Harry Potter and the Tome of Truths

Authors Note: Well, I’m finally getting ready to contribute my story to a website; that site being PortKey, for reasons that should be obvious. This will be a novel length upon completion; the way it’s planned out right now, it should end up being Goblet of Fire length. It’s a Mystery/Adventure before anything else, I’m attempting to write a story as realistic as possible using the canon that’s available; so I’m sorry to say Harry won’t magically fall in love with Hermione overnight, the aforementioned woman won’t become a dirty slut, and the rating NC17 has no place here.

This story follows Harry through his sixth year at Hogwarts, where as seems to be the case, strange things start occurring. Beyond the usual looming threat of Voldemort, there’s the obligatory new Defense teacher, creepy letters from no one, another tournament (Though our favorite redhead is the one taking part this time) and a whole shite load of friendship troubles.

I hope you’ll all enjoy; this is my first FanFiction and any comments would be appreciated, perhaps excluding flamers. I don’t have a Beta, so… Here’s hoping my errors are minimal. Here we go!

Chapter 1: Howling in the Morning

Small screams permeated the windows of this modest suburban home, with its white carpets and its white walls; walls covered with precious memories of a trio of individuals, all smiling and laughing. Upon a mantelpiece was a family portrait; a dark-haired, bespectacled man, a beautiful red-headed woman with dazzling green eyes and a small child, who appeared some physical meshing of the two adults. The young boy, lodged comfortably into his mother’s arms, gripped tightly onto her index finger, with an appearance of half incredible joy, and half unquenchable tiredness.

The outside screams continued to invade the silent homestead; but mixed in were bouts of laughter, and raucous singing from hoards children, most likely enjoying weighing themselves down with candy, on a warm Halloween night. A loud cry echoed through the living space; and as if on call, James Potter bounded loudly from the attached kitchen, and up the long ivory staircase, making a sharp right, and stopping just before he reached his child’s door, to the sound of a soft singing voice.

‘Dream, my child, until the dawn,
Wakes the daisies on the lawn,
Dream you float in a boat,
Under starry heavens;
Dream of brooks and singing birds,
Scented breezes, tender words…’

James slowly opened the door, making sure to abstain from making any noise, and walked into the dimly lit bedroom. In the far corner, was a small crib, and facing it, with her back to him was the beautiful singing voice; undisturbed by his entrance. James leaned against the wall by the door, taking in the sight before him, unable to keep from grinning to himself.

‘Things serene and lovely;
Fairies, Lambs and Butterflies,
Sleepy clouds in summer skies,
- Sleep all night in my sight…’

He watched as the woman rose from the chair she’d been sitting in; bent over and placed a small kiss on the baby; lying, now silently, within the crib. James slowly made his way over, sliding has arms casually around her shoulders, looking down at their son.

‘Why do you have to sing him those ridiculous Muggle songs?’ He asked playfully, resting his head lazily onto her shoulder.

‘Well I suppose you could do the singing if you want,’ Lily quipped.

‘Naw, you know, I think he’ll turn out alright; even with the Muggle poisoning.’

Lily spun around and rolled her eyes slightly; the outdoor festivities continued, as the couple slowly wrapped their arms around one another and stood silently, eyes closed for a great long while. The darkness outside became more pronounced, causing the room itself to become near lightless; minus the small candle on the little child’s dresser; and not until the two of them heard a slight scurry on the floor from outside in the hall did they move. A small draft had closed the door, and as quickly as it took for James to hear the sound, he had his wand out and pointed directly at the door.

‘Stay here with Harry,’ he muttered.

Then without so much as a second glance, James opened the door, slowly peering each way down the corridor before stepping out of the room. And again, he heard a slight scuttle, this time coming from downstairs. He turned left, and made his way to the head of the stairs, peaking around the corner to see if anyone was there, and what he saw, instead of bothering him made him smile. He shook his head slightly, then bound down the stairs, two at a time.

‘What were you trying to do Peter, give me a heart attack?’

James laughed; approaching the now human form of Peter Pettigrew, shaking the short mans hand and leading him into the living space. Hastily the pair sat down on opposite couches and James was a bit taken aback by his friends less then pristine appearance; granted he never looked great or anything, but he looked like he’d suddenly lost a lot of weight, and a lot of hair in a very short amount of time.

‘Peter, what’s up? You look horrible.’

‘W-what? No, I’m j-just, a little tired is all.’

James raised a singular eyebrow and took in Peter’s profuse sweating and jittery attitude; his hands clasped almost painfully onto knees.

‘Seriously Peter,’ James started, ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘N-n-n-no, nothing’s wrong James,’ he stuttered.

But James noticed something else as Peter had responded; his eyes, darting repeatedly through their front window, and as James’ eyes followed, he caught a momentary glimpse of a green flash before he’d reacted. He pulled out his wand with frightening speed, and shouted ‘STUPEFY’ at his guest.

He dove over the back of his couch and for the stairs, yelling at the top of his lungs.

‘LILY! HE’S HERE!’

As he made it to the first step; the front door, immediately behind him exploded in a shower of fire and shattered wood, sending James hurling forward on the steps. He continued to climb, aiming his wand behind him shouting random spells at the intruders, while dodging various green whooshes of light that came his way.

‘LILY! TAKE HARRY AND AAAAAARGH…’

A curse had caught his right leg as he’d made it to the top step, and it felt to James as though his leg had all but been ripped from his body, and as he looked down, after pulling himself safely behind a corner, he realized he wasn’t too far from the truth. His knee only appeared to be attached to the rest of his leg by a small amount of skin and muscle; blood was pouring freely from the wound.

He continued shouting to Lily in between throwing curses at the intruders. At one point, when glancing down the hall he saw a bright rainbow of colors shining from his son’s room, and he hoped against hope she was escaping. Lousy anti-apparition wards. Almost as suddenly as the onslaught had begun, the curses ceased being fired at him, and a low hissing voice became prominent above the crackling fire that was now rising up his family’s walls.

‘Leave them to me,’ it said, ‘Take what you want.’

James closed his eyes tightly, listening to his house being pillaged, smelling the acrid smell of his home being engulfed in fire. Engulfed in fire. Engulfed in…

‘INCENDIO,’ he called above all the commotion, unfortunately from the brief glance he got, he’d missed Voldemort and speared one of his followers right in the face. The Death Eater’s screams were added to the noise, ravaging his sense of hearing. The sound was such he couldn’t even hear his calls to his wife anymore. James decided, regardless of what it meant for himself, he had to go see that they’d found a way to escape; so heaving himself onto his one leg, he hopped painfully forward.

‘Just a few more steps,’ he muttered.

He was vaguely aware of the green flash of light that had hit the floor next to him; but he couldn’t worry about that. There was only enough worry for Lily; for Harry.

‘Almost –‘

But before he’d even finished the thought; his body sunk to a low heap on the ground, engulfed in an eerie green light.

James’ son jerked awake, hands directly covering his mouth to prevent the vomit that had decided to make its presence in his throat. Sweat was pouring down his face, drenching his skin, and the clothes he was wearing. Struggling to cease the heavy beating of his heart, and the rapid gasps for air; the black haired bespectacled youth, stared blankly around his surroundings, not really taking them in.

Harry’s dreams had been extremely unnerving for most of the summer, though he couldn’t see any deeper meaning behind the trips to Godric’s Hollow, to dark graveyards and the Ministry of Magic. Somehow the very blunt, obvious nature of the misery behind these dreams left Harry wondering the point of them. He attempted to avoid sleep if at all possible, for these dreams were having an incredibly negative impact on Harry.

He turned his head to the left. Sheets of rain ravaged the windows of Privet Drive; seldom had such an onslaught of cold and wet weather lasted this long. Harry, still gasping for air, bitterly remembered arriving back at the Dursley's household, already having to shield his head on the short trip from the car to the front door. That was two and a half weeks ago, and it had only gotten worse. There was about an hour, the week before, that it had turned into a small drizzle, unfortunately for Harry, he'd been in the middle of dinner with the Dursley's (an oddity in itself) and he couldn't excuse himself in time to send Hedwig on a delivery.

Which brought Harry to another set of depressing thoughts (The type he’d been plagued with all summer), as his head lolled off the edge of his bed, while both his feet were planted firmly on the wall. He'd only received two letters all of the summer, and it came at the cost of Hedwig's health. He couldn't quite stand being isolated as he was, so he forced Hedwig to deliver a message to Ron and Hermione (Conveniently avoiding talk of himself) just three or four days before. She came back with nice long responses from each of them, unfortunately the trip did some damage to her wing and without her, ironically, he couldn’t get help for her, because she was his only contact to the outside world.

It seemed that the rain not only deterred Owls from coming by, but people too. He certainly hadn't been able to send any messages to members of the Order, yet not one individual had bothered to come and check that he was okay. This didn't bother Harry too much; all their arrival would do is force Harry to get up and face their scrutiny. For without a doubt, Harry looked far worse for wear then he himself could remember. Meals came few and far between, not because the Dursley's were being cruel, infact they'd been downright pleasant in comparison to previous summers, but because Harry just couldn't bring himself to rise from his bed more often then was necessary. Perhaps only to use the Washroom, anything else was infrequent and not worthy of mention. Instead he found himself staring blankly at the ceiling, wall, floor, desk and whatever other junk was littered about his room. Which wasn't really much, he hadn't bothered to open his trunk, and he hadn't touched a fraction of his homework (Though, most of it wasn’t necessary, as he wasn’t even aware what classes he’d be taking the next year at school).

Harry shifted slightly on his bed and stared longingly at the pair of letters he had, lying haphazardly on the floor; wishing he could see Ron and Hermione now; nothing about sitting at the Dursley's alone was appealing. The only part that made him feel any better, and he was slightly ashamed to admit it, was he knew they were both trapped alone in utter boredom as well.

In Ron's letter; true to form, he never mentioned Sirius... He never even mentioned not mentioning Sirius. Harry played this thought over in his mind and suddenly realized he must be incredibly tired. Nope, Ron just complained about how he'd been subjected to the perpetual company of Ginny and Luna, who had apparently become fast friends. Harry supposed Ron would prefer misery with those two, then misery alone though; otherwise he was sure Ron could just avoid them. The twins, whose business had initially been booming, were also being affected by the weather it seemed; no one appeared to want to venture out when they could drown just by standing in the street.

Hermione of course couldn't restrain herself; she spent the better part of three sheets of parchment suggesting ways in which he could cope with his loss and another page consoling him and offering her support. Harry appreciated the thought and everything; but the only suggestion she left from her 'essay' was the one Harry seemed to prefer most, and that was just containing the misery and forcing other thoughts to the forefront. Not necessarily pleasant, but, at least a little less depressing then thoughts of his Godfather. If he didn’t think about it, it couldn’t bother him; hence his displeasure with sleeping, and the inevitable dredging up of horrible memories.

Hermione of course mentioned how eager she was to receive her O.W.L. marks; somehow Harry couldn't bring himself to be as excited about test scores as Hermione was, but he did wonder a few times if they would be arriving soon, any bit of post now would make him feel one-hundred times better.

Glancing at his clock and only registering the time after about five minutes of staring, Harry decided a little midnight stroll for a bite to eat was exactly what he needed. So, slowly sitting up, several of his malnourished bones cracking along way, he stood up, opened his door and ever so slowly crept down the stairs (casually stepping over the creaky bottom one) and into the kitchen. Making himself a sandwich and getting a glass of water, Harry sat down at the dining room table and slowly began to eat, admiring the sheer will of the rain to last this long; and listening to the nearly musical howling of the wind. Harry thought, had he not lived in a cupboard for eleven years, he'd have a severe case of cabin fever already.

While taking a large gulp of water from his cup something caught his eye outside. He wasn't entirely sure how he could see through the darkness and the rain, and for all Harry knew he was imagining things, but he could have sworn that he saw a dark figure flying in the distance. Polishing off his sandwich, Harry made his way upstairs a little quicker then he may have under normal circumstances and came to a stop right near his window. Peering out, looking high and low, near and far for the figure. Harry laughed at himself in a sort of pitying manner; upon looking again, there definitely wasn't anything within sight. Another case of yearning for some sign of home he supposed.

He found he'd been doing that a lot. He'd hear a swish of something, and look for a spell being cast; or a crack of something from Dudley's television, and look around hopefully for some apparated figure. Even once he thought someone within the household had said Hogwarts, unfortunately it was just the radio; something about Soggy shorts.

Harry grabbed the single copy of the Daily Prophet he’d acquired (Courtesy of Hermione), and glanced at the front page, and what it meant for him, and undoubtedly the entire Wizarding populous. It seemed Draco Malfoy, one of Harry’s least favorite people in the world had been correct, the Dementors had vanished from Azkaban, the Wizard Prison; no doubt to go and join the ranks of Lord Voldemort and the army Harry could only assume he was attempting to amass.

According to the Prophet, Minister Fudge had attempted to remove the Dementors and replace them with Ministry Aurors under the guidance of Albus Dumbledore (Harry had thought he was dreaming; Fudge listening to Dumbledore again?). Fifteen Aurors lost their lives, all had the dementors kiss performed on them; Ministry officials arrived soon afterward to find the prison empty of anyone but decaying corpses.

Collapsing heavily onto his bed, Harry tossed aside the paper and closed his eyes in the darkness of his room, and took to thinking about going back to Hogwarts. Only when he stepped off the train, he realized that no one had been on it with him, he quickly checked every compartment but none of them contained students. They must be at Hogwarts, was all Harry could manage to think; and for reasons he couldn’t explain he was drawn to taking the first year boats instead of the carriages.

He hopped on the boat, only it wouldn't set off for the castle, so Harry quickly put his hands into the cold, motionless water to paddle his way to the school. It took him what felt like several hours, but he had finally made it half way across the lake. Completely out of breath, and sweating profusely, Harry leaned back into the boat and stared blankly into the starry sky, and the ever bright moon. Harry felt a little tickle on his stomach, and looking down, Harry noticed a small rat scurrying across his stomach. He picked up the rat by its tail and watched it thrash around, as if it were expecting its fate; and then it was tossed into the lake without so much as a second glance. Just as Harry was about to lay back down and gaze back up into the sky, the smell of smoke reached his nostrils. He looked up quickly for the cause and his eyes glossed at the site of, not Hogwarts, not even the forbidden forest; but Hagrid's Hut, engulfed in flames.

Just as suddenly as he'd apparently fallen asleep, Harry woke… again. Very rarely did his dreams stray from those of death, but when they did, they were equally as annoying; though Harry had trouble finding any real meaning in them. His scar never caused him any amount of pain; it prickled a little constantly, but Harry thought he'd be more worried if it 'stopped' doing that. Just random distresses he guessed. He’d thought the one of his parent’s death was likely the same, for as far as he could remember, he didn’t have any memory of their death. Overactive imagination he supposed.

Harry casually glanced over to the clock to register how long he'd slept, but before he could make out the time, he noticed that the clock appeared to be issuing large amounts of black smoke.

'What the...' was all Harry could muster.

Noticing almost immediately that the smell that had met him in his dream was now filling his small room incredibly fast; Harry turned on the lamp next to his bed and found the cause of the disturbance. There sitting on top of his clock was a crimson envelope, black clouds billowing from the seams. But before Harry could think of anyway to stop the inevitable racket that was to ensue... it did. But unlike the times he'd heard a Howler before, this time there were no words mingled in; all Harry, and he supposed half the neighborhood could hear, was a high pitched wailing that went on for what felt an eternity, but was more likely a mere minute. Harry attempted to shield his ears from the onslaught, mighty unsuccessfully; before the letter burst into flames in front of his eyes and his Uncle's stomping approached his door.