Sacred is the Windswept Time

Fifteen: Discussing Voldemort

"Well Albus, I've always said a threat against the Wizarding community was imminent. How often did I warn you about that Riddle boy? Slytherins as a whole are little more than a menace to our world," Alastor Moody growled, and the three Slytherin boys present and Serrano Sorcebaine looked up in agitation at Moody's words.

"Now, now, Alastor..." Dumbledore began but Harry cut in and spoke for himself.

"Look Moody, there was a time when you admired me, and I was a Gryffindor. Time changes us. And as far as judging anyone based on what house they were sorted into, well look at Pettigrew. A bloody Gryffindor turned traitor. Stop with the bloody house bickering, and back to business. We are here for an interrogation," Harry snapped.

Moody looked at the boy, his good eye roving over him from head to foot. "Well spoken lad, but I'm still not sure on just who you are. Perhaps you should get a taste of Veritaserum as well."

"Enough of this already," growled Sorcebaine. "This boy is from the future, he knows what we're up against, and he caught a spy in our very midst. Now I agree with Granger, it's time to see what Pettigrew knows."

The teenagers were looking at Harry and the adults bickering amongst themselves, and were surprised to find that he was very much at home among them. He could argue with them, and they could tell that he could lead them as well. It was awe-inspiring to know that a seventeen year old could wield such power.

Finally the argument died among the adults and Harry and everyone turned to Peter Pettigrew who was tied to a chair by ropes meant to hold an animagus. Harry took the vial of Veritaserum from Sorcebaine and approached the trembling form of the boy before them. He narrowed his eyes as he unstoppered the bottle and looked at the boy that had stolen a good life from him.

"Pettigrew, you either take three drops willingly or I'll pour the whole bottle down your throat, and once you've told us the truth you'll go mad from the overdose. What will it be?" Harry snarled and then added with a smirk, "I would prefer pouring the whole bottle into you myself."

"Th-thr-three drops," Peter squeaked, and Harry viciously administered the dose.

They waited a few seconds for the potion to take effect and then Harry asked his first question.

"What were Voldemort's plans for Lucius and Severus?"

"Malfoy was my Master's right to call because of his father's vow. Snape would be useful because of his abilities with potions. Not many in my master's circle are even half as good with potions as Snape," Pettigrew answered.

Lucius had grown ashen and his eyes widened and Harry suddenly realized why Lucius would be summoned by Tom Riddle, as Riddle had many appetites towards the male persuasion. Narcissa took note of the sudden condition of her new husband and lifted her hand to his face, and coaxed him into looking at her. As their eyes met he drew her closer, trying to fight the trembling that was beginning to overtake his body.

Harry of course took all of that in, but still went on with the interrogation.

"And what does he want with me?"

Pettigrew shook as he tried to fight the potion, but it was no use as the answer squeaked from his throat. "My master wants to know how you can get inside of his mind, because he knows its not Legimency. There is too much distance and Legimency can't reach so far away. He wants you to join him, because you're powerful. He's afraid that you may be more powerful than him, but if you submit to him, then you would never rise above him. He wants you to submit to him or he will kill you."

Harry noticed how pale his parents got and how Sirius was fidgeting, even Severus and Remus looked shaken, still Harry pressed on.

"And when will he attack?"

"Once he learns about the weddings, especially Malfoy's, it will be a matter of days."

There was one more question.

"Pettigrew, do you know who I am?"

Pettigrew looked confused for a moment and then answered, "You are Harry James Granger. New student at Hogwarts, looks like James Potter, but with green eyes and a scar on your forehead. Very powerful, a snake animagus, a dark wizard..."

As soon as Harry heard the last bit he brought the back of his hand sharply across Pettigrew's left temple. The boy's head snapped to the side and the chair he was tied to rocked unsteadily for a moment.

Harry put his hands on Pettigrew's bound arms and stared directly into the terrified boy's eyes as he spoke in an icy tone, "You're a good little spy, aren't you Wormtail? But there are two things you are wrong about. First I am not who you think I am. And second, I am no dark wizard. I only do what is necessary, what others are too afraid to do. We'll let you go back to your master, and you tell him what you know, and you tell him I'm waiting for him. You tell him that the last thing he ever sees before he goes to hell will be me, even if it means that I will go with him. I will see him dead, even if it means my last breath, by wand, or by my bare bloody hands I'll kill the bastard. You see that he gets the message."

Harry then held out his hand and said, "Give me a knife now."

There was shuffling and then a knife was put in his hand by Serrano Sorcebaine. Harry took the knife and cut Pettigrew's left arm free, and cut open the boy's sleeve, revealing the Dark Mark, a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth. Harry then cut the ropes binding his ankles and right arm. He suddenly grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and dragged him from the headmaster's office, all the way to the gates of Hogwarts, and the gates flung open when Harry held his free hand toward it. Everyone who had been in Dumbledore's office to witness the proceedings had followed Harry throughout Hogwarts and students that had caught sight of Harry dragging Pettigrew through the halls with a wedding party, a professor, the headmaster and an auror following him, joined in the onlookers and there was a huge crowd surrounding them as Harry shoved the boy through the opened gate and then with a wave of his hands the gates swung shut and locked. Pettigrew threw himself against the gate begging to be allowed back in, begging for mercy because his master would surely kill him for the news he would have to deliver.

Harry glared at him coldly from bright burning green eyes and his words were heard by all present. "You die by your own hand Pettigrew. You chose your own path, and if he kills you, it will have been by your own hand. You are done here."

"Harry," Dumbledore said, "Mercy is what keeps you from becoming like Tom Riddle."

Alastor Moody looked at Dumbledore and then the quivering excuse of a boy outside of the gate and said, "Albus, sometimes mercy is letting death do its duty."

Harry then turned to the headmaster and spoke, "I won't let him take from me what he did once before. It was Pettigrew that stole them from me. I'm not as strong as you think I am. I'm human. I will see him dead before I lose my parents or Sirius again. I will kill him and his master if that is what it takes, but my parents and Sirius will live. Now I think we have a few formal matters to take care of and then some planning to do. Riddle will be making a move soon."

Upon finishing his speech they noticed the audience that had been attracted by the action. Albus quickly dismissed them back to their classes and then the wedding party, Sorcebaine, Dumbledore, and Moody returned to the headmaster's office. Once in the office Harry took a seat in one of the comfy chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk, exhilarated, but also exhausted by all the emotions that had only recently run through him. After a few moments of mentally collecting himself he looked up and noticed the eager eyes of his parents and friends on him, and the disbelieving eyes (or eye rather) of Moody on him. Dumbledore seemed collected but curious, and Sorcebaine looked weary and wary.

Finally Harry cleared his throat and spoke.

"I don't know much about Volde... Tom Riddle in this time. I've heard the stories, but there wasn't much written in history books about him, and he was so feared that he was talked about in whispers when people were brave enough to talk about him at all and was always referred to as He Who Must Not be Named. I've dealt with him every year that I've attended Hogwarts, and for the past six years he's been trying to kill me, not to mention how he tried to kill me when I was just a baby.

"He is terrified of death and has been trying for years to achieve immortality as well as take over the world. Most purebloods and Slytherins have joined him out of loyalty to their houses and parents and the older purebloods have joined him because he has promised to eliminate all muggleborns and half-bloods and to put muggles in their proper place in the name of Salazar Slytherin. He is also the heir of Slytherin, and he was the one that killed Moaning Myrtle, not Hagrid. What is ironic about his...well I suppose you could call them goals is that he's a half-blood himself. His father was a muggle, and he murdered his father and his father's parents because he spent his life in an orphanage, and he would be a psychiatrist's dream on a couch.

"As for me being a part of this, well because of my mum I am the heir of Gryffindor, and in accordance with a prophecy, the only accurate prophecy that Trelawney gave until my fourth year, he marked me, so I am the only one who can defeat him, but our wands are matched so in a duel neither of us can win, but he doesn't know this now, and I would like to keep that as quiet as possible.

"I have spent years trying to figure out a way to kill him, and being in this time has presented me with the best solution I have yet to come up with. I am in his time, before he started drinking the unicorn blood to achieve his whatever it is. Since my wand won't defeat him, I will use Godric's sword to kill him."

Moody snorted and looked as though he wanted to either burst out laughing or bring something to justice, it was hard to tell, as he said in his scratchy voice, "Boy are you mad? You the heir of Gryffindor? How could that be when you were clearly sorted into Slytherin?"

This caught the attention of everyone present, and they were all staring at him, the doubt in their eyes. Harry rolled his eyes.

"The first time I was sorted some thirteen years in the future and nearly seven years ago for me, the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, but I told it not to, so it put me in Gryffindor. In my second year I used Godric's sword to kill a basilisk, which is probably slithering around the Chamber of Secrets even as we speak. Of course I could always go down there and check I suppose, though the thing nearly killed me. Luckily Fawkes was there to heal me, Phoenix tears work wonders."

"If you were sorted into Gryffindor originally, then how could you have been sorted into Slytherin this time?" Sirius asked in curiosity.

Both Lucius and Severus rolled their eyes at that. Leave a Gryffindor to ask something stupid.

Still Harry answered the question. "Gods, Gryffindors can be so innocent and naïve. Sirius, the answer is very simple, over the last six years I've changed considerably. There are qualities that I have that make me an ideal Gryffindor, but I have learned to think and act like a Slytherin. The Hat saw it, and I didn't want to be in Gryffindor this time because I didn't know how I would act around my parents, Remus, Pettigrew, or you. You remember how I was in the beginning? I couldn't have stood living so closely with all of you, and I probably would have killed Pettigrew that first night."

"So you entered the snake's den, and made friends with your future enemies?" Sirius snapped.

This was more than Lucius' tarnished patience could take and he stepped up and took iniative. "Look Black, I don't know what I would have been to Harry in the future, but that has changed, as has what you are going to be to him. As I recall he told us that you were his Godfather. Harry is my friend, my brother, like Severus. You may not think that there is loyalty in Slytherins, but amongst our own we are loyal without a fault. Harry, Severus, and my wife are all I have left in the world. Do not take my friendship with him so lightly. I even forgave the prat for transfiguring me into a ferret for Merlin's sake!"

Laughter broke out at that comment and everyone turned surprised eyes to James Potter as he doubled over and was coming undone, rich laughter pouring out of him, and then the whole room burst into laughter with the exception of Sorcebaine who was looking decidedly annoyed at discovering what had happened to Lucius Malfoy at the hand of Harry Granger or Potter, rather, and Moody wasn't cracking so much as a smile at this point.

"That's my boy," James finally managed to wheeze as the room began to regain some semblance of order.

"Enough of all of this. This is a time of war. We don't have time to laugh, we must prepare. Constant vigilance!" Moody cut in, and for the most part everyone sobered especially Harry, and then Moody continued, "So how are you planning to defeat Riddle, boy, if you must first have the sword? What clever tricks from your proclaimed future do you have up your sleeves?"

Harry smirked, a decidedly Slytherin thing to do, as he turned his gaze to Dumbledore and said, "Dumbledore, could I see the sorting hat, if you would?"

Sorcebaine looked rumpled that the seventeen-year-old boy was giving the headmaster orders, and even more irked when Dumbledore complied and handed the hat to Harry. Harry then reached into the hat, and took hold of something. A beautifully ornate hilt with rubies the size of eggs, and a long silver blade was what Harry withdrew from the hat, and everyone in the room with the exception of Dumbledore looked at the boy in amazement.

"It can't be!" Moody said in amazement, and with a smirk Harry handed him the sword, so that he could have a closer look at it, and just below the hilt on the blade, inscribed was the name Godric Gryffindor.

Before anyone else could say anything, Dumbledore smiled and said, "And if you could Harry, reach into the hat and see what else comes out."

Harry looking confused did as the headmaster asked him, and his hand closed around another hilt, ornately decorated and it felt as though something was coiled about it. Looking up questioningly Harry's eyes locked with the blue eyes of the headmaster as he pulled another sword from the hat. The sword was beautiful, crafted from the finest silver, and coiled around the hilt was a golden snake with two gleaming emeralds for eyes. Harry held the sword up and admired the blade, his stomach fluttering as his suspicions were confirmed by the name inscribed on the sword just below the hilt. Salazar Slytherin.

Harry dropped the sword as though the snake on the hilt had struck him and looked up at the headmaster in shock, his voice quivering as he spoke, "B-b-but how is that possible? I'm the heir of Gryffindor, not Slytherin. How could I pull his sword from the hat?"

Serrano Sorcebaine snatched the sword from the floor, examined it, and appeared just as shocked as the boy as he realized the sword for what it was. Finally academic curiosity getting the best of him, Severus piped up, "Bloody hell, what is going on? Isn't that the sword of Slytherin? He's a Slytherin, so he should have been able to pull the sword from the Hat."

Sorcebaine's head snapped up, his dark eyes wide with shock as looked at his most favored student and shook his head. "No. He shouldn't have been able to pull Salazar's sword from the hat unless he was the heir of Slytherin, but the last living heir of Slytherin is Tom Riddle. So how could he have pulled this sword from the hat? How Albus?"

The headmaster then turned to Harry and with his eyes twinkling infernally said, "I believe there are some things that Harry has neglected to tell us, at least in regard to his blood."

Harry's eyes widened as he realized what Dumbledore was referring to. "My fourth year, when my blood was used to bring him back. Blood, my blood gave him a body, and my scar connects us, the scar is from his blood because magic is in the blood, when I defeated him, and when my blood brought him back, we became... OH Gods... We became..."

"Brothers," Severus said, and Harry raced for the trash bin next to Dumbledore's desk as he retched.

Once Harry was finished he fell back on the floor and sat with his head in his hands, wondering how fate could be so cruel, how by blood he and Tom Riddle were made brothers, some sick and twisted family.

"He was right, in my second year he was right. We are just alike, two halves that just took different directions. He could have just as easily have been me as I could have become what he is. I could become like him."

Harry trembled and then two sets of arms surrounded him and James and Lily were holding him, as he trembled and tears escaped his eyes, and then another set of arms joined his parents and he was gazing into the deep blue eyes of Sirius.

"Oh, Harry, that will never happen. You have a soul, a heart, and you know what is right. You are loved Harry, and you can never be like him," Lily said in a soft gentle tone.

And then Sirius was speaking, "Harry, I could never love a monster, and I love you. You're so strong, with everything you've been through you've survived. You can't give up now."

Up until this point, Remus had been silent, but he finally spoke up. "Perhaps this is just what we need. While the sword of Gryffindor is powerful, it couldn't trap the essence of Tom Riddle, but a sword forged in the blood of his own forefather could. If he were slain with the sword of his ancestor, then he would never be able to return."

"What an interesting observation, Mr. Lupin," Dumbledore said, and then Moody added, "So it's the beginning of a plan, aye? At least we're finally getting somewhere."