OrionB15 - Death's Alchemist Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The wood against Harry’s cheek was cold. Despite the chill pressed against his skin, the rest of his body felt as though it were on fire. Pain was the only sensation he could hold onto during those first few moments of consciousness.

Then he remembered the fire.

The Hallows. The runes. The explosion.

Harry groaned heavily as he tried to gain his bearings. He pushed against the floor in an attempt to find his feet, but his arm gave out beneath him. Reaching blindly for the workbench, he found nothing and fell flat against the wood once more.

Of course, everything had been displaced. The magical backlash had probably sent half his belongings into the front garden. His eyes fluttered open as he searched for something sturdy enough to pull himself upright, but he blinked several times, struggling to understand what he was seeing.

The workbench was gone. So were the notes covering the walls, the stacks of journals and even the brass cauldron he had left suspended in stasis. Harry’s gaze moved toward the fireplace. His first transmutation had vanished from above the mantle, but it was the emptiness surrounding it that truly stole his attention.

Everything was gone. Everything that belonged to him. The room did not look as though a bomb had exploded inside it. It looked as though no one had lived there in years. Worse, it looked almost exactly as it had when Harry first crossed its threshold after the war was over 

“What the fuck?” Harry groaned, desperately forcing himself into a sitting position.

He was undoubtedly in the same room. He knew the fireplace, the old wooden floors and every uneven stone in the wall. He knew this room, but this room showed no sign of knowing him.

Harry crawled toward the hearth and muttered a spell. To his relief, the fire ignited instantly. At least some part of the manor still recognized him.

Then the wards shuddered.

Harry froze as unfamiliar magic rippled through the walls. Someone was testing the boundary.

“What now?” he muttered, using the edge of the fireplace to pull himself upright.

His hand reached instinctively for the Elder Wand, but it was his first companion that flew into his grasp. The phoenix-feather wand settled into his palm, warm and familiar, its tip already raised toward the entrance.

Harry’s stomach dropped. The Hallows. Where were they? The wards groaned again, louder this time, and Harry swore beneath his breath as he stumbled toward the front door. The manor’s protections should keep any intruder outside, but in his current condition he was not eager to rely upon them entirely.

For the first time since Harry had claimed the house, the front door did not open at his approach. It shuddered within its frame, as though the manor expected to obey him but could not decide whether it should. Harry placed his palm against the wood.

The hesitation vanished. Locks shifted within the door, and it slowly swung outward. The afternoon light blinded him. Harry raised an arm against the glare, realizing he must have been unconscious for hours. Perhaps the wards had sealed the manor after the explosion. Perhaps they had summoned help.

A soft trill drifted through the air. For one brief moment, the sound gave Harry an inexplicable sense of safety. Flames flashed beside the entrance, and a scarlet-and-gold phoenix appeared upon a weathered post to Harry’s left. For the first time since Dumbledore’s death, Fawkes stood before him.

Harry grunted through the pain but managed a faint smile. “Fawkes…it’s good to see you, old friend.”

“That is a rather curious greeting.”

The words had not come from the bird, though that might have made more sense than what Harry saw when he turned. The man standing before him had his hands tucked in his pockets, completely unthreatening. His beard was dark grey and much shorter than Harry remembered, his face bearing fewer lines than the one Harry had last seen falling from the Astronomy Tower.

Harry forgot how to breathe. His knees buckled.

The stranger stepped forward instinctively before stopping just beyond the threshold of the house, his blue eyes surveying the wards. “Careful,” he said quietly. “You appear to be badly injured.”

Harry could only stare.

The man studied him in return, his expression balancing concern with unmistakable curiosity.

“The backlash of what happened here was felt throughout the village,” Albus Dumbledore continued. “The fact that you are inside is rather remarkable, considering no one has entered this house in several generations.”

His gaze moved briefly to the open door, then returned to Harry. “May I ask how you came to be inside?”

Harry stared at the man before him, unable to make sense of the sight. Only hours earlier, he had stood before Dumbledore’s tomb. Now the man was standing outside his home, younger, uninjured, and watching Harry with the same patient curiosity he remembered far too well.

“I live here,” Harry finally managed.

Dumbledore’s gaze shifted past him into the barren entrance hall. His expression remained polite, but Harry saw the questions gathering behind his eyes. “That is a rather remarkable claim.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I do not doubt that you believe it to be.”

Harry almost laughed. Even now, decades before the man would meet him, Dumbledore could make disbelief sound perfectly reasonable. He tightened his grip around the phoenix-feather wand and leaned more heavily against the doorframe, trying to keep his legs beneath him. “The house opened for me.”

“So I observed.”

“The wards recognized me.”

“Some of them did,” Dumbledore corrected gently.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“It means the manor’s original protections accepted your presence.” Dumbledore glanced toward the boundary surrounding the property. “The more recent additions were considerably less certain.”

A faint pulse moved through the wards as though answering him. Harry had assumed every layer of protection around the manor belonged to the Peverells, but now that he focused upon them, he could feel the difference. Beneath the ancient magic woven into the stone and soil rested something newer—elegant, patient, and frighteningly precise.

Dumbledore’s magic.

Harry looked at him sharply. “You placed wards around my house.”

The older wizard’s eyebrows rose slightly at the accusation. “I helped preserve an abandoned historical property from intrusion. Until this afternoon, I had never encountered anyone capable of opening the front door.”

“Until this afternoon,” Harry repeated, his thoughts moving sluggishly through the pain. “What day is it?”

Dumbledore’s concern deepened. “The twenty-first of June.”

Harry closed his eyes briefly. The date was close enough to what he remembered. Perhaps the experiment had only taken hours. Perhaps the manor had somehow stripped itself bare while he lay unconscious. It was impossible, but no more impossible than the Hallows vanishing. No more impossible than Dumbledore standing before him, but it was undeniably true.

“Of what year?” Harry asked, his heart in his stomach.

There was a pause. When Harry opened his eyes again, Dumbledore was studying him with renewed intensity. “Nineteen sixty-nine.”

The answer struck harder than the explosion.

Harry’s hand slipped against the doorframe. For a moment he thought he might fall again, but the wood seemed to shift beneath his palm, offering support where none had been before. He stared beyond Dumbledore toward the village road, but the familiar landscape had become suddenly alien. Every tree, every rooftop and every stone wall now belonged to a world that had existed thirty-four years before the life Harry had left behind.

“No,” he whispered.

“I am afraid calendars are rarely persuaded by disagreement.”

Harry’s gaze snapped back to him. The dry observation was so familiar that it hurt. Dumbledore stood there with both hands open, his beard still more grey than white, unaware of the tower, the cave or the curse that would one day blacken his fingers. He knew nothing of Harry, yet somehow remained unmistakably himself.

“You’re Albus Dumbledore.”

It was not a question. The man inclined his head. “I am.”

Fawkes gave another soft trill from the post beside them. Harry looked toward the phoenix and felt something tighten painfully in his chest. The bird watched him without fear, its bright eyes holding a familiarity Harry desperately wanted to believe was real.

Dumbledore followed his gaze. “You appear to know Fawkes as well.”

Harry swallowed. “I did.”

The answer changed something in Dumbledore’s expression. His posture remained relaxed, but the warmth in his eyes sharpened into calculation. “Did?”

Harry immediately regretted the word. He could lie, but he had never been particularly gifted at lying to Dumbledore, even when the man had not yet learned how to read him. “It’s complicated.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore said, looking once more at the open manor behind Harry. “I had begun to suspect that.”

Harry shifted his wand, though he no longer had the strength to maintain anything resembling a proper defensive stance. Dumbledore noticed the movement but made no attempt to draw his own.

“What is your name?” he asked.

Harry hesitated. Potter would mean little to Dumbledore now, but it would not mean nothing. The family lived nearby. His grandparents were alive. His father was somewhere in this world, still a couple of years away from beginning Hogwarts. Giving the name could invite questions Harry was nowhere near ready to answer.

His eyes moved toward the faded crest carved above the entrance.

“Harry,” he answered.

Dumbledore waited.

Drawing a slow breath, he gave him a grain of the truth. “Harry Peverell.”

For the first time since arriving, Dumbledore failed to conceal his surprise. “Peverell?”

“It’s complicated,” Harry repeated.

A faint smile touched Dumbledore’s face. “You have mentioned that.”

Harry’s legs finally gave way. He caught the doorframe with one hand, but Dumbledore stepped forward before he could fall. The wards flared immediately, bands of pale light racing across the threshold.

Dumbledore stopped. Harry looked from the magic to the man who had once guided him through so much darkness. The instinct to trust him remained, even though this version of Dumbledore had never earned it. Perhaps that was foolish. Perhaps everything that had happened since the experiment should have taught Harry to be more careful.

Instead, he lowered his wand. “You can come in.”

The light surrounding the threshold faded. With wonder, Dumbledore looked around before slowly reaching towards the sleeve Harry knew contained the man’s wand, as if preparing to defend himself, then stepping into Peverell Manor for the first time. “Remarkable.”

The man moved forward carefully, as if trying to assure Harry he wouldn’t hurt him, before placing his shoulder beneath Harry’s arm and steadying him with surprising strength, his eyes briefly sweeping across the empty room beyond the front door in open wonder. For Dumbledore, the house was a mystery finally opening after decades of silence. For Harry, it was a graveyard containing everything he had lost.

“Thank you,” Harry murmured.

“You are welcome, Mr. Peverell.” Dumbledore guided into the house toward the old sitting room, where a worn chair rested beneath a dust-covered sheet beside the fireplace. Dumbledore frowned for a moment before drawing the Elder Wand and conjured a chair that looked identical to the one before him. “I don’t know if I trust your furniture given the circumstances and your current condition.”

Dumbledore lowered Harry into the duplicate chair before waving his wand towards the original, cleaning it of dust. Testing the stability, Dumbledore carefully lowered himself onto it, then, seemingly satisfied with its integrity, leaned back. “May I give us some more light? Your fire is running low.”

“Of course,” Harry offered in response, but his eyes were locked onto the Elder Wand.

With a casual flick, a warm, glowing light emerged from Dumbledore’s wand and floated towards the ceiling, illuminating the dust of the room. It was beyond question now. There was nothing left of Harry’s belongings, other than the wand in his hand.

Dumbledore paused. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Harry said after a moment. “Nothing.”

Dumbledore tried to appear relaxed opposite him, his expression kind but watchful. “Now,” he said, folding his hands over one knee, “perhaps you might explain why a man bearing the name Peverell has appeared inside a house no one has entered for generations, greeted my phoenix as an old friend, and looked at me as though he had seen a ghost.”

Harry thought of warm marble beneath his palm.

“I have,” he said quietly. “Just not yet.”

Dumbledore’s face showed his bewilderment. “I beg your pardon?”

“Best not to think about that right now,” Harry countered quietly, groaning as he shifted in the chair. The numbing shock of his arrival had begun to fade, leaving every burn and bruise painfully apparent.

“Perhaps we should take you to a hospital,” Dumbledore offered. “I can Apparate us directly to St. Mungo’s.”

“No.” Harry shook his head before immediately regretting the movement. “Not yet, at least. I just need a few moments.”

Dumbledore said nothing after that, allowing Harry the silence he had requested. Harry tried to understand what had happened, but he could not even begin to list the consequences of what he had done. Was this what the Peverells had accomplished? Was it what they had been attempting to avoid? Had their research ended because they realized what waited at the conclusion?

Across from him sat one of the few modern masters of alchemy Harry knew by name, as well as the man widely considered the most brilliant magical mind of the twentieth century. Whatever else had changed, that remained true.

“If I drew you a symbol—a rune of sorts—could you try to identify it for me?” Harry asked quietly.

“I—” Dumbledore paused, appearing to reconsider the increasingly unusual situation before nodding. “I would certainly do my best.”

Harry raised his wand and passed it carefully across his chest, casting a numbing charm followed by several simple healing spells meant to dull the worst of his injuries. They would not repair the deeper damage, but they steadied his breathing enough for him to push himself out of the chair. Conjuring a thick piece of chalk, he moved toward the nearest empty wall.

The manor was spartan once again, stripped of every book, note and experiment Harry had gathered over the years. He grunted through the pain as he raised his arm and began drawing the symbol as large and precisely as he could manage. From the way Dumbledore shifted behind him, Harry suspected the man disapproved of anyone writing directly upon the walls of such an ancient home, but he offered no objection.

When Harry finished, he stepped aside. “This symbol. Do you recognize it?”

Dumbledore rose and moved to stand beside him, one hand settling thoughtfully against his beard. His eyes followed every line of the design before narrowing at its center.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Though its exact meaning escapes me. It appears Welsh in origin, but it is not a rune commonly used in any surviving system.”

“Welsh?” Harry repeated. “You’re certain?”

“Nearly.” Dumbledore studied it another moment. “I have spent much of my life studying runes—primarily Sumerian, Egyptian and Welsh, though several other traditions have demanded my attention over the years. I have seen this symbol before.”

Harry turned sharply toward him. “Where?”

Dumbledore did not answer immediately. For the first time since entering the manor, his composed expression gave way to something more distant.

“Here,” he said eventually.

Harry looked around the empty room. “Inside the house?”

“No. I had never crossed its threshold before today.” Dumbledore traced one edge of the symbol without touching the chalk. “It was carved into an old boundary stone beyond the eastern edge of the property. The weather had already worn much of it away, but the central design was unmistakable.”

“When did you find it?”

“Many years ago.” Dumbledore’s voice had become noticeably guarded. “I was quite young.”

Harry watched him closely. There was something missing from the answer—not necessarily a lie, but a carefully omitted truth. He knew that habit. He had spent years learning to recognize it.

“Were you alone?”

Dumbledore’s eyes moved from the rune to Harry.

“No,” he answered simply.

The silence that followed was answer enough for the moment.

Harry looked back toward the symbol, trying to connect it to what he remembered from the experiment. Flitwick had recognized it in 2003. Dumbledore had encountered it decades earlier on the grounds surrounding Peverell Manor. Whatever the rune represented, it had existed here long before Harry reconstructed it from the journals.

“Do you know what it was used for?” Harry asked.

“I believed it was part of the manor’s original protections,” Dumbledore said. “A conjunction mark, perhaps—something intended to bind several distinct enchantments into a unified structure. We attempted to translate it, but the available references contradicted one another.”

Harry’s breath caught.

“Bind several distinct enchantments,” he repeated.

Dumbledore noticed the reaction immediately. “That means something to you?”

Harry stared at the three intersecting sections of the symbol. The Wand. The Stone. The Cloak. Three separate creations, drawn into one completed design.

“It might,” he admitted. “I used it as the foundation of an alchemical reaction.”

Dumbledore glanced toward Harry’s burned robes and the barren room surrounding them. “I take it the reaction was more successful than intended.”

“I don’t know.” Harry’s eyes remained fixed upon the wall. “That may be the problem.”

Dumbledore studied him for several seconds before asking, “What precisely were you attempting to bind?”

Harry hesitated. He knew better than most what the Hallows had once meant to Albus Dumbledore, and he knew almost nothing about the man standing beside him. This Dumbledore had defeated Grindelwald twenty-four years earlier, but the wounds left by their ambitions were far closer to the surface than they had been when Harry knew him.

Still, he needed answers. “Three artefacts,” Harry said carefully. “Each created by a different member of my family.”

Dumbledore’s eyes moved toward the Peverell crest above the fireplace, now prominently displayed under his conjured light.

“The brothers,” he murmured.

Harry turned toward him, asking the question he already knew the answer to. “You know of them?”

A faint, humorless smile touched Dumbledore’s face. “Mr. Peverell, I spent years of my adolescence and early adulthood chasing the myths of your family’s legendary items.”

“And even managed to acquire one,” Harry said, nodding towards the man’s wand.

Dumbledore’s eyes widened before he swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry assured the man. “It’s best in your hands for now.”

“Who are you really?” Dumbledore asked with a little less patience than before. To someone who had not known Dumbledore or seen him really lose his temper, it might’ve gone unnoticed, but Harry trusted the man he knew and understood him in the end.

“I…I don’t think I should say,” Harry admitted now, not wanting to fully convey what had happened. “I am a Peverell, by blood. It’s just not as simple as I may have originally claimed, but I am guessing you already knew that.”

“I suspect I already have an inkling of what has happened,” Dumbledore said curiously. “Perhaps you are right. For now, I think we should take a walk into the village. If you do not wish to go to a hospital, you should at least have a professional look you over.”

Harry was going to protest, but Dumbledore insisted, “Please, I know a woman in the village. She is talented and discreet. She will at the very least be able to tell you if you need serious medical attention.”

Taking a deep breath, Harry finally nodded, gesturing for the man to lead the way, and Dumbledore did so, turning his back to the younger wizard, showing a strange degree of simple trust. Harry followed the man out of the house, then glanced back and watched the front door close behind him with a soft click.

The walk to the village wasn’t long, and they did it mostly in silence. Fawkes followed the duo above, trilling happily and swooping around them. Dumbledore made a soft observation, “He is unusually happy today. Could you elaborate on how you met my companion perhaps?”

Swallowing hard, Harry considered the question before deciding on a partial truth. “He came to me in a time of need. He saved my life.”

“Remarkable,” Dumbledore said. Harry was surprised the man didn’t pry any further. Perhaps that was because the truth was right in front of him. Fawkes was clearly happy to see Harry, and while the feeling was mutual, Harry’s stomach remained lodged in his throat as he considered the implications of what had occurred.

The walk was slowed by Harry’s injuries, but Dumbledore didn’t poke, pry, or insist on any further answers. Instead, the two walked into the village in silence.

Harry recognized the village right away. Things were certainly different—businesses, the people—but it was the little things that made the biggest impact on him. Trees that were not grown. Some stores had either come or gone over the years, and while it still felt surreal, Harry felt a prick of emotion at what his eyes fell on next.

The home he had been born in. The cottage that would one day belong to James and Lily Potter, destroyed by Voldemort. Harry stopped at the sight of it. A lone tear formed in his eyes. He looked into the windows and saw nothing distinctive until a young boy with black hair entered the living area. Harry looked away immediately, not prepared to face that reality.

The tear fell, and Dumbledore looked concerned. “You know this home?”

Swallowing hard, Harry shrugged. “I thought I did.”

The two began moving down the road again, and Harry was guided just across the street to where Dumbledore opened a small rustic gate that led them onto a grassy lawn. It was surrounded by waist-high white stone and had a very cozy look to it.

The two walked to the front door, and Harry saw the names on the mailbox as Dumbledore softly knocked on the door. “Wait,” Harry said.

Dumbledore looked mildly alarmed by his interjection, but the names had caused Harry to freeze again—C. & D. Potter.

Before Harry could protest or leave, an older, composed-looking woman with jet-black hair opened the door. “Albus,” the woman said, taking in Harry’s torn robes and scorched skin. “You have developed an unfortunate habit of bringing trouble to my door.”

“In my defense, Dorea, this particular trouble appears to have brought itself,” Dumbledore offered with a slight bow of his head.

Her eyes settled on Harry, softening slightly. “Can you walk?”

“Barely,” Harry answered.

“Good. Then let’s get to the study. I have room to look you over in there.”

When they were welcomed into the house, Harry had to try to compartmentalize the little knowledge he had of this situation. He had seen the names Charlus and Dorea Potter on the family tree in Grimmauld Place. Judging by the contents of the house, however, Harry immediately knew Dorea was not like the other Black women.

Pictures of her family were all across the front living area of the home. The whole family—Charlus, Dorea, Harry’s grandparents that he only recognized by photos, and two boys, only one of whom Harry didn’t recognize. One appeared to be about six, clearly James Potter. The other was about eighteen and clearly related to them by the messy black hair. Harry’s heart raced a little faster. He was in his family’s home. This wasn’t possible. What had he done?

“Dorea,” Dumbledore offered, “this is Harry Peverell.”

The woman’s hands stopped at the French doors she was about to open, her head turning to look at Harry suspiciously. “Peverell?”

“Apparently,” Dumbledore replied.

The doors to the study opened, and a large man stood in the doorway. “That is a name we haven’t heard around here in quite some time.”

The family resemblance was undeniable. Dorea introduced the group, “Mr. Peverell, my husband, Charlus Potter.”

Charlus offered his hand at once, and Harry hesitantly took it in his own. “Looks like you got yourself into a bit of trouble, Mr. Peverell,” Charlus said. “I am guessing you are responsible for that earthquake that rocked the village earlier.”

“I’m afraid so,” Harry admitted.

“Well, Dorea will get you fixed up,” Charlus promised.

Dorea looked between Charlus and Harry several times, her eyes narrowing now. She looked like she had a comment she wanted to make, but Dumbledore stopped her. “I assured Mr. Peverell you could help him discreetly. He was not anxious to go admit his mistakes to St. Mungo’s.”

Dorea forced a smile. “Well then, let’s get you cleaned up, dear.”

Gesturing towards a chair, Dorea summoned it to the middle of the room before gesturing for Harry to sit. Harry did so, and the woman immediately began waving her wand casually around, making Harry stiffen, but only for a moment.

“The burns are superficial,” Dorea said, ignoring his obvious tension.

Harry looked down at the blackened fabric across his chest. “They don’t feel superficial.”

“That is because the damage beneath them isn’t,” Dorea countered pointedly.

Before she could elaborate, a new voice entered the room. “Professor, I thought I heard your voice.”

“Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore greeted. “A pleasure to see you. How’s the Auror Department treating you?”

Harry didn’t even register the man’s response. Instead, his jaw fell involuntarily open. The young man before him had to be around his age—early twenties—and, other than the messy hair, didn’t resemble him much at all. This man had a Beater build and looked strong as an ox. He was wearing the purple robes of an Auror, and before Harry could sort the situation into something rational, he realized he had missed something, and the young man was holding his hand out to Harry.

When Harry just stared at him, the man withdrew it, and Harry immediately apologized, “Sorry, long day. What did you say your name was?”

“Henry Potter.”