Harry Potter and the Siren's Song

***

"As insulated as Hogwarts was, we couldn't be completely isolated from the chaos that was going on in our world. God knows Dumbledore and the staff did their best to make sure we students had as normal a time during our years here as they could. But every day, owls would swoop in bearing bad news of family members being killed or worse by Voldemort and his followers. In the spring of our sixth year, James' parents were murdered. Shortly afterwards, Remus' vanished without a trace. Peter's father had died early on in our second year, fortunately by natural causes. Only Sirius' family survived without a blemish, although in retrospect that in itself should have tipped us off." Her voice grew bitter, and Harry had to fight to keep himself from shouting in protest that Sirius was innocent. "After James' loss, he and Lily decided they would marry right after they left school - they didn't want to risk losing any time they might have together. They were working for Dumbledore, naturally, and James' connections at the Ministry were highly useful."

"What did my father do for the Ministry?" Harry asked eagerly. At last, at long last, some useful information about the parents he had never really known. "Was he an Auror?" Somehow, Harry had always suspected that he had been.

Lauren looked taken aback. "No one's ever told you?" she asked slowly. Harry shook his head. "He was an Unspeakable, Harry." She swallowed and then said, "He worked for my uncle, in the Department of Mysteries."

***

"An Unspeakable?" Harry swallowed, feeling his mind whirl while he processed this thought. "You're sure?" he asked stupidly, regretting the words the moment they were out of his mouth.

"Quite sure. It was the ideal job for James. As an Unspeakable, he had limitless access to information and objects that the general public did not. He had always been fascinated with the idea of research into the more arcane fields of magick. In fact, your father had a deep love and respect for the history of the magical world, despite everything Binns did to squash it out of him. He became convinced that the key to defeating Voldemort was out there, hidden in some obscure witch or wizard's diary." Here Lauren's face softened, as what appeared to be a fond memory was stirred. "I remember him coming in from the library, sometimes at 3 or 4 in the morning, his face smudged with ink from the scrolls he'd been examining-"

"He sounds like Hermione," Harry said softly. This wasn't at all how he had always imagined his father. Somewhere in his mind, he had pictured his father to be more of a warrior, battling it out in hand-to-hand combat with the Death Eaters. He had dreamed him to be like the knights of old; fighting evil-doers and protecting the innocent. The idea of his father spending hours pouring over dusty tomes and ancient books just didn't...fit. "Hagrid told me that my parents both worked for Dumbledore, against Voldemort."

"They did. There's more involved in fighting against evil than merely lining up hundreds of Aurors against the bad guys and letting them have at it. Don't get me wrong, Aurors are vital soldiers to the battle but your parents, Harry, were the ones fighting the war."

"But if he was spending all of his time doing research-" Harry began but she cut him off with a sharp look.

"You sound disappointed," Lauren said, and something in her stern expression and tone reminded him strongly of Professor McGonagall. "Harry, what your father did was vital to the cause. I can't even tell you everything he did, because as an Unspeakable his work was highly classified. I know that he uncovered the Bracos Protetores spell, which created a system of safe houses all through the country that sheltered literally hundreds of people from the Death Eaters. I also know that James was the one who developed the Signum Praetorius powder. Wizards used it to warn others along the Floo Network that the Death Eaters were on the march - it would send a bright blue flame up to the next twenty or so wizard houses on that grid of the network. God only knows how many villages he helped to protect with that warning system. He also helped to develop the Occaeco potion, which gave children a sort of glamour spell of invisibility, which made it impossible for Voldemort to use the wizarding schools as any sort of bargaining chip. Even if he had managed to break through the wards that protected places like Hogwarts, he wouldn't have been able to find any students to torture and kill. There was a time when you weren't allowed to begin the school year without being 'vaccinated' with the Occaeco potion..."

A sort of fierce pride had begun burning in Harry's heart. He'd always known that his father had done something great. Why else would Voldemort have bothered with him? The hated memory of Aunt Marge calling his father "a wastrel...a no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger" now seemed almost laughable in its ignorance. How could she have understood what he was? How could any Muggle have understood?

From far away he heard Lauren saying, "Your father, Harry, saved thousands of lives with his work. Just because he wasn't out in the field hunting Voldemort down on foot doesn't make him any less of a hero. Don't you ever forget that."

He'd been what Harry had suspected all along. His father had been a hero. And not just because he'd charged into a battle, but also because he'd been clever, wily and resourceful. He'd saved lives, and many lives at that.

And yet... something was nagging at the back of Harry's mind. He looked at Lauren, a horrible suspicion rising. "All those things that he developed to fight the Death Eaters...that's what your uncle passed on to Voldemort, wasn't it? The details of my father's work? Your uncle told his master what my father did, and the bastard wanted him out of the way before he found a way to destroy him permanently."

"That was part of it," Lauren said heavily. "But only part, Harry." She stopped her pacing and sat down next to him, close enough for Harry to smell the light scent of roses and musk that was her perfume. "Your father also uncovered a prophecy, Harry. A Seer's prediction, centuries old, that foretold of the rise of two evil regimes in our time."

"A prediction? Like a vision?" Harry asked, frowning. "You just told me how my father was an Unspeakable, and in the next breath you're telling me he believed in Divination?"

Lauren let out a soft whistle between her teeth that sounded faintly exasperated. "Harry, despite what that windbag Trelawney has done to the subject, Divination isn't a worthless field. Your father did quite a lot of research into the obscure aspects of our world, so it's natural that he would be interested in things such as mystic prophecies."

"If you say so." Harry was less than convinced. "What did this one say?"

"Namely, it foretold of the rise of two powerful dark wizards - obviously Grindelwald and Voldemort. It also predicted their downfalls, and gave details of what would ultimately destroy them. Your mother had just discovered that she was pregnant with you, and I remember how much your father dreaded telling her what he had found out. I don't remember it word for word, but the first part of it said that Grindelwald's defeat would come from 'the hand of light and eyes of sky' and something about a phoenix. 'Bird of fire brings bitter justice', I think."

"Dumbledore," Harry breathed.

"Naturally. It also said 'mercy is the bitter weapon, mercy poisons the darkness' soul.' It all but spelled out how in Dumbledore's defeat of the dark, he would not forget that repentance was the ultimate act of retribution." She swallowed, and said softly, "You do know that Grindelwald was sent to Azkaban for the rest of his life after he was defeated, don't you?"

"No!" Harry exclaimed. "Dumbledore didn't...kill him?"

"No." Lauren shook her head. "Albus Dumbledore showed him mercy, in a matter of speaking. Placed the Scelare curse on him." Her green eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Which I suppose means that Grindelwald had managed to hold onto at least a shred of his soul. The Scelare spell, Harry, ensured that Grindelwald was consumed night and day with guilt for his crimes. He spent the rest of his life remembering what he had done. To be specific, he was haunted by the ghosts of his victims for the rest of his life. He felt their pain, their fear, their rage at being ripped from this life." She swallowed. "I suppose some would call it mercy, that Dumbledore let him live. Of course, I doubt those people know just how powerful guilt can be, especially when it's used as a weapon against you."

It was a wrenching mental image: to be forced to relive the worst of your own actions - and the consequences - over and over again? He remembered suddenly that terrible sort of power that Dumbledore had radiated in Moody's office last year, and shivered. He knew his Headmaster was not a man to be trifled with, despite his usual pleasant and eccentric manner, but this information only further solidified that picture. Harry felt a slight tug of pity.

Then he remembered - she said that the prophecy had spoken of Grindelwald's successor. "What - what did the prophecy say about Voldemort?" Harry whispered, suddenly feeling his hands shake. At last he would know why Voldemort had been trying to kill him since he was a year old. At last he would know why his parents had been murdered.

Lauren looked at the ground. "Lily never told me specifically. I overheard James talking about it to Sirius and Remus, though. Something like 'The son of clay will rise from earth and battle the enigma' and 'Mother will weep for pride of stag, Mother's fall will save her yearling.'" She gave a deep shuddering breath, and looked up at him. "There were enough similarities within the text to alarm your father. Enough to alarm most parents, actually."

Harry's eyes narrowed. Something in her tone struck him as very odd. "You don't sound very certain about that."

Lauren bit her lip. "In retrospect, I didn't give your father enough credit." She looked very pale as she stared at the ground again. "After all that had happened, it sounded a little too preordained."

Harry was glaring at her now. "You didn't believe him," he said slowly. "My father, I mean. You thought he was wrong."

"Harry, it's not that I didn't believe him," she started but he cut her off.

"But you didn't."

"I believed that he thought he had found something. But my sisters and I had been part of a supposed prophecy, and look how that turned out. My attitude was 'Well, obviously the moldy-oldies weren't quite high enough on fumes when they read that set of tea leaves!' So it was hard to take this one seriously. I mean," she twisted the edge of her robes in her hand, "who really thinks that their friends might just be the key to destroying the most evil wizard to ever walk the earth?"

A scuffling noise made them both turn. "Get back!" they hissed at one another. Each scrambled to their feet, wands in hand, and attempted to push the other behind them. The end result was that Lauren and Harry ended up with their wands and arms locked and pointed at one another.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her and gave her his most menacing look. Or at the very least, he attempted to.

"Please, Harry - get behind me." The look on Lauren's face was all business, and he could tell that she was far from intimidated by his glares. He ignored this however, stubbornly keeping his wand trained directly on her.

"You forget, Lauren - I was a Tri-Wizard Champion." He had never boasted of this before, and the words sounded strange as they rang through the air. "Not a wizard to be trifled with." There was no way he was going to stand back idly and allow her to investigate - not when she had promised to tell him everything he wanted to know.

She sighed. "No one would ever mistake you for otherwise, Harry. Just...point that away from me."

He nodded, his grip on his wand tightening. As one they moved towards the edge of the deck. It had gotten increasingly dark as they had talked, and dusky twilight had settled onto the village. They stood motionless, waiting. And when the sound came again, Harry shouted "Stupefy!" while Lauren bellowed "Expelliarmus!"

A figure fell out of the bushes and onto the deck. Harry started to rush towards it, but Lauren caught him by the arm and forced him back. "No! Let me." She didn't wait for him to argue, instead she released him and moved towards the pile of dirty robes.

Harry muttered "Lumos!" and directed the narrow beam of light at the figure on the deck. Lauren pulled back the robes. He heard her gasp, and moved quickly to her side. Then he stood in mute horror, trying to hold back the yell of shock that was threatening to escape from him.

He was staring down into the mangled face of..."Mrs. Figg?"

Harry had often heard the phrase "living hell" and had idly wondered what it meant in real-life terms. No longer. Mrs. Figg was recognizable only by her hair and the general shape of her face. Her nose looked to be broken, a number of teeth were missing, and her lips were cracked with dried blood. And there was something horribly wrong with her eyes...they were closed, and the general area around them was so red that the skin appeared to be painted with blood. If Harry didn't know better he would think they were-

"Gauged out." Lauren hissed, laying a gentle hand against Mrs. Figg's cheek. "Her eyelids are sealed shut - Cretulae charm. Cowardly bastards couldn't stand to see what they'd done to her." Her head jerked up. Harry thought she'd looked pale before, but that was positively tan by comparison to the greenish-white of her face now. "Go! Get Rene - better yet, Bill Weasley - if you can find him."

"Hurry," Mrs. Figg murmured indistinctly. He froze at the sound of her voice. It sounded rusty, like a gate that needed oil from overuse. Or like someone who had spent the last few months incessantly screaming. "Please....hurry."

Harry didn't hesitate, just turned and rushed inside the Hog's Head. He spotted Rene behind the bar, and all but ran to the burly man. "Rene, outside - Mrs. Figg! She just showed up, now, came out of the bushes! She looks..." His voice trailed off as every head in the bar swiveled towards him. He had not realized how far his voice would carry until the noise within the bar shut quickly off, almost as if someone had flipped an invisible switch.

"Arabella Figg?" Rene asked, flipping up the door that was cut within the length of the bar and making his way towards the exit. "Cole - go fer help! Get Dumbledore!" The guitarist stumbled as he jumped off stage and made his way towards the fireplace.

Harry followed Rene out of the bar, hearing shocked voices echoing Mrs. Figg's name behind him. "Bill Weasley hasn't returned, has he?" he asked.

"Nah. Don't expect to see that one for a few weeks," Rene grunted in response, even as his brisk strides led him over to where Lauren knelt next to Mrs. Figg. "Gods, Arabella." He leaned down and gently picked her up in his arms, as though she weighed nothing at all. "What've they done to her?" he asked.

"By the looks of it, I'd say everything they could dream up," Lauren said bitterly. "Based on the scars and the um, evidence, I think they used Caecare, the Blindness curse along with the Imperious and Cruciatus curse on her - all at the same time. It made her think she was having her eyes ripped out. When in fact, she was the one who removed them." The normally flippant singer looked as though she might be ill. "I'm not an Auror, of course, but that's what it looks like. She needs to see a Medi-Wizard, Rene. Now."

Harry felt the bile rising in his own throat, and had to fight not to lose his lunch. Mrs. Figg, the Auror who had been his neighbor, had been tortured nearly to death. He had absolutely no doubt as to who was responsible. Only Voldemort himself could have come up with a sentence so despotic as combining two Unforgiveables with the Blindness Curse.

"Gotta' get her to the Ministry," Rene grunted.

"She's in no condition to Apparate," Lauren began but Rene cut her off.

"I'll Floo her myself. Soon's we update Dumbledore - he'll be needin' to know about this." He shifted Mrs. Figg a bit and carried her inside, leaving Lauren and Harry staring after them.

A nasty silence hung in the air before Lauren said, "Rene's right, Dumbledore will need to know everything he can, and no doubt he'll want all of the students safely back at the castle, especially you."

Harry nodded mutely. When he could speak, his voice was croaky. "Why? Why do that to her?"

Lauren gave him a level look. "And then there's that unspoken question - why didn't they finish her off?"

Harry could only gape at her, stunned at how cool and composed she sounded as she referred to a woman's possible murder.

"Don't misunderstand me. That was awful, but I've seen Death Eater victims before and this was child's play. Arabella lived, and Harry - not all of them did." She reached inside her robes, fumbled with something, and then handed him something that glittered softly in the light from the bar.

It was the same blood-red stone pendant he had seen his mother wearing in that photo - the one of her with the Velange sisters. "What-" Harry began, but she cut him off.

"I couldn't have messed this up any more if I'd had a script but I want to finish this. My third lesson was going to be 'Never let the sun go down on your anger.' Anger's a tricky thing - let it go unchecked too long, and it will turn to rage. And rage, Harry, is capable of destroying a person. Rage can turn a rational person into a monster...we just saw evidence of that."

"I don't understand," he began but she cut him off again.

"I'm sorry, Harry. I can't tell you everything now, but believe me when I say I will - and hopefully soon. In the meantime," she closed his hand gently around the necklace, "hold onto this. It's yours by right."

"It was my mother's, wasn't it?" Harry asked slowly.

"Yes." Lauren looked strained. Without warning, she suddenly wrapped her arms around him and gave him a quick, tight hug and a kiss on his forehead before she pulled away and Disapparated with a pop!

Harry was left staring at the emptiness where she had been. He slowly opened the clasp on the pendant, and looped it around his neck. It hung in the hollow of his throat, and while the gold chain felt cool on his skin, the stone itself felt strangely...hot.

He was shaking, and it took him a minute to realize this. Without warning, he rushed to the bushes where Mrs. Figg had been lying and retched. The smell of her spilt blood filled his senses, and he felt his stomach tighten and heave again. He stayed that way for some time, doubled over and trying to fight against what he felt in his gut, indeed in his very soul. Empty at last, he sat back against the wall of the pub, watching as the trees spun in dizzying circles above him.

This was worse, far worse, than how he had felt over Cedric's death. Cedric had died and that had been a tragedy. However, Cedric's death, while horrible, had been quick, neat and painless. This was a hundred thousand times more terrible. This was cold, and calculated and had an aura of overpowering evil. It reeked of hatred, and rage, and a complete lack of anything resembling human emotion. Harry recognized it, because he had felt something similar this year, had been feeling it ever since Cedric had died. Anger over his passing had turned to rage. Anger over discovering the truth about his godmother had turned to rage. Anger towards Hermione for keeping the truth from him had turned to rage...

The true nature of his emotions, and the potential consequences of them hit hard. He remembered another dark-haired prefect who had allowed his anger to turn into rage. That boy had committed his first murder at age 16, just a year older than Harry was now. That boy had grown into a man who had murdered hundreds, possibly thousands of people. That boy had been responsible for the carnage Harry had witnessed tonight.

That boy was working to destroy everything that he, Harry, held dear.

"'Never let the sun go down on your anger.' Anger's a tricky thing - let it go unchecked too long, and it will turn to rage. And rage, Harry, is capable of destroying a person."

The memory of how he had lashed out at Sirius, Hermione and Lena flooded back to him, and he realized just how dangerously easy it would be to follow down the same path as Riddle. "There are strange likenesses between us," Riddle had said.

"You're wrong," Harry murmured. "You never realized that what you did was wrong, or if you did you just didn't give a damn. There are such things as good and evil. There's more to power then just seeking it out." He stood up shakily as he muttered, "I'm going to prove it."

***

A/N: Many thanks to all that have reviewed at Schnoogle.com and FF.net so far - your encouragement and critiques mean a lot: Alpha Wolf, Lily Vance, Erised12, Firecracker, Venus4280, Elizabeth Culmer, driver8, lilahp, Luigi, Vying Quill, StuFFedTIger, Dark Phoenix8987, ADJ, SeaS, Princess Fiona, ninnoc, little*, padfoot1979, Liz, Morwen Langan, Opaleye, Maria1314, sk8reagle, skirt, WerghofTur, ALEX, EliCa, Beci, Princess Kattera, floramorada, Papercut, Alison, Tituba, Summer Thyme, aldalindil, Cathy, strangelypotty, amalthea, Kyle, makulit, Tamz, Duke, Tabitha B. Potter, Victoria Weaver, Jesse, Piper D, Elektra, Anna Black, §ämäÑthä, Erinyes, Johnny V, hotima, azriona,Phenomonous, canadian chick, unregistered2, QuidBrm, sara ane, Zelda, SweetBttrfly1, MarchoftheDed, Albus Dumbledore III, Lori McCloud of Clan McCloud, Gobbling Fire, Lilia, Starlite, baby norbert, Alyssa Potter, Majorca, Ennacie, H. Sanders, Lidder Deed, Lolli Potter, Green Eyed Knight, Kranberries, Curry Spice, chibbleworthy, gilaesther, Aimee Brueker, nightdweller-pr, CiA, Veritaserum, laney, BeachHottie707, littlemissvoldemort, Christy, Cesta Teristen, mystic Guardian , meara, Ishtar, twilight dreamer, Sabby, Stewart, tonyfo98, KaitlynElizabeth, Dirah20, Kaicy, brownafroduck, Briar, Scik, Sabby13, Phoenix220, kellylynn, NightSpear, Alia West, X13, Esperanza, l88er-az, Lions Blood, everpresent, Gshans, Erin, Airhead, kirsti116, gadriam, Jaya, 'mione8, siriuslyinlove, heido-san, Leylox, kdalemama, madhuri, skirt, tamela, liliko, technomad, Incognito, and the prodigious Unregistered.

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