Harry Potter and the Child of Tourach

Harry jerked out of the trance he had been in since finishing his meeting with the three leviathans, only to find himself standing in front of the door leading to his apartment. At first he couldn’t remember how he got there, but then it came rushing back. He had left the battleground in a rush after the three departed, only shouting at Tonks that he would talk to Wright in the morning and explain the situation. He then had apparted home and had climbed the stairs slowly, his mind in turmoil and blank at the same time. Now, standing in front of the door, the key in his right hand, he realized that he wasn’t closer to knowing how to handle this situation then he had been almost two hours ago, when he had encountered Crosis for the first time.

He briefly wondered how Scrimgeour would react to the news of him meeting with these three creatures and leaving the battlefield early, but he dismissed this thought quickly. After all he had bigger fishes to fry. He sighed as he felt the weight of this new task on his shoulders. This was bigger than anything he had done in the last five years and probably even bigger than killing Voldemort. And it was even more frustrating because he couldn’t even be sure that he had to clear up this mess. When fighting Voldemort, he had been at least sure that the prophecy was indeed affecting him, due to his lightning bolt shaped scar. This time, however, there was the not so small possibility that he had nothing to do with this vendetta and that Tourach was still alive and only hiding out there. Crosis had not presented any real proof for his theory, but Harry had no one to contradict him either. He had to find a solution and he should better find it in the next two weeks.

Suddenly he remembered that he was still standing stock still in front of his door, as though it was a dangerous animal only waiting for a reason to attack him. Shaking his head at himself, he unlocked the door and dispelled the enchantment guarding his home. He entered his apartment and barely had time to close the door, before a fiery spirit of vengeance was on him: Ginny.

“HARRY JAMES POTTER!” she shouted, her blazing red locks flying around, as she underlined her anger by gesticulating wildly. “HOW DARE YOU COMING HOME MORE THAN FOUR HOURS LATE WITH ONLY A TINY SCRIBBLE NOTE? HOW DARE YOU SCARING THE LIVE OUT OF ME? I IMAGINED YOU BEING CAPUTRED BY SOME LUNATIC! AND HERE YOU ARE COMPLETELY FINE, FINALLY RETURNING TO YOUR WIFE AFTER PROBALBY HAVING SPENT THE EVENING GETTING DRUNK WITH WRIGHT AND TONKS! AND DON’T GIVE ME THIS RUBBISH ABOUT BEING ON A MISSION! YOU ARE AN INSTRUCTOR FOR GOD’S SAKE! AND INSTRUCTORS DON’T CATCH ANY EVIL WIZARDS! OR DID YOU HAVE TO ARRESST ONE OF YOU APPRENTICES?”

Harry, how had taken a few steps back due to her outbreak, thought she was beautiful and frightening at the same time, when she was livid. At this moment she strongly reminded him of his mother-in-law, even though he hoped that he would be more able to stand his ground than his father-in-law, when facing an angry wife. Knowing he had to interrupt her soon, or this argument would go on until the wee hours of the morning, he decided to at least give it a try.

“Ginny, I…” was all he was able to say, before getting cut off by his temperamental wife.
“NO, YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME FIRST. IF YOU THINK THAT I’M GOING TO TOLERATE EVERYTHING WHAT YOU DO, THEN YOU ARE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN. I’M AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND I’M NOT GOING TO TURN INTO YOUR SLAVE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND – What happened to your face?”

Completely nonplussed and more than a bit startled at the sudden change in the shouting match, Harry started to touch his face with his hands, looking for something abnormal. He winced, when his fingers touched his left cheek, apparently it had been bruised when Crosis’ Deathball had knocked him to the ground. Not really sure what Ginny was playing at, he weighted his words carefully before answering, not wanting to upset her even more in this situation, by telling her that he had been chatting with three of the most dangerous creatures in the universe after having slaughtered his way through an army of zombies.

“I seem to have bruised my face, when I was knocked to the ground.”
His words caused Ginny to swell like a bullfrog and he quickly realized that he probably should have given her a few more details.
“SO YOU HAVE BEEN DRINKING! WHAT HAPPENED? DID YOU PICK A FIGHT WITH SOMEONE? DID YOU CHAT UP THE WRONG GIRL? TELL ME THIS INSTANT OR I SWEAR I WILL…”

Finally Harry’s own violent temper got the better of him. The disaster of a day he had just gone through, combined with Ginny’s accusation, simply were too much to be taken lightly.
“Will you shut up and let me explain for god’s sake?” he hissed angrily. “I just when through a hell of a day, and I don’t really need you lecturing me about something you don’t know anything about!”

Ginny opened her mouth, probably to retort in an equally angry way, but Harry cut her off with a sharp hand movement. Seeing the helpless look in his eyes, Ginny swallowed her anger and decided to let him explain first. Harry sighed and ran of his hands through his hair in frustration. He had no idea where to begin and Ginny’s piecing stare didn’t make it easier. Finally he decided to start at the meeting with Scrimgeour.

“Well, it all started with Scrimgeour calling an emergency meeting, due to something Tonks discovered during one of her missions.” he started, not really knowing how to convert his memory into words. “She told us about these undeads rallying and... – You know I think I’ll simply show you the memory in the pensive, it’s hard to explain.”
Ginny looked at him for a long time after this statement, before shaking her head and speaking up.

“No, I don’t think this would be such a good idea.” she said calmly, concern evident in her hazel eyes.
“Why not?” asked Harry, completely nonplussed and wondering how using a pensive could be harmful.
“If this is troubling you so much that you can’t even explain it to me, then I think you should really talk about it. A suppressed traumatic experience may lead to a serious neurosis.”

At first Harry thought that she was pulling his leg, but her face showed no sign of mischief, it was unusually solemn. He opened his mouth to talk her out of this idea, but then he realized that she had this I’m-not-going-to-give-in-no-matter-what-you-do glint in her eyes and resigned.
“Okay I’m going to tell you, even though you sound like headshrinker. Just be a darling and fetch me a whiskey, will you? I’m going to need some strong stuff to explain this to you.”

Ginny pursed her lips at this; she strongly resent alcohol as a way to avoid problems, even though she liked to drink a few glasses on parties as well, and vanished in the kitchen. A few minutes later she returned with two shot glasses, a bottle of bourbon and some ice cubes. Harry raised an eyebrow at her, surprised that she brought something for herself too and the two of them sat done in the living room, placing the drinks on a table between them.

“What? If it’s that terrible that you need to get drunk to tell me, then I think I’m going to need something to drink too.” she replied. “And about me sounding like a psychiatrist, it can’t hurt to have someone in the house, if you are going to continue getting into traumatic situations.”

Harry laughed lightly at the extremely serious expression on her face, filled himself a glass with whiskey and ice and drank it in one large gulp. The alcohol hit him hard, because he hadn’t eaten in more than five hours and he made a mental note not to get carried away with drinking. He placed the glass back on the table, leaned back in his cantilever chair and started talking. He was amazed how easy it was once he had started. Half an hour later, he was finished and surprisingly felt very much relieved. He felt as though he had done everything he could at the moment so solve the tight situation, in which he was at the moment. Ginny had taken the news much more calmly than he thought. She had never interrupted him, but instead had listened intently, her eyes filled with curiosity and worry at the same time. Currently she was staring out of the window, biting her lip in concentration, as her unseeing gaze fell unto the nightly London skyline.

“Well, what do you think I should do?” asked Harry, finally breaking the solemn moment.
Ginny turned her head slowly and locked eyes with him, her hazel ones peering deeply into his soul. An eternity seemed to pass as they were looking into each other’s core and Harry couldn’t remember feeling so in peace with the world for a very long time. Then Ginny broke the moment by sighing and answering his question.

“Nothing at the moment.” she said thoughtfully. “We don’t have enough information to take any concrete measures. Let’s assume that you are indeed a child of Tourach then your encounter with Crosis should cause the genetic memories to resurface. I think it would be prudent to ask Hermione for help. Maybe she knows any way to access your old memories. Also you should talk to Wright. He has to prevent the ministry from taking any actions against the three. If Crosis is right then they won’t be able to stop the leviathans, no matter how much manpower they use. You will have to save the day, honey.”

Harry remained silent for a while, pondering her answer and his luck having found such a smart and understanding wife. Not to mention stunningly beautiful. He suddenly started to notice how tight the t-shirt she wore was and how radiant her hair glowed in the artificial light of the lamps. His throat went dry and he had to use every once of willpower he possessed not to ravage her right there.

Slowly he managed to concentrate again on the matter at hand: the three crazy and incredibly powerful being, how are just now preparing to wreck havoc to the entire world. Finally he was able to speak out the question, which had been blazing through his head throughout the evening:

“And what happens if I’m not a child of Tourach?” he asked. Did his voice always sound so husky?
“Well.” replied Ginny, smiling impishly. “Then you simply tell them to fuck off.”
Her little joke broke the tension in the room and Harry burst out laughing. When he had clamed done again, Ginny was standing next to his chair. Before he even had thought about it, he was already hugging her tightly.

“Thanks for making me talk it really helped.” he whispered into her ear. “It’s good to have a headshrinker as a wife.”
Ginny laughed lightly, before kissing him softly on the lips.
“Are you hungry Harry?” she asked. “I’ve still got some chicken sandwich, which you could have.”
“Oh, I am hungry.” he said, his lust rekindled at the close contact between them. “But I don’t think chicken sandwich will satisfy me.”
He kissed her again, more demanding and much deeper. He felt a small moan escape his throat, or was it hers? Just as his hands started roaming her body, she broke the kiss and pushed him away gently.

“Harry.” she said softly. “I don’t think this is such a good idea. You have to come to terms with today’s events and not trying to forget them by shagging me silly. You should eat something and go to bed, you look exhausted. Oh, and wear you boxers to bed.”

With these words she disappeared in the bedroom, leaving Harry behind, who felt somewhere between disappointed and grateful.


* * * * *


The next morning, Harry was sitting in Wright’s office, waiting for his boss to arrive. He had dispelled the locking charm on the door himself, like he had done countless times before. At first this habit had irritated Wright a bit, but over the last years he had become used to it and now regarded it as a challenge to find a locking charm Harry couldn’t break. So far he had been unsuccessful.

Harry was grateful for the head’s absence, because it gave him the time to think about yesterday’s and today’s events and enabled him to carefully plan his next steps. He hadn’t rested well this night, even though he wasn’t quite sure what had startled him. He could recall pieces of a dream, flashes of unknown places and persons, but nothing concrete except the fact that it had been very unpleasant. His intuition told him that it was important nevertheless. Maybe it were the first parts of the genetic memories coming back. Maybe he would know a way to solve this problem tomorrow… or maybe his sub consciousness was only trying to deal with it and was projection his confusion into his dreams.

Running a hand through his hair in frustration at his lack of options and at having no concrete plan how to get out of this mess, he rose from his chair and started to pace in the office. Forcing himself to think of something positive, he recalled his conversation with Ginny earlier this morning. She had been a bit surprised as he told her that he would continue training the recruits, but had understood his need for a bit of normalcy in this anything but ordinary situation. He had told her that he would ask Wright to assign Tonks to help him, due to him having to take care of the leviathans and needing time for research. She had told him, that she would talk with Hermione and Ron this morning, asking them for help. Ginny had been very confident that Hermione would be able to think of something of assistance and Harry wondered if she was just trying to cheer him up. She told him to send her an owl, if he was finished, so she could bring him up to date.

Precisely in this moment Wright entered the room, looking exhausted and as though he had slept in his robes, which wasn’t saying much, because he almost always looked like this. Nevertheless his eyes were sparkling with mirth and Harry suspected that he, being the notorious workaholic he was, was enjoying every moment of the crisis. That he was used to getting no more than three hours sleep, due to his habit of getting drunk in sleazy bars every evening helped too.
“You will pay for every hole in my hardwood floor, Potter.” he said, smiling. “Your pacing really is an annoying habit. Would you mind stopping it?”
“Only if you stop drinking and smoking, sir.” replied Harry cheekily, causing Wright’s smile to erupt into a full blown laughing fit.
“If I ever do this then you will know that hell has officially frozen over.” he managed to reply after a while, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. “Well, let’s at least try to be serious and professional. Tonks has already told me about your conversation yesterday or at least she has told me what she overheard. And I really didn’t like what she told me, so please spare me the details. I know that you are somehow connected with these three powerful creatures and that you will probably have to save the Wizarding World again. But you have to know that it’s very likely that you have to solve this problem on your own. The ministry is so goddamned bureaucratic these days that they will probably need ten years to accept your request for additional manpower.”

Harry laughed lightly at his boss’ joke, which wasn’t so far from the truth as it seemed. Only the personal interference of the minister of magic seemed to be able to cause the ministry to speed its working up and he doubted very much that Scrimgeour would be willing to assist him. Adding the bureaucracy to his mental things-that-suck-in-the-ministry-and-have-to-be-changed-as-soon-as-possible list, Harry spoke up.

“I doubt that any ministry workers would be helpful anyway. These three are completely merciless and thoroughly affixed on finishing their stupid contest. They are more than willing to kill everyone who tries to prevent them from continuing it. Also I doubt that we know any magic powerful enough to kill or to incapacitate them. They were imprisoned by one of their kind and the spell doing this was highly complicated and only managed to hold them for a time. I still have to work out a way to stop them and while I’m doing this it would be best for everyone to avoid the three leviathans as much as possible.”

“All right.” echoed John Wright, apparently satisfied with Harry’s explanation. “I won’t order any mission against the three, but I must warn you that the minister is still able to overrule me. Scrimgeour has been livid as he learned that you have left the battleground early and not reported to him after having spoken with the enemy. Mumbled something of insubordination and that the ministry lacked loyalty these days. You know the usual rubbish. However it will be tough to convince him to leave this matter to you. I suggest that you think about some good points for him to do so until Monday; he will be out of town for the weekend and have very clear orders not to disturb him. But enough of this, we still have to discuss your suspension from your job.”

“Suspension from my job?” replied Harry, frowning, believing that Scrimgeour had found another way to annoy and to hinder him. “What exactly do you mean by this?”
“Well, clearly you will need time to develop a strategy and I doubt that teaching the rookies will help you.”
“Yeah.” said Harry, running a hand through his hair. “I have thought about this and decided that I need the job to have a bit of normalcy in this madness. Naturally I do need time to work something out, so I though about sharing the instructor’s post with Tonks. She is a skilled auror, a good teacher and incredibly bored by the normal auror work, so she’s a perfect choice.”

Wright took his time pondering this suggestion, before answering.
“Okay, I agree, but you better be successful or the minister will have us both transferred to our branch in Timbuktu, if we are lucky. If we are unlucky, we will end up in Greenland. I will inform Tonks immediately and she will assist you from Monday forth. I suggest that you go home and get a decent night’s sleep, you look like a walking dead.”
“Please don’t make any zombie-jokes in the next two years.” groaned Harry. “I saw enough of them for a lifetime yesterday. And you don’t look very peachy yourself.”

“Yeah, but that was due to the great company I had in bed yesterday.” replied the headauror as he left the office.


* * * * *


Half an hour later Harry found himself sitting in a crowded café in central muggle London with Ron, Hermione and Ginny. He had owled Ginny directly after his meeting with Wright and had received note to meet her here ten minutes later. After having changed into a more appropriate outfit regarding his not magical surroundings, he had apparated to a small side street only a block away. After paving his way through the early morning shoppers, he arrived at the small, cosy café and found his friends already waiting for him.

Sitting down, he took in all of his surroundings with the trained gaze of an auror and was pleased with the meeting place. It was way too crowded for someone to spy on them without getting noticed and to risk of getting overheard was small, due to the noise caused by the various inhabitants.

“Hey.” he said, while sitting down and pecking Ginny on the cheek. “Any brainwaves yet?”
“Not yet.” said Ginny. “It took some time to explain the situation to them and we wanted to wait for you to tell us about the next steps the ministry will take.”
“Yup.” interrupted Ron, smiling despite the thoroughly serious character of the meeting. “Looks like you’re in trouble again mate. I still can’t believe that I let my sister marry such a troublemaker.”

“You let Harry marry me?” asked Ginny, her eyes sparkling furiously and her voice dangerously sharp. “Ronald Bilius Weasley, I have told more than a hundred times to keep out of…”
“What Ron and I wanted to say, Harry is that we are terrible sorry that you are in this situation and will do everything to help you.” interrupted Hermione, effectively smothering the brewing argument. She reached over the table and gave Harry’s hand a reassuring squeeze before continuing. “That’s what we wanted to do, right Ron?”

Ron, cowed by the dangerous look Hermione threw him, only nodded his head in silent agreement.
“Anyway, I talked to Wright this morning.” started Harry and quickly told them what he and Wright had decided to do.
“I don’t get why Scrimgeour is so foul to you.” said Ron, puzzled. “He can’t believe that you want to steal his power away. You never liked the attention you received for being the boy-who-lived and why on earth should you strive to gain even more fame? Also if you really wanted to become minister of magic all you had to do is to run for it, people would vote you simple because you are you.”
“Well, I think the minister still believes that he played a big part in Voldemort’s downfall.” said Ginny, thoughtfully. “And now he wants to prove the public and himself that he still is the big shot he used to be. But we should concern ourselves with that git, the three leviathans are more important at the moment.”
“I have though about that.” gushed Hermione and Harry could help to feel amused at his friend’s excitement. If there was a puzzle to solve, Hermione was happy and the more complex it was the better. “I doubt that we have any concrete information about the three, after all they are more then four thousand years old, but I will search the ministry archives for any books and spells dealing with artificial planes. Maybe we can entrap them again, if can find the right spell and rise enough energy to power it. I will also search for any volumes dealing with magical memories. If you really have a genetic memory then we should try to unlock the information stored in it.”

“I have been pondering this, too.” said Ginny. “The memories have to be buried very deeply or they would rise to the surface without the heir ever meeting the leviathans and would grant him or her tremendous power. I guess that the memories have been connected to certain charms, which would awaken them to prevent any kind of abuse. But we don’t know in which situation they will resurface and I wouldn’t rely on chances. Maybe Harry should drink the Draught of the Living Past to regain them.”

“Are you completely insane?” blurted Ron, his eyes wide at his sister’s suggestion. “Even I know that this potion is ridiculously dangerous and only used in the most desperate cases, because it may cause the drinker to go bloody mad.”
“I know this Ronald.” replied Ginny, briskly. “After all I’m nearly a healer, but just in case you haven’t noticed this is a desperate case.”
“But not that desperate.” replied her brother stubbornly.

“Would anybody bother to explain to me what you are on about?” asked Harry, completely nonplussed.
“The Draught of the Living Past is the most potent memory restoring potion.” lectured Hermione. “It causes all memories of the user to be recalled at the same time, even if they are buried or unknown to the person. However this is very straining for the mind of the patient and may cause lasting damage. Also it may only used by healers if they have permission by the ministry.”

“Can you brew or organize it?” asked Harry immediately, eager for any hope in this slightly desperate situation.
“Harry, mate.” interrupted Ron. “You can’t be serious! This sick stuff may fry your brain! This is way too dangerous and the situation really isn’t that bad.”
“It isn’t more dangerous than any of the stuff we experienced at school.” replied Harry heatedly. “We always took chances and this is a risk I’m willing to take. I’m not going to watch idly while other people are getting slaughtered. Not if I had been able to prevent it. Please try to organize this stuff, I will wait as long as possible before drinking it, but I need to be prepared.”

Subdued Ginny, Ron and Hermione agreed, even though all of them had serious doubt that this was the right course of action. They started chatting about less serious topic and Harry felt himself relaxing a bit. After a while he realized how tired he was, his restless night was finally taking its toll.
“You didn’t sleep well tonight, did you Harry?” asked Ginny, as she saw him yawning.
“Yeah, how do you know?” replied Harry, surprised that she knew about this.
“I felt you tossing and turning next to me.”
“Woah, way too much information here.” interrupted Ron. “I really don’t need to know this.”
“Well we are through here anyway, so I think it would be best if we call it a date and go home.” said Hermione.

Everyone agreed and five minutes later, Harry and Ginny were back at their apartment.


* * * * *


Not having realized how tired he had been until Ginny had ushered him to bed, using her best Molly Weasley imitation, Harry was surprised how easy sleep claimed him. He was sound asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow and once again found himself in a kaleidoscope of incoherent pictures. Some were snatches of his own memories, some obviously purely fictional, like the crowd of flying pink bunnies, singing ‘Weasley is our king’ and some seemed to be complete memories of someone else. Harry didn’t know how long he had floated through this maelstrom of information, because time had no significance while dreaming. Finally one scene replaced the flurry and Harry found himself seeing a torch lit cave.

He could see the entrance of the cave, which was about twenty feet to his right and saw a moonlit desert outside. The silver glow it reflected made it look peaceful, even though it possibly was hellish during the day. The sound of a voice behind him made him spun round and he found himself face to face with a hulky man, with short black hair, a full beard and a big scar running from his left temple to his right cheek. Apparently he had spoken to him and to his astonishment Harry heard himself answering in the same strange language the other man used, although he didn’t understand a word. Two other voices joined the discussion, one male and one female. Harry realized that two other persons beside himself and the brute were in the cave. One was a beautiful female with light brown hair, blue eyes and blood-red lips and one was a gangly man with an equally thin face and long, thick black hair tied in an elegant braid.

The four of them continued talking for a while, before their voices got excited and they left the cave in a hurry. The sensation of not being able to control his own actions disturbed Harry, but due to this being a dream he wasn’t overly concerned. After what either was an eternity or merely a minute they reached their final destination. They were standing on a hill in the desert and had gathered around a delicate crystal at their feet. It consisted mainly of three peaks, which glowed blue-black, red-green and white, and a circular base, which glittered in all colours.

Harry found himself saying something, which caused the other people to contradict him heatedly. He had no idea what the argument was about, but judging by its intensity it was either something very important or very tempting. After a long discussion, Harry found himself giving in. Somehow this encounter in the desert and especially the strange crystal seemed to be vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he learned about it. Suddenly he felt his hand brush something warm and realized that the four of them were touching the crystal. A few seconds nothing happened, but then the world vanished in a blinding white flash. For a moment Harry got a glimpse at his face or what was supposed to be his face. Instead he was looking at a young man’s face, with short brown hair, long sideburns and soft and kind charcoal eyes. Then he jerked awake.

Sitting up in his bed, he took deep breaths to calm down. It really was no reason to panic. All of this could simply be a product of his imagination, after all Crosis’ tale had been very descriptive. The only thing he hadn’t known before was how Tourach looked like and he had to ask one of the leviathans about this before being sure about the nature of this dream or vision or whatever it had been. Praying that it had only been a dream and not one of these suppressed genetic memories, Harry slipped out of bed and got dressed again. He quickly left the flat, telling Ginny that he had to inquire something and apparated to the location where Crosis had told him to go, when he had any questions. A blink later Harry was standing on a big plateau, face to face with the skeletal mage.
“So you have returned...” started Crosis, but Harry cut him off immediately.
“How did Tourach look like?” he asked in a rush.
“Around six feet tall, lean, short brown hair, long sideburns and black eyes, why?” replied the leviathan, his face contorted into something which might be a frown.

His question remained unanswered because Harry had already apparated away, the last bit of his hope of being unaffected by the titan’s clash shattered into a billion pieces.