The Third Time is a Charm

Posted: 8 November 2009 CDT

Chapter 44: Meeting the Professors

Thump… Thump… Regulus and Remus were both on the floor as their bodies completely shut down when the old man in the portrait spoke. Harry was in awe, but he knew the kind of resources Becca had and he couldn’t say he was surprised. He knew the four founders and Merlin and Morgan LeFay from the Hogwarts ritual room. He didn’t, however, know who the man was in the sixth portrait frame.

“Hello, young man, since you seem to know everyone else I will introduce myself. I am Lord Ignotus Peverell.” Harry looked at him blankly and stared. He couldn’t place the name and he couldn’t place the face either.

“I’m sorry sir, am I suppose to know you?” Harry questioned the portrait carefully. He didn’t want to offend the man, but he didn’t want to pretend he knew him when he that was not the truth either.

“You have never heard of me? Are you not the Potter heir and the holder of the invisibility cloak?” The portrait queried him, not believing the child had never heard of him before.

“If I may, sir,” Severus broke into their conversation, “Harry has been with muggles since he was fifteen months old and has not been raised on the stories of wizarding children. His parents died before he could learn of you and he is the last of the line.”

“Aye, that would explain it then.” The portrait said in a blustering voice and then made a gesture of clearing his throat. “Well, Harry, we will have to educate you even more than I had first thought. You have missed a lot not being raised in the magical world.” The portrait looked at him fondly and smiled.

“Please sir,” Harry then asked, “can you tell me who you are?”

“Well, yes of course, I am your very many great grand fathers. I am Ignotus Peverell I was around before the name eventually changed to Potter.”

“How did you get here?”

“I was brought here from your vault. I am the one who made your invisibility cloak and there is not another one like it in the world.” The man said proudly.

“Are you going to help train me so I can survive with evil wizards after me all the time?”

“That and much more, my son, so very much more.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, sir. Thank you for helping me train for my NEWT’s.” As he said this, Harry placed his arms to his side and bowed at the man in front of him. He had a feeling this man would be important to him and would want to see that he was trained well.

“Not just your NEWT’s Harry, we are going to teach you the Master’s level in as many subjects as you want. You have the potential for knowledge; you just need to study to retain the knowledge. You will find that you are more able learn since the blocks have been removed.” The portrait of Ravenclaw spoke with pride in her voice. “You have the ability to understand knowledge the others will struggle with.”

“I hope to do you justice, Lady Ravenclaw. I have only been an average student in the past.” Harry was getting worried that these people would expect too much of him and he would disappoint them when he couldn’t do as well as they wanted.

Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his face because Lady Ravenclaw then said, “You will do fine Harry. Just do your best.” She smiled graciously at him and then turned her head to the other bodies lying on the floor.

It was Morgan LeFay that said “Well, gentlemen, don’t just stand there. Wake them up!”

Severus, with an evil grin plastered on his face, took out his wand and started to point it at the first of the two men on the floor. “Whoa, pull back on the power!” Someone shouted from a portrait. It was Merlin, staring down at him from the wall. “You haven’t been doing too many spells since you and Harry bonded, have you?”

Severus shook his head in the negative and immediately pulled his wand up so that it was not pointing at any one. “We haven’t really needed spells lately; the dissecting of the basilisk had to be done without using magic so it would not interfere with the ingredients collected from it. There was a shield in Diagon Alley that went a little crazy but we thought it was Becca that produced it, or all three of us at one time. Of course, later we found it couldn’t have been Becca so we just thought it was the excitement of the moment.”

He watched as the five portraits looked at each other for a few seconds at the mention of Becca’s name and as if making a decision all turned to face the men in front of them.

Goddric looked at the soulmated pair and shook his head in disbelief. “You two will get your first lesson right now. Severus, point your wand at one of those two on the floor but don’t do anything yet.” He watched as the older student slowly lowered his wand to point it at Regulus.

“Now close your eyes and focus on the amount of power that is flowing through your body.” Severus nodded and focused; his magic was going wild and was pulsing through his body, he nodded to indicate he could see his magic.

“Now, pull back while taking a calming breath and try to tone down some of the magic that is flowing so freely.” Severus took several calming breaths and pulled back on his magic and watched as his magic slowed down to a more sedate and acceptable level.

“Now, slowly point the wand in the direction of the two sleeping students and say aguamenti.” Severus jerked up his head and lost all concentration as he saw a grinning Gryffindor. “Well you don’t want to risk putting too much power into anything else, the water will wake them and all you have to do is dry up the flood that is going to spew forth from that wand of yours. If you try a Renneverate, they will be awake for three days if you don’t give them a heart attack first. Didn’t anyone tell you, your spells will need a little adjusting with that kind of power?”

Severus thought for a minute and then said, “Doc said something about it, but we haven’t had time to put a lot of effort into it yet.”

“Well, after this, it will be one of our first priorities. We can’t have you eliminating people with a simple stunner.”

Severus looked at him with disbelief mixed with shock. “I could do that?”

It was Merlin that spoke up next. “Oh, yes and much more. We have to work on toning down and controlling the power in you and Harry before we can start working with Harry on some of his spells. He could probably become an animagus in a few weeks with that kind of power.”

“Ok, let’s get these two up so we can go over schedules.” Severus pointed his wand at the two men, but keeping in mind what Godric and Merlin said he pointed it at their stomachs instead of their heads. Don’t want to drown them either he thought. Looking into his magic, he pulled it in and very softly said “aguamenti”. A deluge of water spewed forth from the wand before Severus could pull the spell back and the two men were sputtering as they picked themselves up off the floor.

“Who?” Remus sputtered and looked at Severus with his wand in his hand. “Merlin, Severus, you could have done a simple aguamenti and not tried to drown us!” He pulled out his wand and dried his clothes and the floor which had a puddle of water.

Regulus did the same thing, glowering at Severus as he did so.

“Actually, Merlin had nothing to do with it, it was Godric that told me to, and it was a simple aguamenti.” Severus smirked at them as he reminded them why they had passed out on the floor to begin with. He thought since Remus was a Gryffindor he should see the humor in it.

As Severus said that, Remus jerked his head in his direction and Severus, with an indication of his head, merely flicked his eyes to the portraits on the wall for Remus to look in that direction.

Remus quickly straightened himself up and grabbed the arm of Regulus to get his attention. He then faced the portraits and bowed before saying, “Please forgive our rudeness; we are much honored to meet you. It just took us by surprise but we have recovered now.” Remus was stumbling over the words as he was still in a state of shock to be before the founders and others.

It was Lady Hufflepuff that answered this time. “That’s quite all right, young man, this was the reason we decided that we should meet before lessons began. We wanted to get to know each other and didn’t want it to be such a shock to your system at one time.”

All during this time, Salazar’s portrait was conspicuously silent. He stood inside his frame and watched the antics of his counterparts and the men in front of him and wondered what he was doing here. Although he had seen some strong power, it wasn’t like the others couldn’t handle the situation. Why did he have to come and be with these people?

The truth was these portraits didn’t know about the ritual, although they had been told about the blocks and how the group came back in time, they were not told about the gifts that they themselves had given Harry in the other time line. Lady Ravenclaw could see special abilities in other people and could see Harry’s gift of knowledge but did not know it came from her in another time. Merlin could see the powerful auras that indicated the soul mated couple but did not know he had blessed them with strength and elemental power. Godric could see the power in their magic but didn’t know he had blessed them with the gifts of transfiguration and defense, and it was the same with Helga and Morgan.

Salazar stood in his portrait frame with his arms folded across his chest, hissing under his breath about valuable time wasted uselessly. Harry heard him and went over to his frame.

The young man bowed and spoke for the first time directly to the portrait. “Please sir, if I might be able to speak with you in another room. I would be most appreciative.”

Salazar hissed again and about useless wastes of his time and Harry answered but still in English. “I promise it will not be a waste of your time and I will be very brief.” Salazar gave a piercing stare at the boy and quirked an eyebrow. Then young man nodded and said, “The second classroom off the second hallway should be sufficient.” Upon which the last founder of Hogwarts left his portrait to find refuge in another frame.

“Severus, I am going to go talk to Salazar in another classroom if you don’t need me here. You can go over schedules and let me know later. Is that alright?”

“That is fine, Harry.” Severus said with a nod of his head. He knew Harry was going to have a hissing conversation with the founder and didn’t want the others to know. “I will try to join you if you are not back in half an hour.”

Harry left the room and followed the hallways to the first common/reception room that they first enter in this section of the building. Sitting there on the back of the sofa was First Born. “Hey First Born.” Harry hissed at the snake. He was happy to see his familiar but didn’t know how he had gotten in. “What are you doing here?”

“I missed you, master. Is this your training rooms you have been talking about?” First Born hissed back to his master

“Yes, these are the training rooms. Would you like to go meet your mother’s master? That is where I was going. He is a portrait but will be able to speak to us.” Harry hissed to the snake

“Yes, master. I would like to, can the others meet him too?” First Born hissed.

“Yes, that would be acceptable, but maybe at a later time.” Harry picked up the snake and let him wrap around his shoulders before taking the second door. He then entered the second classroom but he didn’t see Salazar at first. The man in the painting was waiting at the edge of the frame to see what Harry was going to do.

First Born was the first to speak though. He wanted to see his mother’s master and tell him what a wonderful mother she was until the bad student killed his father and controlled her. He hissed his doubts to Harry. “Master, I don’t see this human that was my mother’s master. What if he doesn’t want to meet with The Seven? They will be disappointed.”

“Don’t worry First Born, everything will work out. I am hoping this master will help me with the parsletongue magic that has been lost through time. Severus will want to learn from him also. Although he doesn’t speak it as often as I do, he will want to learn it.” Harry hissed in reply waiting for the Founder of Slytherin to appear.

Salazar upon hearing this conversation quickly left his frame and returned to the common room where the others were. He entered Merlin’s portrait and whispered something to him. Severus had seen this and didn’t know what was going on but he watched as Merlin’s eyes almost popped out of his head and he pulled a book off the shelf of his portrait and flipped through it until he came to a certain page. He and Salazar read the page then Merlin gave the book to the founder and he disappeared out of the frame again. To Severus, this did not bode well. He wondered what Harry had done now.

Merlin then straightened his robes and continued to listen to the others explain about teaching schedules and other mundane topics as Morgan looked at him waiting for him to tell her what was going on. He indicated with a slight shake that it would have to wait for later.

As Salazar entered the classroom, he listened to Harry and his familiar talking as they waited for him to appear. This time Salazar did not hide in the frame but continued on into the painted background so he could speak with Harry.

“Well young man, you are full of surprises. You have a soulmate although you don’t look old enough to be bonded. You speak parsletongue and I though the gift had died. You have a great amount of power but do not know how to wield it. Do you want to tell me what is going on? You may also introduce me to what I presume to be your familiar.”
Salazar stated all of this in a very commanding manner and Harry was a little hesitant to approach him even though the founder was demanding it.

“Yes, sir.” Harry said automatically. Then he asked, “Will it be alright if we speak so First Born can understand us? He understands English but some of the words do not translate well and some of this story he could help with.” At the nod of Salazar’s head Harry switched to parsletongue to incorporate the snake into their conversation.

“Well, sir, it really is a long story, but I guess it starts with …” So Harry hissed for the next few hours about his life, time travel, the gifts, the snakes, Salazar’s basilisk, the headmaster and everything else he could think of. At some point, Severus joined them and interjected his comments but for the most part let Harry do the telling. As time moved on Severus left the room to give the founder and his mate some privacy while discussing being a Gryffindor versus a Slytherin and Harry continued to tell the tale. Merlin had slipped in at one point and stayed for awhile but as the conversation was completely in parsletongue, no one else disturbed them.

At some point an elf came and brought tea. Of course Salazar got his own in his portrait and partook of his own refreshment to join Harry. It seemed a little strange to Harry but he could get used to this. The wizarding world was an amazing place to be and he was glad he didn’t have to be anywhere else ever again.

After hours of talking, the young man was getting tired and stood up in front of Salazar. He dropped the sibilant language to take his leave of Lord Slytherin and said. “I have enjoyed our time together and hope that you will consent to teach me so that I may help the wizarding world become a better place instead of what I came from. I would like to see it survive and thrive instead of destroy itself.”

“Before you go, Harry, I want to read something to you. This is a book of prophecy that was written by Merlin over one thousand years ago. It may help you to understand what is happening now.” The founder opened the book to a certain page and read:

“In a millennium, the evil will fall
A child times two will rise, Master of The Seven
Triumphant he will be to return the ways
Born to the magic that must prevail
Dark and light will once again
Return to origins from whence it came.”

“Harry I believe you are the prophesied child and that you have come to bring the wizarding world back together. It will not be easy and you will need all the help you can get, but it can be done.” Salazar looked like he was getting excited and Harry didn’t want to let him down but he had to interrupt.

“But sir, what about the baby that is to be born, the real Harry Potter of this time, isn’t he what the prophesy is talking about?” Harry was confused. How could there be a prophesy in this time about him from another time line.

“I believe it is about you both. At first when we read this hundreds of years ago we thought it was twins. But you are master of The Seven and I feel sure that there may be another seven in this time line as well, but even if there is not, you and the baby Harry will master the snakes with the parsletongue magic. Harry the date on this page is July thirty-first, nine hundred and eighty.”

“That’s my birth date, I mean the date not the year my year is nineteen hundred and eighty. I need to go talk to my mate. May I come and speak with you again?”

“You may come and speak with me at anytime Harry. It’s not as if we sleep.” Salazar was very pleasant to speak with and he listened to Harry about everything. He had asked questions, who wouldn’t, but he listened and was interested.

“Sir, when I come, the others will want to come too. I mean the rest of The Seven. First Born asked me earlier if they may come and see you. You are the only link to their mother they have now and I think they would like to meet her master.”

“Of course they may come. I should tell you, Harry, that this prophecy I read is not the only one in here about you and your group. There are others that refer to a group of seven as the royals and still others about the birth of, what I believe to be, your children.”

“Is that how you knew you needed to give me the gifts? I wondered about that, why me?”

“No one knows why fate chooses one person over the other, but I would presume it is because you were the right person at the right time, in the right place. That is how most of us are chosen. Others are chosen and throw their gift away; they choose not to follow a path laid before them. You have chosen the path and have been awarded great honor. I also believe it may have to do with the name. Prophesies are not absolute and subject to interpretation of the seer. I think this may be interrupted as the Princes. As the wizarding world has never had a king or queen or royalty, it would make more sense.”

“But sir, I don’t really want great honor, I just want people to be able to live freely and not be pushed into this war that is infiltrating our world and destroying it. I just want people to be safe and not suffer the evil that has come about.”

“And THAT, Harry is WHY you were chosen,” Salazar said with a smirk, “because you don’t want it.”

“What? I don’t understand sir.” Harry was completely lost in this conversation with the founder. He was trying to understand but it was beyond him. He raised his hand to his head and rubbed his temple in confusion.

“No, Harry, you wouldn’t and that in itself is your answer.”

Salazar watched as Harry left the room, thinking about their conversation. How did you tell someone that they were so humble that great power would come to him because he didn't want to rule the world? That fate and, the powers that be, had chosen him because of his humility?