Year Five

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Ever since Harry’s death, Parvati had taken to wandering farther and farther from her family’s estates pining for the boy who had sacrificed himself to see her to safety. It was during one of these excursions that she was abducted by an angry squib, resentful of the wizarding world that shunned him and eager to enact a small measure of revenge upon one of its darling daughters. Gagged and bound and fearful of what is to come, she is rescued by her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and the two weirdoes he hangs around with. Padma had been alerted by a burning in her matching enchanted bangle that their parents had insisted on buying for them after Parvati’s earlier abduction.

The kids are quickly acquitted for their use of underage magic, but Parvati is held over for a special tribunal to account for her interruption of the final task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Once again Parvati is on the verge of tears. She knows they believe her about the return of you-know-who and the death of Harry, but they’re persecuting her in a public forum to maintain a charade of safety. What no one would expect was to have her story corroborated by the newly risen Harry Potter striding into the courtroom to give his testimony. He offers a much-truncated version of his events in the awning of the afterlife, he tells them some of his conversation with Professor Binns at King’s Cross, omitting the talk of Riddle’s Horcrux and the directive to ask Aberforth for more information and the role his pet rat Socrates played using the Resurrection Stone to return Harry to his body, but keeping the part about his naked escape from the Department of Mysteries. An embarrassed Auror Tonks corroborates the last part.

Minister Fudge implores Dumbledore to step down as Headmaster of Hogwarts and lead the fight against he-who-must-not-be-named, but Dumbledore refuses. Fudge asserts that Hogwarts might be better off without Dumbledore anyway, since over half the staff are either drunks, incompetents or both. Given Dumbledore’s declining standards, Fudge has no choice but to promote Umbridge from History Professor to Defense Professor and High Inquisitor. Dumbledore takes his leave to prepare his new History Professor, Regulus Black.

Frustrated with Umbridge’s rules and boring classes, and eager to do anything subversive, the Weasley twins form a Defense study group called Dumbledore’s Army, since that’s what the ministry really wants anyway. It is a surprise to no one when they are later expelled. Harry’s too busy for Dumbledore’s Army as he’s decided to hold his own smaller study group in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry uses the Resurrection Stone to summon his dead father to instruct himself, Dean, Terry, Luna, Padma & Parvati in the art of becoming animagi, since Riddle is using werewolves and animagi are protected from lycanthropy. Everyone but Padma makes progress, but at a price. The practice of opening the mind to one’s spirit animal wipes out any native or learned occlumency talent and Terry Boot’s mind becomes assaulted by his former headmate. Terry is struck by the same nightmares previously plaguing Harry. While Harry is an eagle, Dean is a porpoise, Luna is a rabbit, and Parvati is a prairie dog, Terry’s animagus form is that of Nagini.

During the year Vincent Crabbe keeps trying to talk Harry into supplanting Voldemort as the new Dark Lord. Harry’s tougher than Voldemort, less sadistic to his supporters and the ministry still needs to be overthrown. Hermione Granger reminds Harry that his own mother was a muggleborn, but Vincent tells Harry that if he’s Dark Lord the revolution doesn’t have to be anti-muggleborn. Harry asks Crabbe to feel out the other Death Eater children to see what they think about it. Harry’s so taken by the idea that he tells Umbridge about it during career day.

When Harry isn’t busy with his regular schoolwork or his animagus lessons, he’s sneaking off to the Hog’s Head to learn about horcruxes and exorcism from Aberforth. Professor Black follows Harry under an invisibility cloak and when he finds out about Voldemort’s diary horcrux and Harry’s scar horcrux and how they were destroyed he reveals himself to Harry and Aberforth and presents them with the locket horcrux. Harry and Professor Black sneak into Dumbledore’s office and use the Sword of Gryffindor to destroy it.

When Terry receives a vision of Riddle holding Luna’s father at the Department of Mysteries, Harry wastes no time assembling his fellow animagi and the handful of Slytherins willing to follow him. Umbridge tries to stop them, but Professors Snape & Black send her to the centaurs before joining the children on their excursion. Seeing their children fighting for the opposing team causes dissention in the Death Eater ranks. The battle is hard fought but ends with the demise of several Death Eaters and the escape of Voldemort.

 

Template: Dumbledore delivers Harry’s letter. They meet Cormac McLaggen at Diagon Alley. Harry doesn’t get a pet. Ron sits with Harry on the train. Harry is sorted in Hufflepuff. On Halloween there is a Dark Mark over the castle. Harry gets the Cloak of Invisibility for Christmas. In the Mirror of Erised, Harry sees himself—immortal and godlike. The Stone has Death-Level-like defenses.

Beginning [Year 1]
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It was a dark, rainy, stormy and weathery night at the place where Harry Potter hid with his, well, family. Harry was sure he’d love to be in warmer place, where sleeping on the floor without a blanket was okay. Around midnight – the watch on Dudley’s wrist beeped a quiet beep beep – the howling wind picked up even further: the floorboards creaked, drowning out even Vernon’s snoring. Harry became increasingly aware that this was no ordinary wind, and when a translucent, pale blue orb appeared beside him, even more so. Another orb appeared, and then a third and a fourth, until one hovered beside each Dursley and Potter. The blue glow evaporated over time and from the orbs rained four lemon drops. Harry saw it fall to his chest. In the back of his mind he felt a hooking sensation, then there was nothing but light and color and the taste of grilled cheese mixed with a dash of cumin and some chamomile tea…

Harry looked. At what? He did not quite know. A man, perhaps. But with those long eyebrows… maybe an owl, too? The Owl-Man sat behind a large desk, staring at them with a smile. Harry found he had incredible eyes. But he did not say that. That would be weird.

“You have incredible eyes, my boy,” Owl-Man said.

“Thank you. You too.”

“Hoho! Well, I try my best.”

The Dursleys interrupted, but Owl-Man kept them quiet. He looked at Petunia, who then looked at Vernon, who stared back before looking at Dudley, who himself was gazing intently at a filled bowl of sweets. A chain-reaction, Harry found rather interesting. Owl-Man had power, and Petunia, too. That was a shift in the balance.

At length, Owl-Man, who was actually called Albus Dumbledore but should go with Owl-Man regardless, gave Harry a letter and told him of all the things he should know for his future: magic, magical castles, magificial friends, magicious sweets, and more. Harry did not need much convincing, but there was one question dropping from the roof of his mouth onto his tongue to be ferried through his lips and into the open air.

The question shivered a bit, before resolving to man up and become an acute acoustic realization: “… why did you teleport all of us?”

Owl-Man peered at Harry. “Because I can, my boy. Because I can.”

And Harry understood.

#​

At Diagon Alley (while Owl-Man was doing something else), a boy named Cormac McLaggen showed Harry that it was a Goblin custom to spit on the steps of Gringotts shortly before entering the bank. It was an old and mythical ritual reaching back to the times when Goblins still pranced through the woods with their druidic friends, the Satyrs. Back then, liquid was seen as the source of growth, not just for growing more people, but also plants. Spit was a form of liquid. And so they spat. The Goblins guarding the entrance saluted them.

Harry found these customs weird but interesting. Also satisfying, because spitting brought back memories. He had done something similar in third grade, when he excreted a glob into Dudley’s shoes. He smiled. Then he remembered that Dudley’s shoes had become his only six months later. Harry looked down at his ratty trainers.

Better not think about it, he told himself, and soldiered on.

#​

When it came to getting a pet, Harry first had his eyes set on a beautiful white owl, then remembered Owl-Man, decided there could be only one, and went for the toads. A woman with a vulture hat stole the last one from the shelf, and sniffed at him as he looked at the large, bulging eyes of the green toad that could’ve been his friend for all times. The toad thought the same, he was sure.

Sighing, Harry turned around to go looking for another pet, when Owl-Man appeared beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“It is not a crime to attend Hogwarts without a pet, my boy.”

“But the list…”

“… said that it was allowed, not necessitated. Now, you might be interested in knowing that I found my greatest friend and familiar outside of Hogwarts. Leave yourself open to the possibilities, and you will not be disappointed.”

“And you had no pets before that?”

“Well… I had, but not for long.”

“What happened, sir?”

“In younger years, my academic zest got the best of me, I fear. It took a while until I found a familiar who openly rebelled against my experiments.”

Harry nodded, and resolved that maybe keeping his distance to Owl-Man was appropriate.

#​

On the way to Hogwarts, Harry lounged next to a boy called Ron. They talked and ate and talked some more. When Ron began boring him a bit, Harry told him of the Goblin custom of spitting in front of Gringotts. Ron nodded seriously and then launched into an explanation about other customs of the wizarding world.

“Did you know that Sirens are real? I heard they’ve not only got a great voice, but also really huge…”

The train ride progressed and Harry was happy.

#​

Harry had never met a more disingenuous piece of cloth than the Sorting Hat.

“Potter, I think I should really put you into Slytherin. You have all it takes to achieve immortal godhood, which is not to be confused with immoral codhood.”

“Codhood?”

“Ancient religion, Potter. Ancient and Deep. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Okay…” Harry shrugged. What a weird hat. “Well, Slythering then, if it fits.”

“If that is the case…”

And, like a klaxon wailing at the room at large, the Hat shouted: Hufflepuff!

#​

Classes were okay. As a Hufflepuff Harry was well-liked by most, and he worked hard at all he did. Then came Halloween, and for the first time, Harry experienced what it meant to learn of your destiny, though he did not know it at the time. There were no trumpets, nor any horns or the angelic choir of Nymphs, as he stood on top of the tallest tower of Hogwarts – where he retreated to get some quality French time – and, wand lazily pointed in front of him, a tourist brochure to his feet, tried to enunciate the word ‘Momtmartre.’

The tip of the wand normally lit up an angry red if the word was mispronounced. A fabulous spell he got from a girl called Hermione, when she noticed him practicing his French.

Now though, the wand did not light up in red. Even while speaking, Harry had cringed as he bungled the word beyond recognition. All the more did he wonder, when instead of angry red, a thick spray of green shot out of his wand, arced toward the sky, and there spread into something resembling a skull.

There was a lot of unrest in the castle afterward. It took Harry a while to find someone who’d answer his questions. And while Owl-Man explained that conjuring a Dark Mark (as it was apparently called) was a very bad thing to do, Harry eyed the red bird watching their discussion.

So this was the miracle pet that survived Owl-Man’s experiments until now…

#​

For Christmas, Harry got a nifty cloak. He was still too young to really care about the feminine population of the school, but an inner drive almost forced him to wonder: will this cloak help me with unsavory activities?

It might have been a trick of light, but Harry thought the cloak became even more invisible.

#​

Immortal and Godlike. When Harry watched himself in the Mirror of Erised, that was what he saw. Himself throning on a dais of blue marble. Beneath, slaves, all wearing red collars. At his side, fish. Everywhere.

Harry did not know what to make of it, but the imagery got him strangely excited. Whenever he tried to think of mundane goals to achieve, his mind was forced back to the mirror of Erised, as if a greater power had taken hold of him and did not want to relinquish its control.

He felt like a sardine controlled by the power of the currents.

#​

The Stone of Philosophers, or was it the Philosopher’s Stone? Maybe even the Sorcerer’s Stone? But no, that last one would be silly. In any case, someone tried to steal a stone, and it could be a brick for all Harry cared. The name was not important, merely what power it possessed. Following the instructions of a strange vision he had, Harry found himself suffused with the intense desire to protect stones.

When he found out that the Phil. Stone was in danger, he hurried to get to it before the thief could. The traps were a problem though. As a first year, he had not yet learned how to grapple with dragons and fire-tickle an adult Mandrake into submission. Owl-Man would know what to do, but Owl-Man wasn’t with him right now.

Nonetheless, Harry moved on, a strange feeling accompanying him. Nothing could go wrong. Or well, it could, but he would survive. He did not know where this assuredness came from, just that it was there, and that it was, in no way, linked to suicidal thoughts.

When he encountered a dragon, Harry first tried it with French. The dragon hated him even more afterward. Then Harry threw all his magic, unshaped by any spell, at the dragon and hoped. And at the height of his hope, watery eyes stared back at him. His magic took the form of a giant fish-squid-snake, with a blue cloak on the back of which, in golden letters, was emblazoned: Harbinger of Fishthulu.

The battle was won quite easily after that, or so Harry thought. In the last throws of agony, a few seconds after the Harbinger of Fishthulu had dematerialized again, the dragon lashed out with its tail. Harry sunk to his knees, both hands above his crotch.

And as darkness grew in his mind, he felt not just the agony of crushed balls, but also the burning shame of failure.

He had failed to protect the stone(s).

#​

Eighteen months later, Harry woke up in the hospital wing. It turned out that his blackout wasn’t because of the crushed balls, but because he called a Major Deity to assist him. That always took its toll on people, according to Owl-Man.

Owl-Man also assured him that the Phil. Stone was safe.

And so ended a year that through his unconsciousness had become two and a half years.

The End​

 

What the actual fuck?

It was entertaining of course but seriously, what the fuck is going on here?

 

Good work Eilyfe. A masterful deconstruction.