Visitor from the Future

Chapter 2: Look Into the Future

Harry looked around the void wildly, feeling the first edges of panic creeping over him.

"Whe-Where am I? Wh-Who are you?" Harry asked the woman, inwardly kicking himself for the panicked and frightened edge that colored his voice.

"I apologize, my child, for bringing you here so suddenly, but the matter that I need to speak to you about is rather important, for not only you, but all the worlds. And, though my name has long been lost to your people, you may call me Nyx," the woman replied, with a kind and compassionate look on her face.

"Oh," Harry began to calm down slightly, since if this woman, whatever she was, was working for Voldemort, wouldn't she have just taken him directly to Voldemort? As Harry began to take deep breaths to steady himself, he looked around. Swirling grey mist as far as the eye could see surrounded them, yet if Harry listened hard enough, and looked hard enough, he could hear and see glimpses of people and their conversations.

"With all due respect, you still haven't said where we are," Harry told the woman next to him, trying not to sound rude in any way, since she was the one who knew how to get him out of here.

She laughed softly. "Yes, well, I guess you could say we are in another realm: more specifically, the Realm of Shadows. From this Realm, one can look through the past, present, and future of any given place, no matter the enchantments or charms protecting it, in any world. Yes, there is more than one world that exists right now, my child," she said to Harry, after noticing his curious look at the mention of "any world."

"I have brought you here because of what will be happening shortly in your life, and what will happen later if you do not take action because of it. Come, walk with me, my child, and I will show you what I mean. I must warn you, though, that what I am going to show you is not going to be easy to take."

With that, the two of them began to walk forward, and although Harry really couldn't tell where they were going, Nyx obviously did. However, as they continued to walk in companionable silence, Harry noticed that, directly in front of them, the grey mist seemed to be thinning out, revealing the place beyond it.

Harry's first reaction to the place where they walked out onto was, "my God, what happened here? It looks like a war zone." That description, however, summed up the place incredibly well, for that was in fact where they were: a war zone. Among the still smoldering ruins lay what Harry immediately identified as bodies, and directly in front of them, a deep crater was smoking, holding still more remains. The bodies were so badly mutilated, and the location so completely destroyed, that at first, Harry had no idea where they were.

"Where are we? What happened here? Who are all those-those people?" Harry's questions had ended in a whisper.

"We are in the year 2010, and this is, or rather was, Hogwarts, and those people are the few survivors who fought in this last battle," Nyx replied softly.

Harry felt paralyzed by the fear that had gripped his heart when he heard 'Hogwarts,' and, indeed, as he looked more closely at the bodies near him, he recognized a few of the faces. Kingsley Shacklebot, Emmeline Vance, Madam Hooch, a much older Seamus Finnigan, the list went on and on. As much as the classmates, teachers, and members of the Order terrified him, his heart broke when he reached one body that, even through the blood that covered it, Harry knew who it was. Molly Weasley, the woman who was like a mother to him. Tears slowing trailing down his cheeks, Harry knelt down next to the Weasley matriarch, all the while whispering brokenly, "No, no, no, no, no..."

As if that hadn't been bad enough, as Harry continued to search through the wreckage, he found other Weasleys: Arthur, Percy, one of the twins, he found Nymphadora Tonks, Luna Lovegood, as well as Neville Longbottom. When he saw a figure with a long mane of red hair spread out behind her like a fan, Harry was struck with a memory from years ago: on the cold, hard floor of the Chamber of Secrets. Only this time, Harry knew she wouldn't wake up. Harry brushed a lock of the red hair out of Ginny's face, and, looking at her broken and bloodied form, felt his very soul shatter with grief. Near her body, Harry saw two crutch-like canes, one of them still clutched in Ginny's hand. Harry looked up at Nyx, who had silently followed him, and his anguished eyes asked countless questions.

"At the end of your sixth year, the Hogwarts Express was attacked. You were taken hostage until Halloween, when you escaped. Ginny was with you during the attack, and was blasted into one of the windows of the train compartments. She suffered severe spine damage, and had to use those canes to walk. She... never flew on a broom again," the woman said quietly, and the tears shining in her eyes spilled over at the look on Harry's face.

"Wh-Where are... Hermione and Ron?" Almost afraid of the answer, Harry still needed to see his two best friends.

Leading him over closer to the crater, Nyx didn't need to point out the two bodies lying next to each other, protecting each other even in death. Harry saw, as he choked back even more tears, a diamond ring on Hermione's fourth finger of her left hand, and a matching wedding band on Ron's.

"Why are you showing me this? Why do you want me to see my FRIENDS, the only FAMILY I have had since MY OWN PARENTS died lying here, DEAD! WHY!!" Harry screamed at the winged woman who had brought him here.

"Because, in only a matter of days, your powers will begin to awaken. In this timeline, you told no one until after you had finished at Hogwarts. You were terrified of the power you were given, and, because you are not very good at trusting people completely, you told no one for years. I brought you here so you could see what will happen if you allow your powers to go untrained. You have great power, Harry, and it can be used to do so much good, if you only trust others, as well as yourself, enough to ask for assistance in training. If there had been another way for me to show you that, believe me, I would have. I am so sorry for you having to see this, my child." Nyx's soft voice was filled with sadness and true compassion for the young boy who was kneeling, broken, over the bodies of his best friends.

Harry just sat there, eyes closed, for quite some time. When he opened them, a flicker of determination had ignited the previously dull green, giving them that emerald-green glow that he had once always had. "What do I need to do?"

"Trust your heart. I know that, because of how your relatives hurt you, you don't know how to trust. Trust is a hard thing to regain, but, just... just trust someone. Anyone. Even just one person. That will help you to prepare yourself for the fight ahead. Listen to your heart my child, and you will not fail," was Nyx's soft reply, but her eyes, which had begun to glow even stronger than before, bored into Harry's own green eyes, begging him to heed her advice.

"What if I need help again? Will you still be there?"

A soft smile graced Nyx's lips. "Yes, my child. If you truly need me, your heart will show you the way to me."

With that parting comment, her wings spread wide, and she began to rise into the sky. The grey mist returned, and soon engulfed Harry once more. The last thing Harry heard before the grey mist receded again, leaving him in his small bedroom on Privet Drive was, "Listen to your heart, my child, for then, nothing is impossible."