side had only been able to get three platoons of wizards from different countries. A platoon is made up of two or more squads, which are made up of ten soldiers. The fighters refused to give up, however, and decided to fight as long and as hard as they physically and magically could.
It was a massacre.
It seemed that all the wizards in the Dark sect were better trained than those of the Light- they downed twice as many, or so it appeared. Everywhere Harry looked there were comrades on the ground, injured or dying, with the few healers that were able to arrive before the battle started running around trying to keep as many alive as possible. Before long, he had seen Remus, Albus and Kingsley on the ground; the heavy hitters behind Harry himself. He hadn't the heart to check if they were still alive or not, but he made sure healers were directed to them. He knew he needed to end this as quickly as possible to ensure there would still be a Wizarding Britain by the end.
As Harry made his way toward where he could feel Lord Voldemort, he saw out the corner of his eye Ron on the ground rocking Hermione, who seemed severely injured. He conjured a powerful shield over the two and directed another healer there, then resumed his way towards the Dark Lord, feeling more determined than ever.
As soon as Harry saw the hairless head and red eyes, his mind went straight into battle mode and he ignored anything and everything around him, other than what may be threats to his person.
Attack. Dodge. Shield. Flip. Forward. Throw dagger. Spell. Spell. Twist. Forward. Dodge left. Shield. Spin to dodge behind attack. Shield backward and forward. Throw throwing star. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Shie-damn. Ignore wound. Battle on. Attack. Dodge. Left. Right. Forward. Bring sword into play. Ignore distractions. Attack. Ignore confusion. Shield. Ignore- wait, what are they doing?!
While everyone was distracted watching the epic duel between Harry and the Dark Lord, the Dark Wizards raised their wands upon everyone else, and fired the Killing Curse; Avada Kedavra. Anyone not already on the ground and injured were killed instantly.
No wait stop them they can't kill everyone have to- no too late no no nonono I failed everyone nonono what good is my magic and power if I couldn't even protect this many people all my fault all my fault not powerful enough not enough never enough. NO. not completely my fault also HIS fault.
Voldemort.
Must get him away. Remove him from this planet to save everyone and redeem myself.
All anyone not critically injured or dead saw was a bright explosion of light and a noise so great it was the absence of sound. They saw two lights shoot up into the sky, one a bright, brilliant white and one the darkest of reds, like dried blood. All eyes able followed the two streams of light into the sky before they vanished into and beyond the stratosphere.
Well. A bit different, I think? I think this is better :D Tell me what you all think! Again, a huge thanks to Hoppy 159, it's all thanks to you this chapter is out :)
Expect chapter two within the next week.
Love you all :D