Wish Upon A Star

Chapter 6 – A Trip Down Memory Lane

"Most people want to be the sun that brightens up your life, but I'd rather be the moon and the stars that shine down on you in your darkest hours."

/Edward/\Harry\

Harry accepted the glass of water from Esme with a smile. He took a sip, knowing full well that he was stalling and that the vampires, Rosalie especially, were getting a tad impatient. It was obvious that in order to fully accept Harry helping Edward there would need to be some level of trust between him and the Cullens. Honestly, he didn’t completely mind telling them about his past. What did it matter anyway since he was dead? His time at Hogwarts was his happiest and he could share that with no problem. Explaining the war, his role in it, and his death would be somewhat difficult, but he didn’t really mind talking about it. Ron and Hermione had always nagged him to open up and not bottle everything inside.

Harry wasn’t really sure why, but he thought he could do that with the Cullens. It was strange; as if he needed the approval from the Cullens, Edward especially.

Someone coughing brought Harry out of his thoughts. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Just trying to decide where I should begin.”

“I don’t have any awesome futurely powers like Alice, but I have the strangest sensation that you’ll be starting at the beginning,” Emmett quipped, shrinking back slightly at the glares he received from several different members of his family. “It was just a joke…”

Harry snorted. “That was a good one, Andre the Giant,” the star retorted with a grin. “You’re right; the beginning is best.”

Emmett was startled into laughter. “Not bad, little man,” he guffawed.

Jasper coughed pointedly. “Are you really as young as you say you are? Because we know of no recent wars.”

Harry’s smile dimmed slightly and he sighed, putting the glass of water down on the glass table before him. “Before I died, I was a wizard,” he said softly. “And there was a war in the Wizarding world for decades.”

“A wizard?” Emmett asked. “Like, brooms, big noses, spells, magic, and potions? That kind of hocus pocus crap?”

Harry glared slightly at the tall vampire. “People have their preconceived notions about vampires and you’re nothing like that, yes? Would it be too hard for you to refrain from having such thoughts until I can either confirm or deny them?”

Rosalie elbowed Emmett in the stomach. “Continue,” she told Harry. “He won’t make any more idiotic comments.”

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry for snapping. It’s still a sore point,” he apologized. “But, like I was saying, Britain and just about most of Europe was in a warring state for decades. There is a lot of prejudice in the Wizarding world, not unlike America’s former prejudice against people of a different skin color. In Britain, if you didn’t come from an all-magic family, meaning if you weren’t a Pureblood, then you were nothing and never really could be anything. A lot of the old Wizarding families believed this.”

“That’s awful,” Esme gasped. “This was tolerated?”

“The Ministry that ruled Wizarding Britain was corrupt,” Harry said bluntly. “It’s gotten better since I died, but there was even a time where people of lesser blood status were hunted and thrown in jail.”

“How does this blood ranking work exactly?” Carlisle asked.

“Muggles are non-magical folk, Purebloods are magical folk from all-magic families, Muggleborns are magical folk from Muggle families, Half-Bloods are the product of Purebloods or someone without magic or from a Muggle family, and Squibs are non-magical folk from all-magic families. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes,” Alice said happily.

“What were you, if you don’t mind my asking?” Edward inquired hesitantly, almost afraid of insulting Harry.

“A Half-Blood,” Harry said proudly. “I’m not ashamed of my mother’s Muggleborn status. She was still a powerful witch and could’ve easily kicked a stuffy old Pureblood’s arse with her wand tied behind her back.”

Esme smiled but admonished him, “Language!”

“So this war escalated all because of blood?” Jasper asked.

Harry nodded his head and took a sip of water. “The belief that magic should be kept within all-magic families escalated into one of the nastiest Wizarding wars in the history,” he said quietly. “One particular Wizard took it to another level. He attended Hogwarts in nineteen thirty-eight, I think. His name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, and he was a Half-Blood as well. His mother was a Pureblood and through her he was the heir to a very important family that gave him a lot of political power.

“The bad thing about these Pureblood beliefs about keeping magic within the family, however, led to a lot of inbreeding. As a result, his mother was…well, we can say that a pitbull in a dress was more attractive.”

Emmett snorted and grimaced at the same time, making a very interesting expression. “Ew,” he whined.

“Exactly,” Harry agreed. “Well, because of her unfortunate lack of appeal, she dosed Tom Riddle’s father with a love potion. She kept him on this potion until she bedded him and became pregnant. She stopped using it, however, when she thought he was completely in love with her. He left, though. The inbreeding had left her magic weak as well, and she died in childbirth. Riddle went to a Muggle orphanage until the time came when he was eleven and invited to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Rosalie cocked an eyebrow. “Hogwarts?”

“Yup,” Harry said, popping the ‘p’. “I went there as well. It was built by four incredibly powerful witches and wizards, but I won’t get into that right now. Sad to say, Riddle was an outcast in the orphanage. That normally happens with magical children growing up in non-magical backgrounds. As the child grows older, bouts of accidental magic are bound to occur. He himself didn’t know about magic, so how could he explain the unexplainable incidents to the people he was surrounded by?”

“Sounds awful,” Edward mumbled.

“It is,” Harry said with a faraway look. He took another sip of water. “As Riddle progressed in Hogwarts, his hatred for the Muggles that shunned him grew. He fashioned himself a new name; Lord Voldemort. He was arguably the worst Dark Lord in all of Magical History. Nothing could describe his reign of terror or the things he’d done to accomplish such a thing.

Harry shuddered. “It wasn’t really hard to gather followers. He offered power and a new, purified world to the Most Ancient and Noble Purebloods. Riddle most certainly knew how to preach to the right choir. Soon, it became dangerous to stay outside in your front yard. If you opposed Riddle, you were dead regardless of your blood status. He was on a quest and nothing would stop him. Eventually people were too scared to say his name. He was referred to as You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his followers were Death Eaters.”

“But, he was just a wizard,” Emmett interjected. “They were scared of one wizard?”

“He wanted to be immortal,” Harry admitted. “And performed such dark and horrible magic to achieve that goal that I dare not speak of it. However, you can liken him to Hitler and the Nazis. The terror people felt was overwhelming. It seemed like it didn’t matter who you were. Either you were with him or dead. There wasn’t any other option.” Harry smiled sadly. “But, of course, with every bad guy, there’s a hero. My parents were part of an organization called the Order of the Phoenix who were against Voldemort’s ideas and fought against him and his followers on a daily basis. They were the good guys…”

Respectful silence reigned for a few moments. “What else happened?” Rosalie asked with an amazing amount of gentleness.

Harry drank the rest of his water and smiled as Esme refilled it in a flash. “For a time, it seemed like Voldemort would win. Battles were fought more frequently with more tragedies. People were beginning to lose hope. And then my old Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, was privy to a prophecy. By this time, my mum was already pregnant with me. In no uncertain terms, it spoke of a child that would bring about the fall of the Dark Lord.”

“A child?” Esme gasped, her hand going to her mouth. “How can a child defeat this powerful Dark Lord that full grown witches and wizards cannot?”

Harry smiled not unkindly at her, his eyes glassing over. “Because this particular child had the power the Dark Lord didn’t. There were two possible children that could be The Child that the prophecy spoke of. One was Neville Longbottom and the other was myself.”

Harry ignored the gasps of horror. “We both were born within a few hours of each other. Our families went into hiding when we were fifteen months old with the Longbottoms in a secluded Muggle house and my family under the Fidelius charm. The Fidelius charm ensures that the location of a place cannot be revealed until the Secret Keeper gives away the information. On Halloween of nineteen eighty-one, Voldemort went to the our house. He killed my father first. Voldemort offered my mother a way old; he told her that she didn’t have to die and that he only wanted me.” Harry smiled sadly, not noticing the tear that trickled down his face. “She refused though, and died protecting me. When he tried to kill me, though the Killing Curse backfired somehow. Voldemort fell to it that night.”

Esme looked crestfallen. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I am so sorry you had to go through with that.”

“What of the other boy?” Rosalie asked quietly.

Harry swallowed thickly. “His parents were tortured into insanity. He lived with his Gran during our years at Hogwarts.” He sighed heavily. “I’m the only known survivor of the Killing Curse, even though it was really my mum who did all the work, and for that I was known as the Boy Who Lived. I was dubbed the Savior of the Wizarding world and was treated as such. My first year at Hogwarts and consequently every following year I spent there, bar third, was spent trying to prevent Voldemort from returning. Ron and Hermione, my best mates, helped me with that. We were doing great until fourth year.”

Esme moved to sit next to Harry, squeezing his knee as he angrily rubbed his eyes. “You don’t have to tell us more,” she said quietly.

“It’s okay,” Harry assured, smiling weakly. “Where was I? Oh, right. Voldemort had returned my fourth year and his reign of terror quickly began again. At first nobody wanted to believe he had returned. A whole year was wasted in denial when it could’ve been used for training.” Harry shook his head in disgust. “What’s that law again? If something can go wrong—”

“It will,” Edward said. He blinked in disbelief. “It gets worse?”

“Much,” Harry murmured. “Voldemort took over the school, the Ministry, just about everything. There wasn’t really a concept as safety anymore. Me and my friends knew when the Headmaster died that we wouldn’t be able to return for our final year at Hogwarts. Instead, we had a very important mission. Or rather I had an important mission and my friends refused to let me handle it alone. Without their help, I would either still be fighting the war or I would’ve died trying.”

“Don’t say that.” Edward frowned, an unpleasant feeling knotting in his stomach. The way Harry had said that didn’t sit well with him.

“It’s true,” Harry retorted. “And I’m not saying that to be humble. Hermione was the brains, Ron was the strategist, and I was the brawns. We completed each other. Hermione figured out what needed to be done, Ron figured out how it would be done, and I actually did it. That’s how we won the war. After the Final Battle, things had steadily been progressing back to normalcy or as close as the Wizarding world could get. Death Eaters were captured and tried. A lot of people died, especially ones I cared about. However, a lot of them wouldn’t have wanted us to mourn them for long, so we tried to get on with our lives.

“Before we knew it, two years had gone by. I had a job teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. Ron finally proposed and Mione became a Weasley. She was expecting a boy.” Harry stood up abruptly and began pacing, oblivious to the worried looks exchanged by the Cullens. “When a witch is pregnant, they cannot use magic during their seventh, eighth, and ninth months. Their magic would be needed by the baby constantly and to use it would be a danger to both lives.” He paused in his pacing, a faraway look entering his eyes once more. “It was a Saturday when Mione stopped by. We hadn’t talked in nearly a month and were due a lunch date before she finally gave birth in just a month and a half. Ron was an Auror—you can liken him with policemen—and had been called away on an important seminar.

“We were supposed to be safe. The Death Eaters had been captured and a peace had sort of settled in Europe. I guess that’s why they chose that moment to strike,” Harry said sadly. “Mione and I were on our way to lunch when we were attacked. They took our wands and broke them before taking us somewhere.” Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead agitatedly. “I should’ve been more aware of my surroundings or something, but life had been too fucking perfect that I slipped. I messed up and that mistake nearly killed Mione.”

“It’s certainly not your fault,” Edward said adamantly. “Like you said, you were both supposed to be safe.”

Harry seemed to ignore him. “I don’t remember how long we were captured for. I just remember that it was by lower Death Eaters wanting to extract revenge for their families that had died on the battlefield. Everyone knows the best way to get to me is to go after my family and friends. With our wands snapped and Mione seven and a half months pregnant, we were helpless. And then he aimed his wand at Mione and sent a really Dark Cutting Curse.” Harry sighed. “I didn’t even need to think, really. It happened so fast and everything’s a blur, but I still remember pushing her out of the way and the curse hitting me in the throat.”

Alice squeezed Jasper’s hand tightly. “I…” she cut herself off, not quite knowing what to say.

“I don’t regret it,” Harry said, a rather large smile on his face that seemed to contrast greatly with the tears running down his face. “If I had to do it again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Dying in place of someone you love is a damned good way to go, so to speak. But I wish it hadn’t been in front of her. I wasn’t supposed to die in front of her. And the next thing I knew, the Aurors were bursting in, the Death Eaters were apprehended, and Hermione held me in her lap as she screamed at me.

“And as I bled out onto the floor, I just kept remembering all the times I’d pushed her and Ron away, tried to protect them because I knew there was a damned good possibility that I’d die in the war. But then we won and I lived and this great burden that I’d been saddled with since before I was born had been lifted off my shoulders. I could actually live my life and start a family like I’d wanted and just enjoy living the rest of my days in peace. As I died in Mione’s lap, I remember wishing I had just a little more time.”

Esme dry sobbed into her hands before she stood up and hugged him fiercely, mindful that he was still fragile and could break. “You poor, poor thing,” she whispered into his ear.

“It’s alright,” he soothed. “Really, I don’t regret it at all. I may have died, but Mione and my godson lived. That’s the greatest accomplishment I’ve ever achieved.”

The rest of the Cullens were silent, a sympathetic respect tugging at their heartstrings. “Would you like us to share information with you now?” Rosalie asked quietly.

Harry chuckled and wiped his eyes. “I’m a little tired right now, honestly, but perhaps tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Esme quickly agreed. “Edward, why don’t you take Harry…?”

Edward was by Harry’s side before Esme could finish her sentence. His expression was unreadable as he led Harry up the stairs and back to his room. He cleared the remnants of their ritual in a few seconds and gestured for the star to take a seat on the couch.

Harry glanced nervously at the vampire. “You haven’t said a word,” he said quietly. “Are you alright with…that is, is my past a problem?”

The thought of Edward not accepting that part of him, for some odd reason, felt like a punch to the gut.

Edward didn’t say anything for a while. Harry feared the worst for a few moments before Edward, faster than the blink of an eye, knelt in front of Harry and grabbed his face in his hands. “You are perhaps one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and I’m honored you chose to help me find my mate,” he said softly.

Harry smiled to the point of it hurting his face. The intense happiness confused him greatly, but he pushed it aside. He’d deal with it later. “Thank you,” he whispered. “That means a lot to me.”