Stormseeker: Unwanted Destiny

"Come on, Harry, wake up," Draco says, poking me. "You're going to miss breakfast."

I grumble a little and murmur, "Is there pancakes?"

"Maybe," Draco says. "You were out late last night, weren't you. I heard you sneaking back into the dorm."

I climb out of bed to get dressed. "Yeah. Yeah, I was."

"And on Halloween night?" Draco says. "What sort of dark magic were you doing?" He holds up a hand. "Don't worry, I already cast a privacy spell before I tried to wake you."

I chuckle softly and relax. "I bound my soul to the Dark Lord."

Draco stares at me. "You know, it's funny how you were trying to fight him at one point, and now you're doing things like this?"

"I'm not one for half measures," I say, smirking. I finish getting dressed. "Let's go get some breakfast."

That evening after dinner, I go to see Tom in the Headmaster's office. Like I often saw Dumbledore doing, he's currently scribbling with a quill on a piece of parchment, no doubt doing some important bit of paperwork or another.

"Am I interrupting anything?" I say.

"Nothing that can't be put off," Tom says, pushing aside the parchment. "Come, sit. What do you need?"

I take a seat across from him, and say, "Well, there's something you really ought to know about me that I've been hiding from, well, everyone. I haven't told anyone in this world this yet."

"Oh?" Tom says, raising an eyebrow and looking over at me in interest. "You have more secrets?"

I chuckle softly. "Well, this is kind of a big one. But, all things considered, you're going to need to know about it, and better I tell you now than have you find out after being sent back to the start. So, not only am I an immortal time traveler and quite definitely not Harry Potter... but I'm not even from this universe."

"You were from an alternate universe?" Tom says. "Where events happened differently?"

I shake my head. "That's not what I mean at all. Perhaps I should just show you in the Pensieve."

Tom pulls out the basin and nods to me. "Go ahead. You've piqued my curiosity."

I pull out the Eldar Wand and put it to my head, focusing upon memories of my homeworld and of Torn Elkandu. I pull out silvery strands and place them into the Pensieve. Once it's done, I nod to Tom and take the plunge inside, and he joins me moments later.

We stand on a grassy hill, the brilliant sun Yallia shining vibrantly overhead. It feels strange, standing in Lezaria's heavy gravity again. It's been years since my brief visit back home to pick up supplies and gold. And Yallia's brightness makes everything on this world seem pale and dim.

"What is this place?" Tom wonders, staring about.

"This is a world called Lezaria," I say. "The place where I grew up. The village of Wishingsdale. This big house here belongs to the Chelseer family. They've lived here for over three hundred years, since shortly after the discovery of this continent."

"This... is not at all what I might have expected," Tom says quietly. "This really is another world entirely, isn't it."

"That it is," I say, grinning at him.

The scene shifts as the memory changes. Now, a younger version of me is walking through a darkened forest along with my mother. The trees seem alive in an eerie way, with twisted faces on their trunks, and limbs reaching out like claws toward us. I don't know why she had me walk there the first time. She could have just as easily Recalled me to the Nexus directly, and I would have been attuned to it from then on. Perhaps it was an attempt to impress me.

"Is that you and your mother?" Tom asks.

I nod. "Her name is Anara Chelseer." I follow along after the memory people.

"There's a lot of magic here," Tom says. "Very dark magic. Is that a dragon skull?"

The memory Lexen is approaching a cave shaped like a giant skull, and following Anara inside.

"Maybe," I say. "I never bothered asking if it were a real skull."

We follow the memories inside the cave and through several winding passages. The portal itself isn't visible. It follows seemlessly from one world to another. One moment we're walking through a cave on Lezaria, and then next, we're in the Ethereal Plane, in Torn Elkandu. We step out of a tunnel entrance and emerge on the far side.

Streets and buildings lined with glowing cyan runes sprawl before us. A swirling purple-black sky ripples overhead. Memory Lexen's look of awe and wonder is matched only by Tom's expression beside him.

"Welcome to Torn Elkandu, Lexen Chelseer," Anara says. "The center of the universe. The heart of all things. The link between all places."

After a few minutes, we start walking again, heading down one of the streets toward the middle of Torn Elkandu. Eight shining, rune-etched obelisks form a circle in the center of the city.

"The Nexus of Torn Elkandu," Anara says. "Place your hand upon one of the obelisks and let its magic flow into you. Then, you will be attuned to the Nexus, and always able to Recall here at will."

"What is this?" Tom asks. "A... Nexus?"

"A powerful teleportation device," I say. "It's capable of sending people to other worlds. That is how I got to this world."

As memory Lexen follows Anara's instructions to attune himself to the Nexus, Anara says, "Congratulations, Lexen Chelseer, the Stormseeker. You are now an Elkandu."

"Elkandu?" Tom asks.

"Technically, it's an old elvish word for 'wizard'," I say. "But that's what my people call an interdimensional traveler. The Elkandu are a group of wizards who explore and study other worlds."

"Is that what you were doing at Hogwarts?" Tom asks.

I shake my head. "Not precisely. There's more to it than that. You'll see in a moment."

The scene shifts again. Only a week later, memory Lexen is coming out from the School of Thought after a day of classes, and heading toward the Nexus. But standing between him and the way out is a black-robed man, who grins wickedly upon seeing him. Sedder. Taunting him, calling him a Chelseer bratling, and then draining the very life from him with dark tendrils.

"Sedder?" Tom says. "A dark wizard, exiled from Torn Elkandu you said?"

"This was my first death," I say. "I was ten years old. Now, every time I experience a full reset, this is the beginning I go back to. The day of my first death. Six hours before everyone in Torn Elkandu is slaughtered by the Dark Elkandu."

I let the memory continue, as the ten-year-old version of me tries to figure out his power. As he and Keolah try to come up with some way to avert disaster. As Sedder kills everyone I cared about in front of me, and tortures my cousins to death.

"I almost envy Harry Potter," I say. "He was too young to understand what was happening. Too young to realize what he'd lost. But Sedder? I'm going to kill him." I growl quietly, but then shake my head a little. "But that's not important now. Revenge can wait."

The memory finally shows my arrival in Hogsmeade, and the Pensieve expels us.

"I'm glad you told me about this," Tom says, looking thoughtful. "How many worlds are there?"

"I don't know," I say. "Dozens? Hundreds? Possibly infinite? I've only visited a few of them myself so far. But I would like to see many more."

"This changes everything..." Tom says.

"Do note that the Nexus is only accessible for the six hours following a full reset," I say. "After that, it destabilizes with no one taking care of it, and will kill anyone that tries to Recall to it. However, during that six hours, I can freely go anywhere and make any preparations I want. Including gathering people from other worlds."

"When I first thought to try to forge a Soul Bond with you, I thought it merely a way to ensure my own immortality," Tom says. "I never thought that something like this might be possible." Tom chuckles softly. "Perhaps I should take my own advice more frequently."

"Heh. Indeed," I say. "The whole of the multiverse is at our grasp. That's why I've been focusing primarily upon learning things. Nothing but knowledge has stayed with me before, and so I sought to gain as much knowledge as possible."

"An understandable goal, considering the circumstances," Tom says. "Amassing the knowledge of countless worlds?"

"In fact, the next world I planned to visit, I'd be able to learn some interesting mental organization techniques," I say. "The ability to absorb and retain information rapidly. I've been there before, and found out about this, but due to various circumstances, I'd missed out on the opportunity to learn this. Primarily due to the fact that I spent almost five years recovering from addiction to Dream Sweets, and then afterward, got swept up in a war, on the opposite side from the people who would have been able to teach me that."

"You? Were addicted to Dream Sweets?" Tom says, looking at me incredulously.

"I was having a bad year," I say, snickering. "But it was primarily because of the Dementors they'd decided to stick outside the school. Nightmares, every single night. Heh, I'll tell you all about my previous lives sometime if you like."

"It sounds like they have been quite eventful," Tom says. "I'm going to need to think on what you've told me, and perhaps reconsider my own priorities."

"I'd imagine that it would become quite tedious if every life were merely spent trying to fix this broken world," I say. "But there's so much more out there than this."

I return to the Ravenclaw common room, where Cassie intercepts me. "There you are," she says. "Where were you? If I didn't know better, I'd think you've been trying to avoid me lately."

"Heh, certainly not," I say. "I was talking to the Headmaster about some stuff."

I don't want to tell her about the possibility of the Soul Bonds before I know whether or not Tom can and will do it. There's no sense in getting her hopes up needlessly if it turns out that it's not going to work out. Bad enough that I can't avoid getting my own hopes up.

"Oh!" Cassie says. "Stuff!" She giggles.

"Yeah," I say. "Stuff."

"Moody was eyeing you suspiciously all day," Cassie says. "Did you notice?"

"Yeah," I say.

"Did you do something to warrant his attention?" Cassie asks.

"Some stuff happened last night," I say.

"More stuff?" Cassie says. "You don't need to hide anything from me, you know."

"Yeah, but we're in the common room," I say, lowering my voice. "You know I'm not going to elaborate without a privacy spell up, and I'm wary as the Abyss even then. Morag might be listening, or worse, Tonks."

"Alright, alright," Cassie murmurs, pulling out her wand. "Muffliato. So, what actually happened last night?"

"Tom and I performed a dark ritual at the hour of midnight on Halloween," I say. "Moody found out about it. Somehow. Despite the fact that the ritual didn't even happen in this timeline. Echoes came through from the previous timeline, and he detected the magic use."

"That's not good," Cassie says.

I nod. "I cooked up a story about how we had to use dark magic to stop an attack by Voldemort on the castle. I don't know if he completely bought it or not, but either way, now he's suspicious of me."

"You think we'll have to kill him?" Cassie says.

"Maybe," I say, sighing. "I'd hate for things to start to fall apart now."

"Definitely need to keep anything incriminating from getting out," Cassie says.

"No shit," I say.

Moody continues to eye me suspiciously the rest of the week, and I could swear that I can feel someone watching me even when there's no one immediately visible. I'm too paranoid to pull out the Marauder's Map and check, though. I'd rather the existence of that item not get out, especially since it could easily blow my cover if I'm not careful.

Then, on Saturday after Theatre Club, Moody calls me into his office. I put on a figurative mask and try to hide the fact that I'm nervous about this. I try to make like I have nothing to hide. No reason to suspect me.

Moody points his wand to the door, and it locks with a click. I raise an eyebrow at him, and say, "What is this about, sir?"

Moody puts out the broken pieces of a wand on the desk, and I instantly recognize it as my old pine wand. "This is your wand, Potter?"

"Yes, sir," I say.

"You said that you lost it fighting Voldemort," Moody says. "But this was found off a murderer before then. One who looked an awful lot like an older version of you. And I know you can change your age. Let me be blunt, Potter. Did you kill Yaxley?" He has his wand out and pointed at me.

I clench my teeth. He probably didn't get all of this information today. Going back to this morning won't help. "Yes, sir," I reply. "He was about to rape a first year Muggleborn girl."

Moody scowls. "The case was thoroughly covered up, but we managed to dig it out again. Potter, if what you say is true, why did you use the Killing Curse? You could have disabled him in any number of ways without resorting to an Unforgivable Curse."

"I was angry," I reply.

"And the Killing Curse is the first thing that comes to mind when you're angry?" Moody snaps. "And what if you'd missed? What if you'd hit the very person you claim you were trying to save?"

"My aim is not that bad," I retort. "And I'll point out that I went out of my way to avoid hurting the guards who came after me. They were just doing their jobs. It would have been far easier to have just killed them, too."

"And it seems like someone has clearly gone out of their way to make sure you get away with murder," Moody says. "It makes me wonder, what else have you done that's been covered up? By the way. Tonks was in the Ravenclaw common room a few days ago. Your privacy spell doesn't stop lip-reading. Turn over your wand, Potter. I'm placing you under arrest."

My heart practically stops for a moment as panic grips me. "No. I can't let you do that. I'm sorry, Moody."

But I don't go to pull out the Elder Wand and attack him. Instead, I age myself down, winking out of existence in moments.

I wake in the Ravenclaw dorms. Damn it, I'm going to need to find a way to keep this from blowing up in my face. I quickly get dressed and make my way to the Headmaster's office.

"What happened?" Tom asks. "I suddenly jumped back to the morning."

"Moody knows I killed Yaxley," I say. "And suspects even more of me."

"Ah," Tom says. "Good reason."

"Who else knows, I wonder?" I say, trembling. "And what if something is written down somewhere? Damn it, I'm not going to go to Azkaban for this."

Tom reaches out and puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Relax, Lexen. Whatever else happens, I'm not going to leave you to the Dementors."

I give a nod, letting out a heavy sigh. "Thanks."

"I'll expose Yaxley as a Death Eater," Tom says. "I'll make sure his own crimes are revealed."

"Will that really excuse the use of an Unforgivable Curse?" I ask.

"Perhaps, perhaps not usually," Tom says. "But you're their supposed savior. They need you to fight the Dark Lord." Tom smirks wryly. "I'll deal with Moody."

"Alright..." I say, taking a deep breath. "I guess I've just gotten used to getting away with murder. And I got sloppy. I really should have just gone back that day and prevented things from getting out of hand. Foolish. Stupid."

"It's always easiest to see your mistakes when it's too late to do anything about them," Tom says. "At least we're in the unique position that often, we will be able to do something. For now, go to breakfast, act like nothing is wrong."

"Yes, sir," I say.

At breakfast, Cassie says quietly, "Were you talking to the Headmaster again?"

"The walls have ears," I whisper.

"And the potatoes have eyes," Draco adds.

I talk about nothing while eating, and once we're full up, I drag Cassie and Draco aside into an empty classroom. I put up all the spells I know that could ensure our privacy.

"Alright, what happened?" Draco asks. "You normally don't bother with quite that many spells to keep people from listening in."

"Moody knows I murdered Yaxley," I say.

"You murdered Yaxley?" Draco says, raising an eyebrow. "Not that I really care, mind you."

"Tom said he'd take care of it," I say, sitting down heavily. "I'm just... really, really worried."

"I don't think I'm ever going to get over the fact that you call the Dark Lord Tom," Draco says, smirking.

Cassie puts her arms around me comfortingly. "It'll be alright. We'll get through this somehow. And if you wind up having to withdraw from Hogwarts and go into hiding, I'll be with you."

"Thanks, Cassie," I say, smiling faintly at her.

"And I will royally kick the arses of anyone who tries to take you away from me," Cassie adds fiercely.

"Not to disparage that touching comment or anything," Draco says. "But did you seriously just say you'd kick their arses?"

"I mean it," Cassie says, glaring a little at him.

I snicker softly. "Let him be. He always knows how to make me laugh and relax."

"He's positively irreverent sometimes," Cassie says.

"Yes, yes he is," I agree, smirking.

"Well, it's nice to know you keep me around for a reason," Draco says wryly.

We head along to Theatre Club, and I do my best to concentrate on what we're doing and put Moody out of my mind for the moment. Worrying won't make the situation any better. If things really start going wrong, I'll find myself really wanting to get out of here and start over. Just when everything looks like it's going well, why does this have to come back and bite me in the tail?

This time, Moody doesn't call me into his office until after dinner. I head there nervously, wondering if things are going to work out better this time.

"Potter," Moody says. "This is your wand, isn't it?" He hands me the broken pieces of my poor pine wand.

"Yes, sir," I say.

"It has come to my attention that you apparently murdered a Death Eater rapist and saved a first year Muggleborn," Moody says. "I say, good on you. It's unfortunate that you chose to use the Killing Curse to do so, though."

"I was angry, and not really thinking things through, sir," I say.

"Understandably," Moody says. "I might've done worse to the bastard myself, if it'd been me who caught him. But, as an Auror, I should restrain that impulse and arrest him, rather than kill him outright."

"I didn't want to take the chance of him fighting back, either," I say. "Or getting out of Azkaban, like the others that escaped before. Or ever having a chance to hurt another Muggle or Muggleborn."

Moody snorts. "I doubt that was all going through your mind before casting that curse, however you might justify it to yourself after the fact."

"No, sir," I say. "All that was going through my mind at the time was that a little girl was going to be hurt if I didn't stop him."

"You're damned lucky he didn't dodge," Moody says. "You could have hit her instead."

"I'm not that careless," I say.

"You're also damned lucky that Minerva informed me of Yaxley's questionable prior activities before I called you in here," Moody says. "It's no wonder this was covered up. I might have thought that the Boy-Who-Lived was a murderer."

"Give me some credit, sir," I say. "I even knew Yaxley was a Death Eater long before that. I'm a time traveler, after all. Last time I met him, he bragged to me about how many Muggle women he raped during the last war. I was glad to have run across him and had the chance to put an end to his crimes forever."

Moody sighs. "You've got to be careful, Potter. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! This could have ended badly if you didn't have people looking out for you."

"Yes, sir," I say. "I'm sorry, sir. Sometimes... it's hard to adjust to living in a world that still has some semblance of law and order. You get used to living in a world at war, kill or be killed, and if I see someone I recognize as an enemy doing something that needs to be stopped, I'll find myself casting to kill without even stopping to think about it. It's a reflex."

Moody gives a nod. "I can understand that, Potter. Anyone who lived through the last war would. I'll help make sure this doesn't come around back at you."

"Thank you, sir," I say, giving him a bow.

"And Harry?" Moody says. "If you happen to kill anymore Death Eaters, do let me know."

"I killed Bellatrix Lestrange, too," I say, grinning a little. "But nobody actually cared about her."

Moody nods, giving a look of grim satisfaction as well. "Keep up the good work, Potter."