I am not J.K. Rowling, I do not make money off of Harry Potter and nobody who does make their living from Harry Potter would recognize me if they passed me on the street. In short, I'm nobody, who are you?
Chapter 9: The Tower He Knows Not
Harry Potter awoke to the sound of the shower running, which was very strange considering that he was the only one who lived in the Oracular Tower. It was also odd because there wasn't really any running water in the tower, either; just a portable loo that some thoughtful previous resident had left behind. (It contained a bath, a sink and a toilet and could be easily shrunk to fit inside of a briefcase. Harry had given the entire apparatus a thorough scrubbing once he remembered that Voldemort had to have used it, too.)
Harry's confusion disappeared, however briefly, once he realized that he was no longer inside the Oracular Tower. In fact, it now appeared that he was in someone else's home, sleeping in their bedroom and in their bed, all the while only dressed in pyjama bottoms (which were presumably also theirs). Three possible explanations sprang to Harry's mind: that he was having a very vivid dream, that he had woken up in the middle of a vision of the future or that something even less plausible than either of those two options had happened.
After a quick check of his surroundings, Harry discovered his glasses and his wand were lying on the dresser next to the bed. He retrieved them both quickly and, as the person using the shower turned it off, trained his wand on the bathroom door adjoining the bedroom, waiting to see who would emerge from it. While it wasn't likely that this was a trap, Harry decided he couldn't be too careful. 'I can just see it now. Voldemort emerges from the shower and attacks me in my pyjamas. I'd never hear the end of it.'
After a few minutes of waiting, a figure emerged from the bathroom amid a cloud of steam. Happily, rather than Voldemort, the figure in question was a bathrobe-clad Hermione. She appeared to be in her late twenties, but the leap forward in age didn't keep Harry's heart from pounding wildly at the sight of her. "You weren't practicing that 'make-a-window' spell on the bathroom door again, were you?" When he didn't answer her right away, she continued, "Honestly, Harry, I haven't the faintest idea why you keep doing that. It's not as though you haven't seen me naked before."
"I haven't," Harry repeated dazedly. "I mean, I have. Obviously I have." He quickly lowered his arm and pointed his wand somewhere other than at the door. Meanwhile, Hermione crossed the room, sat down on the bed and began drying her hair with her wand and a towel. 'This is obviously her bedroom, too. This is our bedroom.' "Erm, is there any chance I could see you naked now?"
"Nice try, Potter," Hermione said with a playful smile, "but I am not going to show up for your birthday party looking freshly shagged. I so rarely get the chance to make myself beautiful anymore."
"That's got to be the easiest job in the world," Harry said, without even thinking about it. "You're always beautiful."
Hermione got up from the bed, walked over to him and kissed him chastely on the lips. "Thank you, Harry. That's sweet." As he started to put his arms around her, she pushed his hands away. "But seriously, nothing's going to happen until after we get back from the Burrow. I need to get ready."
"Right," Harry replied, trying to glean as much information about what was going on from Hermione as possible. "I guess I should get ready too… for my birthday party…at the Burrow." 'At least I know what day it is,' Harry thought to himself.
"You might check on Hal and Catherine. See if they're dressed yet." When Harry only looked back at her blankly, she elaborated, "You know, our children. The little people who've been living in our house all these years."
"Right. The children," Harry replied a little numbly. There had been no children in any of his other visions of the future. For a moment, he wondered what they might look like; whether they more closely resembled Hermione or him or if any of them looked like his parents. "I'll just go see them now."
Hermione's arm grabbed his lightly, keeping him from leaving the room. "Harry, you're not having those dreams again, are you?"
Harry frowned in confusion. "What dreams?"
"The ones where you're back at Hogwarts seeing 'visions of the future' out of some invisible tower," Hermione explained, a patient and sympathetic expression on her face. "Harry, you know none of that ever happened, right?"
"O…of course I do," Harry stammered in surprise, unwilling to challenge Hermione at this point, but very curious as to what she was getting at.
"It was just Voldemort, playing mind games with you," Hermione continued as she began rummaging through her closet for an outfit to wear. When he said nothing in reply, her eyes met his again. "But now he's dead, Harry. It's over. You won. We all did."
"I don't understand…" Harry began uncertainly, but was unable to say more before a voice behind him shrieked, "Boo!"
Startled, Harry spun around quickly, only to realize that the person who had interrupted him was a boy of around three or four with tousled brown hair. "Did I scare you, Daddy?" he managed to say between mischievous giggles. "Did I? Did I really?"
"You did," Harry told him, a stupid grin now plastered on his face. 'I have a son!' "You were really scary!"
Hal grinned widely, his arms swaying at his side. "I'm going to be a Death Eater when I grow up."
"What!?" Harry exclaimed.
Hermione sighed. "Hal, for the last time, you are not going to be a Death Eater when you grow up. There aren't even any more Death Eaters. They're all in Azkaban."
Hal puffed out his chest. "I escape from Azkaban, just like Uncle Sirius!"
As Hal began to explain in garbled detail how he would do this, Hermione leaned in over Harry's shoulder. "You haven't been encouraging them to play Aurors and Death Eaters again, have you?"
Before Harry could give a clueless answer to that question, a girl of around six appeared behind Hal. "Avady kedavry! You're dead, Death Eater!"
Hermione shook her head slowly. "Never mind. Just get them ready for the party. We'll talk later about…well, about lots of things."
Harry walked out in the hallway and scooped up both children. Catherine was about a head taller than Hal and had shoulder-length bushy black hair. "Nuh uh," Hal protested. "I'm not dead. The avady kedavry bounced off me."
"Avady kedavrys don't bounce off!" Catherine informed her brother, her angry face a perfect miniature of Hermione's. "Tell him, Daddy!"
"The avady kedavry bounced off Daddy," Hal argued back as he looked up at Harry pleadingly. "Tell her, Daddy!"
Harry put the children down in what looked very much like the living room. "Daddy says it's time to stop talking about avady kedavrys and start getting ready for his birthday party." Harry belatedly realized that he would likely be expected to dress the children, despite having no clue where their clothes were kept or even where their rooms were. Luckily for him, with little more than a murmur of complaint, the children marched off toward their respective rooms. Once Catherine opened her door, Harry called out timidly, "Do you, erm, need any help getting ready?"
Catherine rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Daddy, the house elves can do it. That's what Mummy pays them for."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Harry decided he could safely take the time to look around his house for clues as to what had gone on in his life over the last ten years or so. He found several framed photos: one of Hermione and him on their wedding day, the proud parents holding newborn baby Catherine and then baby Hal and one of Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore and him that he didn't recall being taken. 'I think I would have remembered Dumbledore holding up rabbit ears behind Ron's head.'
"What do you think, Harry?" Hermione asked him, forcing him to look up from the photograph. She was wearing an elegant strapless blue gown that accentuated what was a truly gorgeous figure, if Harry did think so himself.
"You look wonderful," Harry told her, a bit awed by the entire situation. It was now beginning to sink in that he and Hermione were together and happy for the first time in one of his visions of the future, without any interference from Ron or Ginny. Idly, he wondered how they had ended up (and who they had ended up with).
Hermione quickly answered one of his questions as she looked down at herself with a frown. "You don't think Ginny Longbottom will wear blue, do you? I'd hate to show up to your party in nearly the same outfit as your ex-girlfriend." Before Harry could answer, she looked at him sharply, her eyes widening. "Harry James Potter! You're not ready yourself!"
"What?" Harry asked her in mock indignation. "You mean I can't just go in this?"
Hermione gawked at him. "Do you really want to show up shirtless and in bare feet, wearing only a pair of pyjamas?"
Harry made a show of thinking this over. "Now there's an idea to liven up the party. My entrance would be completely unforgettable."
"There will be reporters there from The Daily Prophet," Hermione reminded him, "so unless you want pictures of your 'completely unforgettable' moment splashed across the front page of the morning paper…"
"Alright," Harry said with a laugh as he threw his hands up in defeat. "You win. I'll get dressed."
"There are new dress robes waiting for you in the closet," Hermione called after him as he began walking back to their bedroom, "and please don't just wear your pyjamas under them."
After about fifteen minutes of rummaging through his room in an attempt to discover where he kept his knickers and socks, Harry emerged looking somewhat respectable in a set of emerald green dress robes. "You look very handsome, Harry," Hermione assessed with a pleased grin and a twinkle in her eye. Hal and Catherine now stood next to her, dressed quite nicely (although neither seemed particularly happy with that fact).
"Thank you," Harry replied with an earnest smile of his own. "Is everyone ready to go?"
Catherine crossed her arms in a sulk. "Why can't we just have your birthday party here? Why do we have to go to that awful Burrow place?"
Harry gave Catherine a curious look. "You don't like the Burrow?"
Hal jumped up suddenly. "I like the Burrow!"
Catherine scowled at him. "You would."
"I made Uncle Ron promise that he wouldn't tease you anymore," Hermione assured her daughter in a soothing tone of voice. "Besides, don't you want to see Selene?"
"Yes," Catherine admitted grudgingly, her face still contorted into a childish pout.
"And there will be plenty of birthday cake for both of you," she reminded them. Harry smiled as he watched Hermione cheer up their daughter with ease.
"Cake! Cake!" Hal exclaimed excitedly.
"Alright," Catherine said, her glum expression now replaced with one of acceptance. "Let's go."
***
The Burrow had not changed much over the years, although Harry had never seen it crowded with so many people before, not even during his brief appearance at Bill and Fleur's wedding over the summer. He would hardly have guessed that his birthday would merit such a gathering, no matter how famous he was in the here and now. As he was temporarily blinded by a photographer's flash bulb, Harry silently cursed himself for not asking Hermione why there would be reporters here. He could not ask her now as she was off chasing down a rambunctious Hal (who was, in turn, chasing a very frazzled-looking garden gnome) on the other side of the back yard. Harry's curiosity was piqued, however. 'There's something more going on here than meets the eye.'
"Harry!" a familiar voice called out through the dull roar of mostly unfamiliar ones. It was Ron, who was already sporting a widow's peak and a beer gut. He threw his arm around Harry and began leading him through the massive crowd with ease. "How does it feel to hit the big three oh?"
"Surprising, actually," Harry answered him honestly. "It seems like only yesterday I was seventeen."
"Time sure flies, eh?" Ron asked him rhetorically, giving him a slap on the back for good measure. "Wait 'til you see what I got you for your birthday. Nothing else quite like it in the world, really. It's amazing some of the things the missus can get her hands on."
Deciding that there would be no better time to find out exactly who Ron had married, Harry asked, "Did your wife come with you? I haven't seen her around."
Ron chuckled. "Oh, you know her. She's probably talking someone's ear off about her latest expedition."
"Yes," Harry responded awkwardly. "I certainly do…know her. Of course. Silly to think that I wouldn't."
"Are you alright, mate?" Ron asked, a look of concern etched on his face. "You know, with what today is and everything?"
"It's my birthday," Harry answered him with a shrug. "Why wouldn't I be alright?"
"Well, it's not just your birthday, is it?" Ron remarked with an arched eyebrow. "It's the anniversary of the day Voldemort kicked the bucket for good, with no horcruxes, fake pet rats or stuttering Hogwarts professors left to bring him back." For Harry, a light dawned. 'So that's why there's so much media attention here.' "It's hard to look back at those days sometimes, especially considering how good things are now."
"Say Ron," Harry began, as a mischievously clever thought occurred to him, "would you mind saying a few words at the party about Voldemort's defeat? Just what you remember about it, you know. Nothing too elaborate."
Ron laughed aloud and slapped Harry on the back again. "You're not getting out of your 'traditional Victory Day remarks' that easily, Harry. The spotlight's entirely on you." As Harry remained silent in mute terror over the prospect of making a statement to the press and his gathered friends and family that he was completely unprepared for, Ron continued to speak. "After all, nobody cares what I'd have to say on the subject. I mean, who am I, anyway? Just plain old Ron Weasley. It's not like I defeated Voldemort or anything, right?"
Despite not knowing how he had defeated Voldemort, Harry felt fairly safe in reassuring his friend. "I couldn't have done it without you, Ron. Really."
Ron smiled warmly back at him. "Thanks, mate," he said as he waved to someone else passing by on the other side of the yard, "but seriously, you're on your own with the speech. Sorry." Harry's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Don't know why you'd want me giving a speech for you, really. Remember the mess I made of the best man's toast at your wedding?"
"I believe Harry more than made up for that at our wedding," a woman's voice interjected, "when he read that poem you wrote me during your last year at Hogwarts." As the woman who was seemingly Ron's wife joined him, Harry gave her a quick once over. She was quite pretty, petite and blonde and was giving Ron a look of adoration he'd never seen a girl give Ron before. Clearly, Ron's luck with women had changed. But who was the new Mrs. Weasley?
Ron blushed slightly at the memory of his poem. "Oh yeah. How did that go, anyway?"
"I really think that you are cute," the blonde recited from memory. "Even with a gurdyroot. I hold you in total awe, you're the best in Ravenclaw."
"Those were the good lines of it, yeah," Ron admitted as his ears turned red. "I seem to remember trying to rhyme 'thestral' with 'special'…"
As Harry belatedly realized that Ron must have married Luna Lovegood, he threw in, "Between that and the singing valentine your sister sent me in second year, I think the Weasleys are better off staying away from poetry."
"I'd say you're right, Harry," Ron replied, "except for Percy, of course. Wouldn't want to disappoint his millions of readers." When Harry frowned in confusion, Ron continued, "I know he's a git, but his Recollections of Things to Come really has some good poems in it. You should read it."
"The love sonnets are particularly well done," Luna gushed. "Although of course they're nothing compared to Sonnets from the Portuguese Bearsnouted Thicklesnip by Elizabeth Bearsnout Browning."
"Oh, of course not," Harry conceded with a nod of his head as Ron gave him an appreciative wink. "You have to respect the classics, you know."
Just then, Hermione approached, dragging a squirming Hal behind her. His hands were caked in mud and there was a small gob of cotton candy in the corner of his mouth. "There you are, Harry. They're just about ready to cut the cake."
Dutifully, Harry followed his wife and son to where the Weasleys had set up a series of banquet tables and chairs on their lawn. As Ron and Luna walked beside him, the former whispered in his ear, "You've lost your birthday, haven't you?"
Harry shot her a puzzled look. "Lost it? How do you mean?"
"You can't keep it with your family and friends anymore," Luna said sadly. "You have to share it with the entire wizarding world, so that it's not just yours anymore."
Harry nodded slightly in agreement. "I suppose you're right."
"At least Stubby Boardman made it, though," Luna remarked casually. "He's skipped out the last few years."
"The lead singer of the Hob Goblins?" Harry asked her in utter confusion. "Why would he be here for my birthday?"
"She doesn't really mean Stubby Boardman, Harry," Ron explained with a sly smile. "She's talking about Sirius Black."
"Sirius?" Harry repeated in shock. "But he died…years ago, in the Department of Mysteries…" When neither Ron, Luna or Hermione said anything, he stammered on, "You…you were all there. You saw it!"
Unexpectedly, it was Hal who next spoke. "Uncle Sirius was faking so he could fool Moldievoldiemort." As if to emphasize his point, Hal fell to the ground and pretended to be dead.
"Hal, get up off of the grass before you get your clothes dirty," Hermione snapped. To Ron and Luna, she added, "Never mind Harry. He's been having those dreams again."
"Oh," Ron and Luna said together and then gave Harry a sympathetic but pitying look. Meanwhile, Harry's attention was focused solely on finding Sirius in the crowd. 'Could he really be alive? And if he was, why wouldn't I have known about it? Why wouldn't anyone have said anything about it in my other visions of the future? How did he survive falling through the veil?'
Just as those questions and a thousand others began to run through his brain, Harry caught sight of Sirius standing next to Arthur Weasley at the head of the table. His hair had gotten grayer and his face had more wrinkles, but he was still immediately recognizable. Harry had to resist the urge to run toward him; to make sure that it really was him, alive and well again. He had already managed to convince Hermione, Ron and Luna that he was practically nutters and he had no desire to be carted off to the Closed Ward of St. Mungo's in a little white coat, not even in a vision of the future.
"Catherine! Selene!" Hermione called out in the seasoned authoritative voice of a mother of two. "Stop pestering your Uncle Bill and get over here!" Harry watched his daughter and a little blonde haired girl very close to her age depart cheerfully from Bill Weasley, whose long hair had now been partially braided. Everyone in attendance began to gather expectantly around an impressively large and well-frosted birthday cake.
As Harry approached the table, pleasant birthday wishes came from a chorus of voices that included Hagrid, Charlie Weasley, Arabella Figg and Minerva McGonagall. He politely thanked them, shook their hands and slowly made his way to where Arthur Weasley and Sirius Black were. He stood in front of his godfather in silent disbelief, unsure of what to say.
"Happy birthday, Harry," Sirius said jovially as he grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake.
"You too," Harry said stupidly. He continued to hold on to his godfather's hand even after Sirius had stopped shaking it.
"It isn't my birthday, Harry," Sirius pointed out. "Don't you remember? We celebrated my twenty-ninth back in May." He gave Arthur Weasley a knowing wink. "Incredible that I have a godson who's older than I am, though, wouldn't you say?"
"Indeed," Arthur answered with a chuckle, before turning to address Harry. "Harry, it has been a wonderful treat to watch you grow into the man you are today. I couldn't be more proud of you if you were my own son."
"Hear, hear," Sirius echoed as he gave Harry a slap on the back. Harry suddenly felt himself becoming uncomfortably warm.
"Now, as I'm sure you've heard enough of this mushy treacle," Fred Weasley declared boisterously, "it's time for the birthday boy to cut the first piece of cake."
"And then give it to us, of course," George added.
"Leave Harry alone, you two," Molly Weasley chided her twin sons as she handed Harry a large knife. "Go on, Harry, cut the cake."
Just as he began to sink the knife into the multi-layered birthday cake, a popping noise rang in Harry's ear. "Look who's here," Arthur Weasley called out, his tone entirely welcoming. "And just in time to have a piece of cake."
Harry looked up to see the familiar half-moon shaped glasses, crooked nose and long white beard of Albus Dumbledore as he shook hands with Arthur Weasley. "Sorry I'm late, Minister. It seems Hogwarts' new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher has been unexpectedly transfigured into a large rodent. However, I've been assured this is a condition that will clear up by the fall."
As Harry's jaw dropped in shock, the knife fell from his hand and made a soft thud in the summer grass. Hermione groaned audibly as Molly Weasley stooped to pick it up. "I'll just do a quick cleaning charm on this for you, dear."
Her eyes flashing dangerously, Hermione grabbed Harry and pulled him aside, out of earshot from everyone else. "Sirius and Dumbledore are alive, Harry. You can't just keep flipping out every time you see them in public!"
"I watched them die!" Harry exclaimed in his own defense. "I don't understand…"
"They had to make you believe that they were dead or the plan wouldn't have worked," Hermione explained in an exasperated tone, as though she had gone over this very thing with Harry a hundred times before. "It had to seem real to you."
Harry shook his head in utter befuddlement. "What plan? Hermione, I…I don't know if I can…"
"I know this is hard for you, Harry," Hermione tried again, this time with much more patience and empathy in her voice. "Especially with the dreams you've been seeing lately. But please just try and accept that they are alive and enjoy your birthday. You're surrounded by people who care about you very much, Harry. Try and think about that."
"Alright," Harry agreed with a sigh and an acquiescent nod. Both of them rejoined the party, Harry cut the cake and took a seat between Arthur Weasley (who, in this future, was apparently the Minister of Magic) and Hermione, who took hold of his hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.
As all of the other guests sat down to eat their cake, Dumbledore stood and addressed the crowd. "Everyone, if I may, I'd like to offer a toast to Harry Potter." As he held his glass of punch aloft, all around him followed suit. "To a wonderful thirtieth birthday and many, many more afterwards. More than anyone else, Harry, we have you to thank for the world we live in today. A world where Voldemort is a distant unhappy memory and where everyone you love is safe and happy. The best of all possible worlds."
There were cheers of assent from those around him, but Harry was no longer paying attention. His gaze was focused entirely on Dumbledore's right hand. It was now no longer shriveled, but seemed completely restored and healthy. 'I don't care what Hermione said. Even if Dumbledore faked his death,' Harry reasoned, 'he wouldn't have bothered with pretending to have a ruined hand.'
"Speech!" one of the Weasleys cried out suddenly. Soon the cry was taken up by nearly everyone at the party. Clearly it was time for what Ron had called his 'traditional Victory Day remarks'. With a sense of purpose, Harry rose to stand in front of the crowd. Photographers took their place around him, each hoping to get a better angle on the shot than their rivals.
No longer nervous about making this speech, Harry was absolutely certain of what he wanted to say. "This isn't real," he declared in a soft voice.
"Harry," Hermione began pleadingly as she grabbed his arm. "Don't do this. You'll make a fool…"
"This isn't real!!" Harry said again, this time loud enough for everyone to hear. "Sirius Black died in the Department of Mysteries when I was fifteen!" Sirius shifted uncomfortably in his seat as everyone else around him wore expressions either of embarrassment or confusion. "Snape murdered Dumbledore!"
"I can explain everything to you, Harry," Dumbledore tried in a very calm voice, his right hand reaching out to him. "Just sit down and we can have a nice, amiable chat…"
Harry pushed Dumbledore away. "No. I won't be lied to. Not anymore."
"But this was the life you wanted, wasn't it?" Hermione asked him pointedly. "A future where we're married and have a family? Where everyone you love is alive and well?"
"It doesn't matter," Harry replied, shaking his head as he did so. "Not if none of it is…"
***
"…real." Harry Potter's eyes opened wide and he gasped for air, as if he were just waking up from a bad dream. 'Or from a good dream that turned into a nightmare only when you realized that it was just a dream.'
Harry got up from his bed, poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice from a self-cooling vial that Hermione had brought him and began to ponder what had just happened. Was what he had seen a dream? 'That would make the most sense, I suppose,' Harry thought to himself. On the other hand, he had never before had a dream that was quite so vivid and it had seemed entirely like a vision of the future throughout, until the moment when he realized that it couldn't possibly be a real one.
Harry spent the day doing his homework assignments and searching for the last remaining horcrux, his latest 'vision', if that was indeed what it had been, never far from his mind. 'Will I see false visions of the future while I'm here, too? Is that why some of the students who've lived here before have gone mad?' This immediately made Harry think of what Hermione had said to him the night before. Was he now going mad, too?
He shook his head slowly. 'No. I can still tell what's real from what's not.' Harry had to admit, however, that the combination of spending his days alone, the now-maybe-not-always-accurate visions and the infuriatingly long and tedious search for Voldemort's seventh horcrux was taking a toll on his mental health. He hadn't been sleeping or eating well and had recently discovered he'd lost weight, courtesy of the chair he had removed from the closet that spoke your weight aloud as you sat on it.
Harry heaved a sigh as he looked around the ludicrously gigantic closet, which now appeared as though the Hogwarts Express had recently run through it. 'I must have looked over almost everything in here by now. If Hermione hadn't performed that dark magic detection spell on the tower, I'd just write the whole thing off as a false lead.'
"Your emissary is nearly all the way up the stairs," the Front View Mirror informed him, his own face smirking back at him in the mirror. "You're in for a very interesting discussion, Mr. Potter."
Harry looked at the mirror with a dubious frown etched on his face. "Interesting how?"
"You'll see," the mirror said smugly. "I would hate to spoil the surprise."
"Fine," Harry said as he swiped the mirror from the shelf, "but you're coming with me." Perhaps knowing already that this was what would happen, the mirror said nothing.
Harry walked to the bedroom, placed another, stronger silencing charm on the weighing chair, put the mirror down on the table next to his bed and then sat down on it (the bed, not the mirror or the table). Hermione entered the tower soon after, looking weary and out of breath. "Walking up all of those steps really is quite the workout." She then handed Harry a large plate covered with a tin lid. "I brought you some food from the kitchens. Dobby made it up for you himself." It was so heavy that Harry nearly dropped the plate as he took it from Hermione. "I think he may have gone a bit overboard."
Harry smiled warmly at her. "Maybe just a bit." As his stomach growled ravenously, he added, "Thank you."
"Before I give you your homework," Hermione said as she withdrew several rolls of parchment from her knapsack, "I wanted to tell you what I'd found out about that French wizard you had me look up."
Harry had nearly forgotten that he had asked Hermione to search for information on Jean Paul Gerard, who had made a guest appearance in all of his visions up until today. "I appreciate it, Hermione, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Gerard wasn't in my last vision at all and besides, I'm not sure the visions mean as much as I thought they did before."
Hermione raised an eyebrow at that but refrained from commenting. "Maybe it's just as well. There isn't any Jean Paul Gerard enrolled at Beauxbatons." When Harry shot her a quizzical look, she continued, "I've checked records going back a hundred years, Harry. He's just not there. In fact, there's no Jean Paul Gerard listed at any wizarding school in the world."
"Wow," Harry exclaimed softly, his tone reverent. "You did all that research in one day? I'm impressed."
"You'd be surprised what Hogwarts' Head Girl has access to," Hermione told him with a shy smile.
Harry quickly became lost in his own thoughts. If there was no wizard named Jean Paul Gerard, how could he have seen him in visions of the future? Was the French wizard just a figment of his imagination? "So you didn't find anything about Gerard at all, then?"
"I didn't say that," Hermione said as she withdrew a large book from her bag, opened it and turned it around to face Harry. "I did find one reference to a Jean Paul Gerard. As a matter of fact, he's in your homework."
"My homework?" Harry asked with a frown. "How do you mean?"
"Jean Paul Gerard was the real name of a Medieval French dark wizard who called himself Lord Montverde." Hermione smoothed down the page of the History of Magic textbook as she spoke. "He was brutal, Harry. It's said that he hunted down and murdered his own family so that he couldn't be blackmailed by his enemies. He was finally killed by his own men when he was a general during the wizarding Hundred Years' War." Harry's face went deathly pale. "Of course, this can't be the Gerard you've been seeing. It's probably a pseudonym your French wizard is using to…"
"Is there a picture?" Harry interrupted her as the gears in his mind slowly began to turn. "A painting or an etching or something that shows what he looked like?"
Hermione shot him a brief, curious glance and then answered, "I think so." She then flipped over a few pages to reveal a lifelike engraving of Lord Montverde.
Harry stared intently at the image, as if mesmerized. It was the exact likeness of the wizard he had seen in his visions. "It's him."
"Him? You're saying this is the same wizard you saw?" Hermione asked in confusion. When Harry only nodded in reply, she continued, "That's not possible, Harry. It says here that he was killed nearly six hundred years ago. Even if he hadn't been, wizards simply don't live that long. Well, except for Nicholas Flamel…" She stopped as Harry began softly laughing, perhaps afraid for his sanity. "Harry?"
"You've been right all along, Hermione," Harry told her, feeling truly cheerful for the first time in days. "This tower doesn't give people visions of the future."
"What?!" Hermione replied sharply. "How can that be? You told me you've seen them."
"What did we know about the tower before I decided to stay here?" Harry asked Hermione, his tone excited. He was rather unaccustomed to having figured something out before she did.
"That it was sent from Beauxbatons to Hogwarts during the Hundred Years' War," Hermione began. "Supposedly it could predict the future. Also, we knew that one of Voldemort's horcruxes was up here, somewhere…"
"We knew that a horcrux was here," Harry said insistently. "But that doesn't necessarily mean it's one of Voldemort's."
"So…you think the horcrux is Lord Montverde's?" Hermione asked him slowly.
"Don't you see, Hermione?" Harry asked her rhetorically. "It isn't the tower making people see things and predicting their future, it's Gerard's horcrux. It must take over the senses of the person who lives in the tower, the way Riddle's diary possessed Ginny in second year."
"If that's true, Harry," Hermione began urgently, her eyes widening as she grabbed his arm, "we need to get out of here. Now."
Just as Harry picked his wand up from the table and appeared ready to follow Hermione out of the tower, he heard a soft voice whisper, "Stay, but send her away."
"Did you just hear that?" Harry asked Hermione.
Hermione shook her head. "I didn't hear anything."
"Send her away or she dies," the voice told Harry menacingly. He now recognized it as Jean Paul Gerard's. As if to emphasize his point, an unseen force began hurling objects around the room. The Front View Mirror flew from his bedside table and shattered against the door.
"What's going on?" Hermione asked Harry, confusion and worry plainly apparent on her face.
"I think Gerard wants to talk to me," Harry explained, speaking in a slightly louder tone than usual so as to drown out the sounds of things crashing and breaking all around them. "Alone."
Hermione shook her head. "Harry, I'm not about to leave you here with him…"
Hedwig squawked and flapped her wings as her cage was tossed to and fro between the walls of the tower. "I don't think we have much choice, Hermione." When she still seemed reluctant, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. "Go on. I'll be down to talk to you and Ron as soon as it's over."
With one last longing look at Harry, Hermione departed. As soon as she left the room, the chaos that had enveloped it ended and a figure appeared, wearing dark blue dress robes with the Beauxbatons crest emblazoned on them. A haughty smile formed under his distinctive Roman nose. "I am pleased, Monsieur Potter, that I finally have your undivided attention."
Yes, it's the dreaded cliffhanger. Mwahaha. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! See you in two weeks for Chapter 10.
ITL