章 5: Old and New
He snapped his eyes open as he heard the sound of a bell ringing.
"Finally..." he whispered under his breath, before reaching for his wand and vanishing the bell with a flick. He then slowly stood and climbed out of the big tub he had sat in for the last hours. The water had an unnatural white colouring but he only glanced at it shortly before conjuring a black robe for himself.
"Libby!" he called, waiting for the faint plop to announce the house elfs arrival before continuing. "Bring Lucius to the parlour and tell him to wait!"
"Of course master, Libby will do as ordered."
With that, the creature vanished again and he waved his wand once more to conjure a mirror that was big enough to fully look at himself.
Clad in his dark robes stood a man, tall and handsome, with pale skin. He had jet black hair that looked fairly normal, strongly contrasting his dark red eyes which were everything but normal.
But if one ignored these eyes, he looked like a perfect copy of a Tom Marvolo Riddle in his twenties.
"So it has worked," he said quietly, smirking.
He let the mirror vanish again before he left the bathroom, making his way through a narrow hallway. Passing a few nondescript doors he finally opened one that led into a small room with large windows at the opposite wall. Only the pale light of the moon shimmered through the glass, the rest of the light in the room came from a small chandelier at the ceiling.
A man with long, pale blond hair stared at him, wide-eyed, before hurriedly kneeling as he snapped out of his little trance.
"My... My Lord...! So I take the ritual has been a success?" the man muttered subserviently.
"Of course it has! Now rise and tell me of our newest plan. Do they suspect anything?" he asked, coming straight to the point. "We need to be absolutely sure, I do not want a massacre at the Ministry!"
"Everything goes just as you have predicted, my Lord. No one is aware of our actions and no one will be killed. We will be done before anyone notices."
He nodded. "Very well. Now, to my newest... pet project, I was thinking-"
"Harry? What are you doing here?"
Harry groaned sleepily and sat up, rubbing his eyes before opening them.
"Hermione...?" he mumbled, confused. The girl stood before him, looking slightly worried and he wondered why, until he remembered where he was.
After Sirius had shown him the library, he had began to browse the shelves almost immediately, looking for some interesting books. He really had evolved into some bookworm over the summer, but oh well, he actually liked it better that way.
He had then brought his selection of interesting books to one of the tables that had been placed at one side of the room and began to immerse himself in his readings, while Shiva had come out of his shirt, resting on his shoulders instead, the way she always did while he was reading. He wondered sometimes if she was able to read, but she never commented on it and he never asked.
Anyway, because there had been so much to read he must have eventually fallen asleep here.
And really, as he looked down he could still see the copy of What's a mudblood? Studies of Blood and Magic by Asterion Black he had been reading. Which was a truly mind-blowing book, even though the title suggested strong pureblood prejudices.
Thankfully he didn't drool in his sleep.
But to get back to his friend who still looked confused as to why he was here...
"I guess I've been more tired than I thought, I dozed off while reading. Wasn't that obvious?" he mumbled, shrugging, before he suddenly remembered something. He had dreamed! And not about anything, it had been some kind of vision!
His eyes widened as he tried to remember the specifics. He had seen everything from Voldemorts point of view and... He frowned. If he remembered correctly, the mirror had depicted a person that looked more like the Tom Riddle he had encountered in the chamber of secrets two years ago than like the snake-like man he had met at the Graveyard in June... had Voldemort really performed a ritual to get his old body back?
He had no idea why the dark wizard would need that, he had always guessed that being inhumane helped creating fear in his followers... And then there was that Ministry thing... He was sure the conversation between Voldemort and Malfoys father had included something about 'no deaths'. Really confusing...
"Harry!"
He blinked frowning, being torn out of his musings.
"What?"
"I've called your name about three times now, are you alright?" Hermione asked, her face definitely showing concern now.
"Yes, sorry..." It was probably better to keep that strange dream to himself. He was sure that Hermione would want him to tell Dumbledore, as the man was still seemingly the only wizard Voldemort seemed to fear. But... his scar hadn't even hurt, maybe it had not been a vision but some twisted dream... no need to cause panic now about such a strange thing...
She still stared at him for a second, not looking completely convinced, before changing the topic.
"So... what are you reading?"
He looked down at the book. "Right now? It's called What's a mudblood? Studies of Blood and Magic. Sounds like racism, I know," he added hastily as he saw Hermiones look. "but it's actually very different. It states that the term 'mudblood' hasn't always been an insult because once there had been no other term for the people we now call 'muggleborn'."
She frowned. "What do you mean? Isn't 'muggleborn' the most logical term for wizards born to muggles?"
He nodded, slowly. "That's the thing: According to this book there has never been something like a 'muggleborn'!"
Hermiones eyes widened, before she looked sceptical and he continued.
"The first few chapters are just about that issue. And sure, the book is old, but everything I've read so far seems logical. Maybe the content has been forgotten - I have no idea why else no one these days seems to know about it - but it sounds probable. The key thesis is that magic cannot grow out of thin air. Because of that no wizard can actually just 'pop up' out of nowhere, meaning the magic has to be passed down by someone. The author - who is by the way some ancestor of Sirius if the name 'Asterion Black' is anything to go by - thinks, that every so called 'muggleborn' is actually a descendant of a squib! Because most pureblood families remove their squibs from their families, disowning them while they're at it, the probability of them marrying muggles and giving birth to non-magical children is very high. And all these children and their descendants carry the magic within them so that it can activate again centuries later and produce a witch or wizard, who has many generations of muggle blood within them, hence the term 'mudblood' as wizards back then referred to muggle blood as unclean blood."
By now, Hermione just stared at him, speechless.
"Sounds completely surreal, doesn't it?" he admitted and she nodded. "I still think it's possible. I mean, it seems logical that magic can't just show up without any reason, doesn't it?"
"Well... yes, but... I don't know, if that's true, why don't we learn something like that in school? I'm quite sure I've never heard of it before and I've read all of our schoolbooks and a few more. Maybe it's just an outdated theory?" she muttered hesitantly, clearly not sure if she wanted to believe him or not. It was quite different for her to believe that at least one of her parents was the descendant of some pureblood family than it was for him. The Potters had been purebloods after all...
"We still have about two weeks left before the first of September, right? And the Black library is huge. Let's just research a bit, I'm sure we'll find other books to disprove that theory. Or confirm it," he suggested and she nodded rather enthusiastically. Of course, she loved reading and it would make a lovely pet project to kill time for when there was nothing else to do.
In fact, she looked as if she would've liked to start reading right now, but then Harrys stomach made it clear, that he hadn't eaten since early evening of the last day.
"Oh no!" Hermione said suddenly, looking worried. "Breakfast is ready! I just wanted to get a book from here to read afterwards but forgot about it as I saw you sleeping...! We have to hurry, they'll get impatient!"
Harry was now sharing her look. If they arrived late without any reason they might get quite the scolding. Or simply no breakfast at all, Mrs. Weasley cooked a lot, but she also had quite an amount of hungry mouths to feed and her meals vanished fast.
He stood up, shaking Shiva awake - who had vanished back under his shirt as he now noticed - and Hermione went to grab her book, before they both hurried down to the kitchen hoping that they weren't too late.
As it turned out, they weren't and since some people - most notably Ron who was probably still asleep - were absent anyway there was more than enough food left for a nice, English breakfast.
Harry had a relatively calm time then, before excusing himself early, claiming he still had his summer homework to do. That got him a disapproving glance from Hermione and a stern look from Mrs. Weasley but they didn't say anything so he just left the kitchen, firmly closing the door behind him before stopping in the hallway.
"Hey, do you need to hunt yet?" he hissed at Shiva, after checking that there was no one else within earshot.
"No, I will be fine for a few more days," she answered, having enough common sense to stay under his shirt for now. "But I would like to ask why you did not introduce me to your... friends. Even the wolf-human and the dog-human do not know more about me then my existence. Isn't that very impolite?"
He sighed. "I know. I guess I'll properly introduce Sirius and Remus to you later, but you have to stay hidden while I'm with Ron and Hermione... especially with Ron. I fear he'll react... badly if he knows I'm with a snake. He hates your kind, you know?"
She gave off a hiss without any specific meaning and stayed silent after that.
Harry wondered if he might have offended her or something, as she normally would've continued discussing with him, but he then knew why she was keeping silent as he heard footsteps.
Only seconds later, Ron entered the hallway, still looking half-asleep.
"Morning," Harry greeted his friend in a normal town, frowning as his only answer was a hurried "Shh!"
"What's-?" he started again but Ron clasped a hand over his mouth.
"Blimey, remember where you are!" he whispered quietly, shooting a panicked look at something behind Harry.
Who took the hand from his mouth and turned, before his own eyes widened in realisation.
Damn, he had been standing directly in front of Walburga Blacks portrait! He was really lucky that the curtains had not flown open, revealing the screaming woman behind them while he had been talking. Maybe she was asleep?
Not wanting to test his luck he hurriedly made the same excuse to Ron as he had to the others - now in hushed tones - before going back upstairs, back to the library. He collected his books and moved down another aisle, one that was filled with books about Dark Arts. He didn't want to read anything of the sort, but he knew that Hermione would not come here and discover him by chance, so that was probably the best idea if he wanted to stay alone for a bit.
He might even luck out of the whole cleaning business, since he had still 'summer homework to do'.
He sure hoped so.
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sorry for any mistakes
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