Chapter 3: Chapter 1 – Death, Prophecies, Scars and Number 7 Part 3.
They clinked their glasses, and each took a sip. Setting his glass down, Death continued, "Using both their sacrifices as a base and your power as the source of power, Lily and James Potter created a ritual powered by blood, love and magic. It was created by combining the work of several ritual, runic and other obscure forms of magic. It is by far one of the most powerful rituals known to all magical kind, and your parents were the engineers of a brilliant piece of magic. So much so that I would go far as to label their work as centennial magic, magic that would define a century."
Harry sat up a little straighter in his chair. He is currently a mess of conflicting emotions, he is simultaneously brimming with pride, shedding tears of sorrow, and overwhelmed by guilt. Pride for the capabilities of his parents, sorrow to the extent to the extremes that had to go through and finally guilt at his lackluster approach he had to his education. A wry smile adorned his face. Should have listened more to Hermione really.
Death let out a sigh. 'Dangerous thoughts young one, can't let you falter now.'
"Harry, you must stop right there before your thoughts bring you down further. I ask of you to consider this; you were not raised in an environment where you were encouraged to engage in scholastic pursuits, much less live. Additionally, there is another reason why you were not so heavily vested in intellectual pursuits, which I will reveal to you soon. I will say this, there is no other person who would have been able to do as well as you have, given the several severe constraints placed on you. I and my wife have watched you for a while now, and I cannot put to words how proud we are of how you turned out to be," he finished kindly with a sincere smile.
Harry felt the words lessen his guilt and shame. He wiped his tears by grabbing a tissue from the tissue box on the desk. Doing his best to gather himself, he gave a quick smile and nod for Death to continue.
"The final piece of the ritual is the swolio rune on your forehead made from phoenix tears given by a willing phoenix and the combination of your parent's blood. And yes, it was good old Fawkes who gave those tears. As Riddle was preparing for the ritual, the runic ritual coalesced the emotions of love and the intent to protect directed towards you, the last sentiment of their lives.
As soon, as he fired the killing curse, your magic combined with the ritualistic magic reflected the curse back at Riddle. This caused an unintentional consequence of ripping a portion of his soul and latching on to your soul. The swolio rune in your scar then contained the evil in your scar and that is how your famous scar was created, for without the rune, you would have either been possessed by Riddle in the worst case or dead in the worst case."
Tears leaked down Harry's cheeks. For a while he has made his peace that this scar is a cursed scar, despite what Dumbledore said in his first year. With all the unwanted attention the scar brought him, he perceived it as a curse. After the summer of his third year, his opinions on his scar solidified and over time he could not find sufficient evidence proving otherwise. Now, here comes Death with the true tale of his parent's noble deeds. He reached out to touch his scar, the final symbol of his parent's sacrifice.
"Now, let us address the horcrux and the aftereffect of that magic. The horcrux significantly suppressed your physical, mental, and magical growth. This is also why I mentioned that you should not feel guilt for your lack of academic interest. As it is contained in your scar, the ritual magic has been continuously trying to fight the scar.
However, compounded with the inhumane treatment and the lack of love in your life, plus the ridiculous blood wards erected using a portion of that magic by Dumbledore, the centennial ritual magic waned over time, thus increasingly the foothold that the dark magic of the Horcrux had over you. Finally, the horcrux knows that you are a threat, even though Riddle does not know the whole prophecy.
Why should he let one of his arch-nemesis reach his full potential? These few factors combined severely hampered and suppressed your physical, emotional, and magical growth. Additionally, that infernal thing was the cause of your sight issues. Just because your father required glasses, does not mean you need them. After all, you are just as much your mother's child as you are your fathers. There is a revelation I would like to make; this might hit you too hard."
Harry gave him a wary nod, wondering what on earth could be more troubling than all he had heard or experienced thus far. Death sighed; he has been sighing like as if he some character in a Hallmark soap opera. Universe forbid he watches one again. He lightly shook his head to clear out the Wrackspurts as young Luna Lovegood would say.
Dumbledore has been the cause of many headaches for Fate and Death. Ever since he placed Harry at the Dursley household, they have been trying to put out one fire after another. There is no other way around it, he must inform Harry about another gruesome factor about the horcrux. He schooled a more neutral expression and began.
"Dumbledore, by throwing you to the Dursleys, removed any chance of removing the horcrux. If you had been placed in an environment where you had received love, within five years after that night, that horcrux would have been eliminated harmlessly. But, by placing you in the Dursleys, the loveless environment increased the hold that the horcrux had on you to the point it was able to gain a foothold against a piece of centennial magic."
Death watched as he saw anger building up in Harry. Death could see how hard Harry was trying to compose himself despite the revelation that he made.
Eventually, Harry just cried. Death waited. He knew that all the grief in his life stems from that fateful Samhain night to unknowingly lose a chance at getting rid of the leech in in his person that belonged to his parent's murderers hurt him. For him to lose that opportunity due to a man he trusted, that almost broke him.
Death conjured a box of tissues and waited patiently till he was done. To have so much placed on the shoulders of one too young.
Harry composed himself, he felt embarrassed by his show of emotion. Before he could apologize for his breakdown, Death held a hand up to stop him and gently smiled at him.
"Harry, it is acceptable to cry in situations in like these. You do not need to apologize here nor feel shame. You have done nothing wrong."
Not trusting his words, he just gave a nod. A comfortable silence pervaded the office. He did not trust himself to talk anymore about Dumbledore's actions. When he was composed enough, he asked, "What about my parseltongue ability? Wasn't that a part of what I got from Riddle?"
Death let out a belly laugh. He snickered, "Not at all. Your ability is quite genetic. Parseltongue is an ability that the Blacks used to have and your paternal grandmother Dorea was born a Black. The ability neither inherently malevolent nor benevolent; much like any other ability, the nature solely depends on its wielder. Although with all the damn inbreeding those cretins engaged in, no one in the family displayed that ability anymore. If I recall correctly, they did a ritual that would help keep their magic stable despite all the inbreeding, to avoid a situation like the Gaunts. The cost, however, was them almost completely being stripped of any future children wielding innate abilities, unless they do the Ancient Tango with a muggle born or a muggle, consensual and loving Tango of course. One of my more ingenious pranks really. Toujours Pur indeed when you copulate with your cousin. Morons the whole bunch of them I tell you. Sirius was smart to want to distance himself from that clusterfuck, how on earth do you think he became a Gryffindor?" His grin grew wider as delved deeper into his explanation. Harry felt a smile creep up again despite the heavy nature of the previous topic.
A comfortable silence grew between the two of them. Harry mulled over the contents of the discussion and tried to organize and figure out his next course of action. Just as Death mentioned, and now that the initial shock of death and other topic have worn off, he felt as if a mist that has been shrouding his mind and a burden that weigh upon his shoulders has suddenly disappeared. In mere moments since the death of the horcrux, Harry Potter felt like a changed man. 'Time to ask about the three choices.'
"What is so special about my seventh death? Also why am I allowed to keep my memory of this conversation when I wasn't before? And I take it that I was not given a time travel option before?"
Death chuckled, "Channeling your inner Hermione I see. No matter. To answer your last question, no you were not. To answer your first two questions, it has to do with the number seven again. The universe allows Death and Fate some leeway after the seventh unintentional death of a prophesized one, which is you in this case. That leeway is what gives us the right to act as we see fit. Prior to our current encounter, our hands were completely tied. This is also the reason you get to travel back in time. This is also your final chance, be it the original timeline or time travel. It is straight to the afterlife for you if you die after your seventh chance regardless of whether you fulfilled your destiny or not.
Additionally, your seventh death allows us to carry out the ritual for time travel. The ritual has an interesting pre-requisite, it requires to you be touched by death seven times. The configuration same as the ritual your parents created to protect you. Ancient Runes at Hogwarts will explain to you what a configuration is at the OWL level, but really delve into at the NEWT level, much like any technical terms I will be telling you. After all, ritual magic, though outlawed by several magical governments, is still something many magical families utilize and those governments dare not cross some of the more significant families, much like your family of the past. It was told your grandfather, Charlus, was quite the force to be reckoned with.
You see, your scar is made of a 3-7 configuration. Two very powerful numbers superimposed together. Three vital aspects of the ritual bound together by seven runic arrays. An array can be a collection of runes or a single rune that is connected to an energy source and/or another scheme or rune. A collection of runes is called a scheme and a single standalone rune is just another rune.
The three complex runic schemes, made from your father's blood, another set of three schemes made from your mother's sacrifice and finally, a single rune that ties the schemes to you. The ritual was structured in such way that it required the sacrifice of your mother to be triggered, which also meant that you were the only viable source of power for the ritual at that time."
"Can you tell me more about the aspects of the ritual?"
"Your parents made one hell of a combination with three aspects. The three aspects for that specific ritual were: blood, sacrifice, and protection. All tethered by the love for their child. Piece them together and it would say: Through the blood of a father and the sacrifice of a mother, may our child be protected from all malevolent forces. A combination of 21 words, the pinnacle of a 3-7 configuration. The level of understanding of arithmancy, runes, charms and other obscure magics required is of the highest degree."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Quatroquatro
Quatroquatro Hello All,
Just to let you know, I update ahead on fanfiction dot net. So if you want to read more, please head over to that site.
Thank you for reading!
Regards,
quatroquatro
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone