Chapter 18

FUCKING HALLOWEEN!

07:05 am 31st October, Room of Requirements, Girl's Chamber.

He couldn't help but smile as he looked at the girl, sleeping on her bed while clutching on a toy wand Harry had gotten her, his past two months with these two were a roller coaster, both of them would drive him up the wall not a little, but he cared about them enough that he'd give his life for them in less than a heartbeat.

Gone was the gaunt man who had done the impossible and escape the inescapable prison, replaced by a healthy one looking very much like the day he had been sent to prison, and then some, five days after the start of the new year at Hogwarts, which was around two weeks with the duo, Harry started feeding him modified nutrition potions - his own making, ones that not only helped him fix the damage from lack of good food, but also helped his brain recuperate, something about low levels of dopamines and stuff - and he had truly started to feel way better than he had ever in his life, at first for ten days he had to take one with all the three square meals of the day, then for the next ten one in the morning and one in the night, then an alternating schedule between the day and night dosage for every day for another then days and a finishing course where he only took the potions during the night for ten days - and he could feel it in the taste, the potion was somehow altered - but now after all is done he feels better than he had ever before.

He mused this with a smile on his face as he twirled his wand in his hand, another thing his godson had done for him, two days in his medical treatment Harry noticed how he kept looking at his wand and asked him if there was any problem, to which when he explained that he missed having his own wand, and hated thinking about how the ministry had it, probably locked up in the evidence room - something he probably shouldn't have said but is now quite glad that he did - Harry disappeared again, something he had started to get used to around the boy, to return half an hour later with his wand, apparently regularly using his magic could also be good for him both physically and psychologically.

A part of him was really wary about how the boy had gotten his hands on this wand as it couldn't have been possible without taking extreme measures, but every one - especially Lily and Marlene - always called him reckless, so when he questioned his godson he hadn't expected to be told that the said godson simply broke into the evidence room, and he only encountered two guards who didn't even notice him teleporting into the room and then some wards that took him a whole two minutes to dismantle, then he simply summoned the box.

Now his brains might be quite addled and it might have taken a solid hour for the whole tale to sink in him but when it did he was beyond shocked, oh he knew very well that during peacetime the evidence room wouldn't be guarded as well as it used to be, but he had seen the ward scheme used to guard it normally - he was a part of the team that had helped put stronger wards on the damned room during the war - they were no push over, and at least required a good 25 - 30 minutes to dismantle, and his god son had done it in 2, bloody hell.

Soon two weeks into the potions regime he asked Harry for a spar, and then he was taken out of the room to a clearing around some mountains all together the atmosphere was quite pleasant, he lost all the ten spars they had, his godson nor moved from his place nor said out a word aloud - not a single incantation vocalised, perks of being mute a part of him mused - used only basic disarming and stunning spells, and all 10 rounds took only 20 minutes that too because he kept trying to "focus" and get "back into form" he knew he was rusty, hell he was beyond rusty, but still to defeat him before he could even raise his wand was kind of an overkill, and when he told his godson as much his reply was a simple "In a real life situation your enemies would have killed you ten times by now, it would be better if you learn and relearn from your experiences here."

And then there was the matter of his wand, it was reacting fairly well, and wasn't damaged, but it just wasn't the same as before, just like everything else, and when he told Harry about it the boy offered to have a new wand commissioned for it and in the end he couldn't throw away one of the most cherished pieces of his past, one of his constant partners from his past, so he asked if it were possible to keep both of them at the same time, to which - much to his relief - Harry replied in affirmative.

Another thing he had observed was that the weird red dress he wore was for some reason really important to Harry, though it took him some time he finally managed to ask about it, in a roundabout manner because he didn't want to push the boy, wouldn't have wanted it even if he had not been helped out so much by the boy, so when he learned that the dress was useful as an extended foci to increase his control over his magic he was quite intrigued about why he even needed one in the first place, but he reigned in his curiosity and abstained from questioning any further.

Another now 17 days after they had begun duelling, he could hold his own against the boy, till he couldn't and the rug was pulled from beneath his feet as the boy's spells got faster and stronger, quite exponentially so, he had also broadened his arsenal though he was still using basic hogwarts spells but had somehow tweaked them enough to be dangerous if not outright lethal, a basic Reducto was shattering his shield as if it were spun glass, and then what he did with the cutting curses, he still wasn't sure what had happened, when Harry was raining down spells on him he transfigured some wolves to act as distractions and offense at the same time, he didn't expect whatever it was he used to cleave all three of his wolves in a single spell, he definitely didn't the leading wolf to be split apart horizontally from his maw to the tail, the other two tried to get out of the way but the sheer span and speed of the spell made it a moot point.

But the spars gave him a further insight on how his godson's mind worked and helped them mend their relationship, at this point he had no problem asking - pestering - his godson for three days straight about how his spells were so much more powerful than the usual, apparently he compressed them to be smaller than usual which allowed him to make a greater impact at a single place he also made his spells to rotate when shot from his wand as that allowed them to be more accurate and reduced loss of speed, thus making a bigger impact at the end, he had to admit it was quite simple and quite useful in the right hands, of course even more destructive in the wrong hands.

He knew that he wouldn't be able to achieve something like this using his old wand so he informed Harry that he wanted to get the new wand as soon as possible, the next day Harry disappeared again as usual but when unlike usual when his godson returned he was informed that they have an appointment with a wand maker on the 2nd of November.

In the meantime he did try to cast those spells using Harry's methods with his old wand, and after no success for the whole day came to the realization that it was not as simple as he'd thought first, not even close.

All in all, life was going great.

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07:05 am 31st October, Gaunt Shack, Little Hangleton.

Harry carefully strode forward in the desolated little shack, carefully observing his surroundings, the home was at first inspection just a run down hut, definitely unsafe for the Girl was the first thought that went through his mind not that he realized, the second that it would have many deadly protections, it gave of a palpable feel of dark magic, if it were anyone else with his heightened magical senses the air would be as if miasma, it wasn't so much the fact that it was dark magic but the intent behind it was filled with enough malice, he on the other hand strode forward without any discomfort whatsoever.

He had come here after trailing the name Tom Marvolo Riddle - Voldemort's original name before he took up the nom de guerre - he started his search from MoM records of Hogwarts students, which turned up his status of being a half-blood and his address, a wool's orphanage, then turned to muggle archives to a birth certificate along with some school records for Tom with his mother listed as Merope Gaunt and father Tom Riddle which led to a search in the Riddle and Gaunt families, a few state records and news clipping articles detailing their deaths were all he found on the Riddles, quite possibly from the killing curse given the scene described in the articles, and when he crossed it with wizarding world records he found about Morfin Gaunt murdering them, from that he came upon here where the Gaunts lived, and so he started searching for one of Tom's Horcruxes.

There were standard dark magic protections that would harm any intruder, decapitation, blood boiling, flesh rotting, and the like, then there were some parseltongue and blood magic based wards in an alternating order, and a parseltongue based blood magic ward at the end, every last bit of it was arcane magic, and the thing with arcane magic was that it required more precision and less brute force, it depended more upon knowledge and control of one's magic and less about how much magic the caster had, of course that doesn't mean having a greater reserve of magic didn't have it's uses, it made ignoring some basic requirements of the spells possible by simply overpowering them, the same went for reversing them, of course it got quite a little difficult because now you were fighting against, a functional system, like trying to open a gear operated heavily fortified gate by making the gears turn the other way round.

Then with all the knowledge of arcane and his inordinate reserves, he simply blew up the said gate like it were made up of wet tissue paper. It took him all of 10 minutes to get through them, though he expended around 40% of his reserves it was faster and easier than dealing with each ward individually, taking stock of his now un-warded surroundings he strode to where he could feel the Horcrux was placed.

There was a small floor board which was a little crooked, under which the horcrux was placed, when he approached the place he could feel the rotting curses underneath the floorboard, quite subtle yet even more dangerous, few could feel it and even fewer still could deal with it, he flicked his wand once and a minute gout of Fiendfyre poured out of it, controlled enough to destroy only the cursed wood along with itself, he saw the ring, he reached out his magical senses and it took him no effort to confirm the artifact to be what he assumed it would be, and then he froze, slowly his head was cocked towards his right and stared at the ring, to be more accurate the stone in it.

It was like a crystal made out of shadow, some might say out of a shade even, it was obtuse enough to be seen, yet also transparent enough to see through making one wonder if it were a trick of eyes, almost like a spirit, and in it's center sat the symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

Harry poked at it with it magic and for a second all of his senses were drowned in nothing, and then when he came back to the surface he found himself sprawled on the floor, standing up he conjured a small balck box, almost like a traditional ring box, and then after placing the ring in it he disappeared.

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09:05 am 31st October, Staff Room, Hogwarts.

Remus let out a tired sigh, he was sitting all by himself hence he let his mind wander, he was still feeling quite tired from the full moon though what exhausted him more was his thoughts that plagued him, thoughts about his old friend, one he considered a brother, he still couldn't believe that Sirius of all the people betrayed them, he always wondered what drove the dog animagus to do that was it, was it simply his blood, the accursed Black blood of insanity? The one which only Andromeda and Dorea seemed to have escaped, or was it something they didn't know, a secret leverage to use against him, perhaps a secret child he never told anyone about? When he was more drunk on mead he'd pray for it to be the latter and when he was dosed up on melancholy he would torture himself with the first, cackling all by himself like the whole insane family - and even the two lucky ladies did inherit this particular trait - trying to get lost in the insanity.

Then his thoughts turned towards the boy who was his nephew, at least as far as he was concerned, he gave his last thought a thought of it's own and then once again started to laugh maniacally which soon turned into sobs, the boy didn't think anything of him, nor good nor bad, he didn't care, most probably because he didn't have a reason to, so much for being a nephew, he had dropped to ball in epic proportions, even after he mentioned that he had been friends with James and Lily during their school days had not made the boy approach him, and their last conversation two days ago when he had made Harry visit him after class hours was the final straw.

"So - Harry may I call you Harry? - " began Remus, at which he received a nod, "so Harry I heard from Headmaster about you family situation, I'm sorry to hear about your Uncle and Aunt, I also heard about your current living arrangement, how is it working out for you? Are they treating you nicely? Are you having any difficulties? If you need any kind of help, and i mean Any kind, always feel free to approach me."

Harry gave him a nod and then turned to leave, as he got near the door he stopped mid step as if someone had hit the pause button, and then turned one again and approached Remus, taking out his notepad and pen he began writing? "Thank you for being concerned about me even though you have no obligation to do so."

Remus blinked at the blunt manner of being addressed, but given the amount of social interaction he had seen the boy engage in it made an odd amount of sense, so he replied as he saw fit - though a part of him came to regret opening this can of worms - "Harry it's not about obligations, and even if it were, you are my nephew in all but blood - or at least that is how your father was fond of stating our relation - it is my duty to look out for you."

The boy's head cocked towards the right side, as Minerva had informed him he did that whenever he was contemplating something, soon the boy started writing once again, "But didn't that responsibility end with my father's life? The only reason you had to be responsible for my well being because you were friends with him and he was our only mutual connection, with him dead you weren't answerable to anyone in relation to your interaction with me, as such you had no responsibility, unless you had made a legalese pact wherein you were to my guardian after their death, and to the best of my knowledge that was impossible, and still is given the complications, especially the ones arise in the event of my parents death."

He couldn't help but look at the boy, a part of him was confused with this out of the blue and weird response and another was dismayed beyond reason that the boy didn't even think that he could help him, though there was a part of the really he had received that intrigued him yet frightened him at the same time, hoping he was wrong he forged ahead like the gryffindor he is and so he questioned, "What do you mean by that? Why couldn't your parents make me your guardian?"

The boy replied to his question instantly, "The laws of the Wizengamot would not allow someone with your affliction to be a legal guardian of any child, as such even if a pact had been drawn up it wouldn't be legal, as such you had no reason but some kind of moral obligation to my parents to care for me, just like Professor Dumbledore who sent me to the Dursleys as an act of responsibility towards me out of moral obligation, but given you never approached me before today, so the moral obligation is not strong enough that you would pursue it until it is convenient to you."

While a part of him was really shocked about realizing that Harry knew about his lycanthropy, what boke him was a single thought running in his mind that kept saying "You ran away, Coward!"

By the time he had snapped out of his thoughts the boy had gone away, probably taking his daze as a dismissal.

So now here he sat all by himself wondering about how he could at the very least, being making the amends he should have made years ago, they boy knew about what he was and as suc… suddenly a memory hit him like a bludger Hard, Fast, and unexpectedly, it was when Harry was a newborn and he had come to visit the infant for the second time, during his first visit he had been so excited that he forgot every last one of his worries, his curse, the war and everything bad with the world, the little bundle of joy that was Harry managed to light up his dark and cold world, but during his second visit he had been very nervous about accidentally hurting the boy, especially accidentally inflicting the boy with his curse, upon realizing this Lily had given him a thorough chewing out about how unreasonable he was being, and one of the things that she said were "Remus your biggest flaw is that no one seems to hate you as much as yourself, and one day that will cause you to make a big mistake, thankfully you're sensible enough to recognize that, and when you do I'm sure you will find a way to fix it." taking those words as a pledge he thought, 'No matter how long it takes I'll fix this mess I've made'.

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07:07 pm 31st October, Stonehenge, Wiltshire.

Harry stood in the exact center of the famous monument, when seven lay lines intersected, it was powerful beyond empirical measurement, and it could be used to overcome many limits imposed by the nature of human magic, of course no one in recorded history had been able to harness this power successfully, and the only person to try that, Otto Octavius had spontaneously combusted, there was no foci that could help anyone to regulate the power safely, hence only resulted in failure, but now, now in his hands lay the fabled resurrection stone, something powerful enough to summon shades of the deceased from beyond the after life, and something like that would make his work faster, now he didn't need to keep increasing his strength to follow his original plan and soon by his new calculations his parents would be back by the end of the month rather than three more years it would have taken him otherwise, of course part of that was only possible because today was Halloween, the day the curtain between Life and Death is at its weakest, and he was 13 years old, thus the perfect conductor for the powers of realm of Death.

Then he took out the legendary stone from his pocket along side a white crystal, what he was going to do was quite simple he would pour his power in the stone and summon his parent's souls here and cut their connection to the afterlife using his own as a fuel, it would most likely destroy 60% of his soul, as opposed to the ninety that he would have lost in the ressurection ritual, then he could store those souls in this crystal and over the month create proper bodies for their souls to reside in, homunculi constructs that wouldn't reject their souls, made out of their original bodies, that would take little time.

And then he poured his entire magic in the little stone, and immediately it started a thunderstorm, small quakes began with the henge as its epicenter, but he didn't pay any attention to it, and then the whole world seemingly froze, to be swallowed by an inky darkness and a light descended from its centre, soon an astral apparition of a man formed under the light, and it took Harry no time to recognize that astral figure to be his Father, James Potter, his form was broken and only his face and right hand were visible, Harry expected Lily Potter to be following soon, and his eyes shot towards the light but nothing happened, but then someone called out to him, "Son..".

Harry looked at his father and cocked his head towards the right, then his father spoke again, "It's alright Harry, you'll be alright, but you must let me go, your mother cannot come here and you know why, I know it's not easy, you life hasn't been easy….." his form flickered and Harry focused on the stone, forcing every last bit of his magic in it to make it work.

And his Father returned again, "Harry trust me, you'll learn what I mean today by letting me go, I want you to be free, to be happy, and that cannot happen until you realize that life is more that what it could've been, and more about what it could be, look around yourself, and see the truth for yourself, for the truth shall set you free!."

And then with one shock wave of pure magic their connection broke, his Father's spirit disappeared along with the darkness as if they were never there, and he returned to the monument to find himself lying on the ground, getting up he disappeared once again, just in time before the first person to investigate the site appeared.

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07:08 pm 31st October, Room of Requirements, Girl's Chamber.

Sirius saw as his Godson popped back into existence in the room which was quite, a regular happenstance, and he let out a relieved sigh as the earthquakes had him worries for Harry's well being, though a reaonable part of him knew that the boy could handle himself, but the paternal part wasn't really willing to give a fuck about reason.

And though when he first saw the boy he was more than overjoyed, another look at him made his stomach drop into an endless pit, there was something different about him, something broken, no that was wrong, he knew his godson was broken already and was little more than pieces glued together, but whatever happened ground those broken pieces into specks of dust.

When their eyes met, there was nothing in them, it was different than his usual indifference, darker, malicious, and destructive.

Their moment was interrupted by the girl as she called out to him "Daddy!" which was something of a new development to his credit.

And as his godson turned to tend to the girl all he could think about was how two different times on Halloween had turned their good lives into disaster, which he vocalized with two simple words, "Fucking Halloween".

A/n : That's it for today and Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

See you later!.