Heritage

Chapter 6

“Mr. Potter!”

Harry stopped and groaned.

“May I speak to you for a moment?” Professor McGonegal stood outside her classroom door. As usual, her face was a picture of stern displeasure.

“Yes, m’am.” Harry turned around and followed Professor McGonegal into her office. She settled into her high-backed chair and gestured for Harry to sit down.

“It seems that Mr. Malfoy and yourself view the corridors as your own personal rugby pitch.”

“I didn’t start that fight, Professor. I tried to walk away, but Draco wouldn’t let me. I was just defending myself.”

“Oh really, Mr. Potter. Then kindly explain to me how Mr. Malfoy’s jaw was broken.”

Harry looked up sharply at this news. He didn’t know that he had broken Draco’s jaw.

“Now, I have already had a talk with Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley and they confirmed that Mr. Malfoy did instigate the fight.” McGonegal leaned back in her chair.

Removing her glasses, she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “However, I cannot allow students to turn the halls into a bar room brawl. Normally a fight would mean immediate deduction of points from both houses,”

Harry started to object, but closed his mouth after a glare from McGonegal.

“But you did try to avoid an altercation and I cannot in good conscience deduct points for defending yourself. Therefore, I have decided to be lenient, you will only have a detention.”

“Thank you m\'am.”

“In the future, I suggest you find other ways of dealing with Mr. Malfoy.”

“Yes m’am.”

“You may go.”

“Yes m’am.” Harry walked back to the corridor and crept back up to his room, only to find Ron and Hermione waiting for him on the fireside sofas in the common room.

“Harry, Can we talk?” Ron stood up and walked to him.

“Sure”

“Look mate, you know you can always tell us anything. We know something is,” Ron looks worriedly to Hermione, “going on with you. Whatever it is, you can tell us. We’ll understand.”

Harry walked to the window. The light frost of the incoming winter was creeping across the panes. The delicate ice obscured the view, but Harry’s eyes could see clear to the forest. “No Ron, not this time.”

Hermione got up and walked to Harry. Gently taking hold of the front of his robes, she pulled him towards her. “Harry, we have been friends for a long time and we are worried about you. You’re acting really strange and after yesterday, the whole school is talking. Talk to us, please.” Hermione bit her lip, her eyes pleading with him, begging him to say something, anything. “What’s going on? Whatever it is you can tell us.”

Harry sighed. It was deep, as if it came from his soul and not his lungs. “I’m tired, Hermione.”

“Harry…”

“I’m tired.” Harry removed Hermione’s hands from his robes and turned away from his friends and the luf thf the woods.

Ron grabbed Harry’s arm, turning him back to face him. “We’re not blind, Harry! You’ve changed. You sneak out late at night. You are eating more then Fred and George combined. You’re always staring out the bloody window. You’re starting fights…”

“I didn’t start that fight. Malfoy did.”

“You bloody well finished it.” Ron sighed and ran a hand through his fiery hair. “Not that I minded watching you throttle Malfoy and company but I don’t get HOW you did it. Just talk to us. We’ll understand.”

“No. No you won’t. You can’t. I’m going to bed now.” He pushed Ron aside. “I’m going now.”

They watched Harry climb the stairs.

“Ron…”

“I know. I know. Keep an eye on him.”

“Both eyes.”

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~2 weeks later~

“Many humans are born with the gift. A gift society takes it away from you. If you believe it, you will see. But if you do not want to know, then the gift will be lost. Humans tend to push aside people who say that they have seen the future and what will happen if we do not listen. These people are often considered mad or unstable, but humans fear what they do not understand. At the end of the day the choice is yours.”

“A crystal gazing ball will channel the energy for you, help you to connect with spirits who can give you information of life. Hold the images within you, they will bring the secrets of the universe to you.” Firenze circled his platform.

Ron turned to Harry and spoke in a soft whisper, “How the bloody hell are we supposed to get the secrets of the universe from a shiny rock?”

Harry snorted in agreement. Everyday he was in here, he kicked himself for not having listened to Hermione and taken something a bit more useful and a lot less boring.

“Ohh, it’s easy,” chirped Luna, who sat at the table across from them. “Just watch me.” She exhaled and placed both hands on the table, on either side of her crystal ball. “Take a deep cleansing breath and clear your mind. Let it go completely blank.”

“Shouldn’t take her long,” Ron muttered to Harry, who snickered behind his hand.

“Focus on the center of the crystal. Do not try to see something. Just let it come to you. Relax. Feel yourself go limp as if you are made of air. Let all your thoughts melt away.”

“Good this won’t take long. It’s easy to clear an empty container.” A stray chuckle escaped Harry’s mouth and he bit his lip to hold the rest in. Ron made no such effort.

“Mr. Weasley, is there a problem?” Firenze gazed sharply at the redheaded young man.

“No, Professor.”

“Then focus on your crystal. Remember, relax and let it come to you.”

The students turned back to their crystal balls. Many with little seriousness, using the time to doze. Harry let his mind wander as his eyes roved over the ball, taking in the subtle colors deep within the stone, not even realizing that no one else in the room could the colors. His eyes drifted towards the center.

Slowly, his vision went hazy. Like a river in winter, his mind slowed and froze. The colors swirled into a faint white mist slowly spreading, spiraling outward. The white haze reached out and surrounded him, pulling him in. The mists slowly began to part. Voices chimed in the air and floated through the trees. Mammoth trees dappled in spongy moss, with trunks nine meters in circumference rose from the ground.

Out of the mist came a figure surrounded in a haze of blue light. The silver-blue haze was so bright, that the figure’s face was drowned out. The figure spoke, its voice was lucid and languid. He relaxed as the musical language poured from the beings mouth. Nothing that sounded that beautiful could be bad. It spoke whispered words in another language and somehow Harry understood. The words led led like music in thves,ves, rising in strength and power. The voice rose louder and louder, till the crescendo seemed to surround him.

The figure reached out a long-fingered hand. Slowly, Harry reached out to take the offered hand. “Harry”

Harry looked up, startled.

“Harry!”

He blinked and shook his head.

“Harry!” Opening his eyes, he was back in the divination classroom.

“Harry, you all right mate?” Ron stared at him, worry written across his face.

“Fine.” Harry looked back at the stone. It was as it was before. No haze, no trees, just a crystal sitting on a table. “I’m fine.” Gathering his things, he followed the other students out of the room.

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“It has been many years since I have felt such unease in you.”

“Galadriel.” His light elven feet tread softly down the smooth steps that led down to the circular glade.

“You have it, too. Have you not? The presence, the one that appeared so suddenly in my mind, it is also within your mind. It grows, with every passing moment, it grows in strength.”

“You know what is this presence? Tell me, for it cannot be Arwen.”

“Nay, it is not Arwen. Though I know your heart longs for it to be so. Undomiel’s spirit passed from this world long ago.”

“What is it then?” Elrond asked softly.

Galadriel ran her ivory fingers over the crystalline water in the pool. “I had hoped you would come. This . . . being is reaching out. I have felt it, reaching through the boundaries of Valinor.”

“Can you see what this being is?”

“No. I cannot.”

Elrond looked up sharply.

“Though I believe that you can.”

“I?”

“I have tried though I cannot see beyond our borders. It is reaching for you. Perhaps with my aid, it will reveal itself.” She extended a graceful arm toward Elrond. “Come.”

Stepping up onto the stone platform, he placed his hands on top of Galadriel’s, on either side of the scrying bowl. The water rippled, tiny slivered waves danced on the surface. The ripples grew, expanding further into the water until they met in the center. In the instant the ripples met the center, a haze of silver white light covered the water, then vanished.

Slowly, shapes began to take form in the water. A castle lof lofty towers and high curtain walls. The castle faded and was replaced with a corridor of stone. Human children ran through dressed in long black robes chattering happily. The image of the corridor wavered and blurred, then disappeared. The shadows in the water swirled and formed a new image. It was a young human sitting at a table. His dark hair framed a clear, youthful face with deep green eyes.

Elrond’s brow furrowed, a look of deep confusion marred his features as he took in the image of the boy. His face, the sparkling gems of his eyes, the dark midnight of his hair, it all tickled his memory. The boy felt familiar, like a dream long forgotten. It’s memory hazy, yet distinct. He felt the pull on his blood hum and throb and knew that Galadriel felt it as well. Suddenly, as quickly as it appeared, the image melted away. Elrond looked up, his storm-grey eyes collided with the crystalline blue orbs of Galadriel.

“What does this mean? Who is this child? He is clearly human. No child of man could connect to Valinor. Our realm is beyond the reac mor mortals.”

“Of this, I do not know. He is, perhaps, not a child of man.”

“Of what then could he be?”

“You know of what he is. Search your heart. Seek answers there.”

“I seek answers from you. If you know the origin of this pull, this … being, you must tell me.”

“He is our kin.”

“That is not possible. He cannot be of our kind.”

“So certain are you?” A tiny smile played across Galadriel\'s face, eyes twinkled merrily with knowledge. Eyes that held secrets long forgotten.

“No elf has ever left Valinor and though some chose to remain on earth, the ability to conceive was lost to our kind ages ago, more than 15,000 years.”

“Both of which are true, but I cannot deny nor ignore that which my senses reveal to me. The boy is of our blood.”