Harry Potter

and the Shards of Heaven

Years ago, two gods crashed on Earth after a brutal war in the heavens. Trapped in eternal slumber by Merlin, these gods' presence on Earth has been shaping the evolution of Wizard kind for generations. What can run-away wizard Harry Potter possibly do against a power that can kill a god? Fourth Year AU Harry/Ginny

Disclaimer:

Ghost walked up the stairs from the basement, a five-year-old with fluorescent pink hair sitting on his shoulders, attempting to steer him up the stairs by yanking on two strands of his hair.

"Miracle! Help!" He yelled, pulling himself up the staircase as Madeline giggled.

"Faster!"

"Yes, dear," came Miracle's distracted voice. Ghost, with no small degree of pain and effort, reached the top of the stairs. Miracle sat at the dining table, hunched over the Cosmic Typewriter of Infinite Power. On her lap was her fuzzy white dog, named Pirate for his insistent and bizarre barking whenever Johnny Depp came on TV. Ghost's sister Crystal leaning over her shoulder.

"Onwards!" Madeline cried, twisting his hair in a particularly violent tug. He tripped on the final stair, and they both went crashing to the floor.

"Ow."

"Did you hear something?" Crystal asked.

"I think it was something along the lines of, 'We don't own Harry Potter in any way shape or form,'" Miracle replied.

"Ah yes, that was it. Are you ready?"

"As we'll ever be." Miracle leaned past the typewriter and grabbed a margarita.

"To new stories!" The girls said, clinking glasses.

"Hey, wait, I want one!" Ghost yelled, but it was too late. Miracle pressed the upload button, and they drank.

Chapter 1:

"My research has led me across the world, only to bring me back to where I started. To think that they have been here all this time – two Gods, imprisoned on Earth. I have finally found them. Tomorrow, I will enter their tomb, and I will have the answers I've been searching for my entire life. If I do not return, I have sent a copy of this journal – unfinished – to Hogwarts, and hopefully these words will find their way into the hands of someone who can succeed where I have no doubt failed. I will not return without a way to help my people. I will not fail. I cannot fail."

From the Diary of Merlinus Caledonensis; Earth, 537 Common Era. The last year of Merlin's writings are highly unreliable as a source, as it is widely understood that he was under a curse of unknown intent cast by the Dark Lady Morgana Le Fay.

The sight of a seven-year-old boy grasping a pair of broken glasses in his hand as he walked home from school was so familiar to the residents of Little Whinging, Surrey, that its inhabitants just rolled their eyes at him. In some cases, the conversation within one of the neighbourhood houses would turn to, "the type of riff-raff we don't want in these parts," at his passing. Not one of them bothered to ask the boy with the rat's nest of black hair and threadbare oversized clothes why he was walking home with a swollen eye and a dislocated collar bone. If you asked them, they'd tell you that he'd probably deserved it. The boy – whose name was Harry – had in fact grown so used to this turn of events that he didn't expect anyone to come and help him. In fact, his biggest hope was that the universe would just leave him alone for the duration of his trek home. Maybe, if he were really lucky, he'd make it to his cupboard under the stairs without seeing his Uncle Vernon. If he was caught, he'd most likely be suffering for quite a while. Stopping little Diddykins and his friends from playing their favourite game, "Harry Hunting," was a sure-fire way to earn his Uncle's wrath. And considering his head was very sore right now, he'd rather not add broken ribs to the list of injuries he'd wake up with tomorrow.

But, as the Harry Potters of the Multiverse would tell him if he'd asked; Destiny would never just leave a Harry Potter alone.

That was how young Harry found himself staring into a stormy sky with blurry eyes. Though he couldn't see it without his glasses, he could hear the thunder tearing through the clouds. Rain poured from the dim sky, leaving him thoroughly soaked within minutes. Resisting the urge to laugh at the stupidity of thinking the universe would give him a break, he pulled Dudley's old shirt tighter around him and trudged on, his duck-taped shoes squelching in the puddles on the footpath.

"Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to me…" Harry muttered to himself as he stepped onto Privet Drive. It was an odd thing, birthdays. For one, he'd never had one before. Dudley had birthdays. But he'd never stopped to think that he might have one as well before his teacher had mentioned it that day. It was offhand, a simple comment as he stepped into his classroom that morning, but there it was. He'd been so stunned he walked into Daisy Campbell's desk and fallen over. If that had been the end of it, Harry would have been overjoyed. But Harry's luck was never that good. Dudley had overheard the comment, and Harry was genuinely amazed his cousin hadn't blown a gasket right then and there. But Dudley, despite his bright red face and shaking fists, had maintained his composure for most of the day. Harry had hoped he'd forget entirely. Dudley was quite stupid after all. But he'd definitely remembered, and Harry had been subjected to the worst bout of Harry Hunting he could remember.

He'd tried to be angry, like Dudley, like Uncle Vernon. Being angry always seemed to give them extra strength to use. But all he could bring himself to feel was… empty. There was just nothing to feel. This was how things were. There was no point in questioning it, denying it, hoping for anything different. He'd tried once. He'd followed Milly Brown home and hid in her garden, listening to how her parents loved her and cared for her. It wasn't like Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia with Dudley. She wasn't smothered. It was just there. Comfort and belonging. Two things Harry would never experience for himself. You just had to live with the hand that life dealt you. No more, no less.

It was that mentality, hardened and shaped by more 'altercations' than Harry could remember, that brought him to the front door of Number 4, Privet Drive. Before he could even twist the doorknob, the door jerked open of its own accord, revealing the towering form of Uncle Vernon.

Harry's Uncle Vernon it should be noted, was a very rotund man. He had two chins, meaty fists, beady eyes that looked too small for the size of his head, a bushy blonde moustache, and a large purple vein that ran across his left temple. His maximum possible walking speed was about one kilometre an hour on his best day, and he could only cover about fifteen minutes of that hour before collapsing from exhaustion. It also stood to reason that Harry was terrified of the man.

"YOU!" he snapped, "Get inside this minute!" No chance at all of reaching his cupboard.

Vernon didn't wait for Harry to step inside the house. He grabbed him by the collar and dragged Harry inside, dumping him to the living room floor. Petunia was cuddling Dudley, who was balling his eyes out and thrashing in her grip.

Vernon rounded on Harry, the vein at his temple bulging a nasty shade of purple.

"What did you do to Dudley, Freak!" Harry had never once heard his Uncle call him by name. He hadn't actually known what his name was until his first day of school when he was five. His teacher had berated him for trying to write 'Freak' with his crayon.

"I didn't do anything," Harry said. He kept his tone weak and dejected. That usually made what came next a little easier.

"He did it! He did it! He stole it!" Dudley screamed.

"Hush, hush darling," Petunia whispered, running a hand through Dudley's hair. If Dudley was a perfect clone of his father, Petunia looked the complete opposite. Tall and thin as a rake, with a long, hooked nose and a haughty attitude, she was the type of person you'd expect to be the villain of a Real Housewives show.

"WHAT DID YOU STEAL!" Vernon growled, lifting Harry up by the throat this time. He dropped the broken halves of his glasses and clasped at the hand.

"I didn't steal anything," he choked back.

"He stole my day! My birthday! He doesn't have a birthday because he's a freak!" Dudley raged. Vernon's eyes flashed, and he threw Harry into the kitchen counter. His head slammed into the marble, and he crumpled to the floor, black flecks danced across his eyes. Something silver flickered at the edge of awareness, and a voice seemed to come from far away. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't support his weight, and he collapsed back to the floor. Something wet trickled down his forehead. Harry's stomach twisted into a knot, his head pounding and aching.

Stupid as it was, Harry bit off a laugh.

"Everyone has a birthday, you idiot," he muttered wryly. He coughed again, pulling air into his lungs.

Uncle Vernon kicked him in the ribs, and Harry slid into a wall. This time, when he coughed flecks of blood dripped from his mouth, and an added thickness rose in his throat. Harry closed his eyes and waited for whatever came next. He found that not knowing was easier. He could try and pretend the pain was someone else's. That maybe when he opened his eyes, he would have parents that loved him, like Millie. He found himself wishing for that. Believing in the idea that maybe now he really could get a happy ending, wherever it was that people went when they died.

'Harry!'

Harry's mind floated in self-imposed darkness, waiting for the next kick. He held to that belief. He built in his mind – a scene of himself, just sitting, beneath a Christmas tree with two people, both with thick dark hair and green eyes like his. Belief was the only thing he had in the darkness.

'Stretch forth thy hand!'

No… that wasn't right. He wasn't alone. There was a voice. A feminine voice, speaking his name. A silver light, blazing like the sun, floated just out of his reach, over his shoulder. Sliding away when he tried to see what it was.

'Trust me! Take my hand!'

"Curse the day I took you in! I would have been better off without you or your kind in my life!"

Harry had heard that comment more times than he could count. Another kick crashed into his chest. He wheezed another shaky breath, the image shattered, the darkness returned… and the silver light still pulsed. What was it? It, looked almost like a hand, reaching out from the darkness. There was a feeling… he wasn't sure what it was exactly. Creativity? Energy? Awe? The light grew stronger the more he focussed on it…

'Let me in, please, he's coming for me!'

Instinctively, hesitantly, he reached for the hand in the darkness. His eyes shot open, and the entire house was bathed in bright silver light.

8 years later…

Harry, Emily, James and Makani crouched in the hedges surrounding an old colonial house in East London. The house belonged to an old geezer with a peg-leg and a glass eye, most likely a veteran of some kind, whom Sammy had been watching for several weeks now. Sammy was the Bunker's best spy – aside from Harry, who was practically the best at everything – and she took it personally whenever one of the people from the Bunker spotted a potential predator. He was new to the area, and Martin had seen the man eyeing up people, particularly families with children, while walking along the streets. When he'd reported him to the Bunker's staff, Sammy had predictably stated that she was going to scout the man to be sure… Martin did have a tendency to jump at shadows after all (not that it was his fault, the man had his leg blown off by an IED and didn't see a scrap of government compensation, so being nervous was the least that could be expected from the bloke). Sammy reported that the man was very, very odd. He spent hours watching the street from his window, kept his curtains pulled closed at all times, and Martin had been right in his observation that his eyes lingered too long on the people he met - as if evaluating them. Sammy had also reported hearing screaming and cussing from the house. Together, they painted a grim picture. Which was why Harry and his team, dressed in what black clothing the people at the Bunker could spare, were out here in the dead of night.

Makani flew out of the sky trailing silver mist behind her, wings buzzing frantically. She came to rest on Harry's shoulder, folding her transparent wings around her waist and flipping her wavy blonde hair out of her face. Her silver dress and slippers, as always, were immaculate, and her skin was a pale blue colour.

"Sammy says he hasn't come home since he left this morning. Now is as good a time as any," she said, grinning mischievously, electric blue eyes flaring with excitement. He glanced towards Emily and James. Both of them were a few years older than he was, but they knew he was in charge tonight. He thought for sure it must grate on them, but they gave no sign. Maybe Harry's reputation was just that good these days. The duo nodded towards him; evidently, Makani had made herself visible to them, something she was usually quite loath to do.

Grinning, Harry jumped over the hedge in a single leap. He shouldn't have been able to do it. Not given how short, scrawny and underfed he was. But he made it easily, landing on the grass without even a stumble. He believed he could jump a hedge, so he could. That was how the world worked. At least, it was how the world worked for Harry since he was seven years old. Ever since he met Mak.

Mak jumped off his shoulder, wings unfurling as she backflipped through the air, and flitted to the gate.

"No lock," she said, with a look of confusion on her tiny face.

"Electronic?" he whispered.

"Nope. I can't see any Charge coming from the gate." Harry furrowed his brows. No lock… that could mean that the lock on the door was a very good one, there was something he was missing, or they were grossly wrong about the man.

Harry shrugged. It didn't really matter anyway. He held his hand towards the gate, and a familiar static rushed through him. The gate swung open, and James and Emily slipped inside. They scanned the house for any sign of cameras, but there were none. This man's security was seriously lax.

Harry made to advance to the front door, but Mak flitted in front of the trio, holding up a hand. She dropped down to the pavement and stepped across the stone pathway very carefully.

"Mak? What is it?"

"I don't know… something, foreign. Not of us, but similar."

"That doesn't make any sense," Harry breathed, looking around hesitantly.

"I know it doesn't! I'm as confused as you are," she snapped back.

"Harry, mate, we're sitting ducks right now," James muttered, mirroring Harry's actions.

"Mak…"

"I don't know." Harry held his hand out in front of him and fixated an image in his head. The pathway in front of them, devoid of any traps of any kind. There were no traps for them to trigger because there were no traps. Harry snapped his fingers. Nothing happened.

He advanced down the pathway quickly, his friends following behind. They reached the door, and Mak put her ear to the lock.

"Tumblers," she hissed. Harry nodded. His powers worked in funny ways. If something had a chance – a probability – of occurring a specific way, then, thanks to his bond with Makani, he could make events happen the way he believed it should happen. A footpath that might be full of traps he didn't know were there, could become a footpath that didn't have traps at all. Nylah, the smartest person Harry knew, thought it had something to do with 'Quantum Probability Fields'. Mak had never heard of them before, and Harry had definitely not understood her explanation. Things that were certain, physical, however, could not be manipulated so easily. They required him to use the other side of his powers. The six forces.

Harry drew in a breath, and the tingling in his fingers intensified. He focussed on the pins and pulled them apart. It was really quite simple. The pins in a tumbler lock were held in place partly by the mechanism – made from metal (usually steel or brass). But there was also gravity involved. Gravity was easy for Harry. All it took was a quick jolt of Fusion Force, and the lock on the door sprang open with barely a sound. Harry eased the door open slightly, and the hinges started to squeak. He instantly stopped moving. So, the man wasn't a complete idiot then. Time for some showing off.

He flicked his fingers towards the door and made a circular motion. The static surged into Harry's fingers, and the air suddenly became heavy. Charge Force, according to Mak, was the most versatile of the six forces. More importantly, aside from granting power over magnetism and electricity, Charge was what allowed for the manipulation of waves. Lightwaves. And Soundwaves. This time, when he pushed the door open, no sound escaped the bubble of sound resistant air encompassing the doorway. James and Emily snuck in behind him, and he closed the door.

The house was like most modest sized houses in London. The small entryway Harry found himself in contained a doorway to the left – which would lead to the kitchen, laundry and living space – a staircase in front of him leading both up and down – bedrooms, attic and basement – and a door to the right – the garage.

"Mak, go with Emily and check the bedrooms. James, you've got the basement. I'll once over the ground and then help upstairs," Harry whispered, and they all nodded. Mak zipped up the stairs, Emily stepping far more carefully in her wake. James vanished down the stairs, and Harry took the doorway to the left.

The house looked very mundane. Kitchen with unwashed dishes, a newspaper draped over the arm of a ratty couch. Who still read newspapers anyway? He started rifling through the man's drawers. He could read passably, but he wasn't good by any means. He could speak English, French and German rather fluently though – Bran Alvear, Emily's father, considered himself a bit of a linguist. The papers seemed mostly to be gibberish. Talking about Aurors and Ministries… was the man a government goon? If he was, and he discovered three kids and a faerie breaking into his house, it could mean all kinds of trouble. Or, well, just the three kids really, as he obviously wouldn't be able to see Mak.

No, odds were, this was a bust. Which was very much a good thing, all else considered. Harry had broken into numerous wealthy homes and robbed them over the years, but he only ever stole from those who deserved it.

A crash echoed from atop the stairs, and Harry sprinted. He abandoned the papers and bolted back into the entranceway. He mounted the stairs three at a time, and as he reached the first-floor landing, Mak screamed, "Duck!"

Harry did so, and a jet of red light shot over his head. What the fuck?

Harry pulled the static into his skin and jumped to his feet. The grey-haired man with the peg-leg – the owner of the house – was standing in the hallway, holding a shaft of something directly at Harry. Emily lay frozen stiff on the floor, Mak fluttering above her, rubbing her hands together frantically as she gathered power around her.

The grizzled man smiled wildly. "I knew I was being followed! Sending muggles to test my defences, Death Eaters! I expected more even from you!" The man exclaimed. His glass eye, which on closer inspection didn't look much like glass, was spinning around in its socket like a pinball. His real eye had a mad light trapped within it.

Nylah had long since drilled into Harry how to identify the major mental illnesses on the fly. It was part and parcel of life in the Bunker, where caring for the infirm, the weak and discarded was a part of life. And right now, Harry's brain was screaming PTSD and a touch on the crazy side. Was the thing in the man's hand a gun? There was no blood pooling around Emily's body, so he didn't think she'd been shot. Mak could heal bullet wounds relatively easily – she was quite proud of her healing abilities – so why was she taking so long to revive Emily? She was still fluttering around the older girl. She summoned a sphere of blue light and pushed it between the girl's lips, muttering to herself.

Harry didn't have any time to think about it though, because the next second, another red light shot from the tip of the weapon in the man's hand. Time for some awesomeness. Harry thrust his hand forward, summoning another of his forces, this time the Force of Division. A wall of shimmering space appeared in front of Harry for a moment, absorbing the red light, before vanishing. The man's shock did not last as long as Harry was used to it lasting. Usually, all he had to do was a single trick to leave a person completely dumbfounded, leaving plenty of time to escape. The grizzled man's hesitation lasted for barely a second before more lights were in the air. Crap. Harry twisted his wrist, the Fusion Force surged, and gravity shifted around him. He ran up the wall of the hallway, dodging the lights, letting them fly harmlessly into the doorframe behind him. The man shifted his aim, and the wall Harry ran on exploded. He fell to the ground, but a quick jerk of his hand saw a cushion of wind form beneath him. He landed on it, letting the breeze carry him towards the man, who, incredibly, looked more exhilarated now than he had before. Behind him, Emily gasped a ragged breath, waking up. Oh, thank God.

Harry ducked another ray of light – the weapon was definitely not a gun – and went on the offence. A flash of the hand and the gravity around the man was two times, three times stronger than it should be. His shoulders immediately sagged, and his legs began to shake. Harry leapt off the wind current and tackled the grizzled man. Already struggling from the increased gravity, he crashed to the floor, and Harry drew upon another of his forces: The Strength Force. He placed his palm on the man's chest and pushed softly. Then Harry rolled away. Emily, who had risen to shaky feet, grabbed the weapon from the man's hand and turned it around on him.

Harry groaned and pulled himself up, dismissing all the powers except the Strength bond. He took several deep breaths to try and still his rapid heartbeat. James came rushing up the stairs a few moments later.

"What's going…. Oh. Nice work, Harry."

"Cheers." The grizzled man, relieved of the gravity, attempted to rise but found he could not. He was stuck to the floor. He snarled at Harry and tried to thrash, but Harry's bond held him in place. Strength Force, the perfect glue stick. Harry kept all his concentration on the bond. The longer he maintained an act of power, the weaker it became. The same occurred if he tried to do more than one act at once. If he tried to do two things with the same force, both would fail in an instant.

Mak fluttered down, landing on the man's face.

"He's weird, Harry. Just like the path outside. He's like us. Different."

"He has a bond? I thought you said you were the only one?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"No. It's not that. I'd be able to sense another of my kind this close. I'm sure I'm the only one left. But he has something. A power of his own. Whatever he is, his power doesn't come from Imagination like ours." Harry frowned, now very concerned.

"Polyjuice! That has to be it! Is that you Malfoy? No. Can't be. Malfoy was never that good…" The man started rambling to himself. Listing names, then giving reasons as to why Harry couldn't be the person he named. Aside from the fact that Harry was quite obviously Harry, and not anyone named Lucius Malfoy. Who even had a name like Lucius Malfoy? Harry stepped back, and Emily and James stepped up next to him. Mak was still prodding the man on the ground – who was obviously oblivious to her presence.

"Anything downstairs?"

James shook his head before taking the weapon from Emily, who still looked shocked. Harry placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You alright?" She blushed, her lips twitching into a slight smile.

"Yeah. It came out of nowhere. I opened the door, and this red light hit me. My whole body locked up stiff, I couldn't move at all, and fell over, paralysed."

"Any idea what this thing is?" James asked, handing the weapon to Harry. It was a stick. An elegantly designed stick, but a stick nonetheless. No trigger or metal that he could see. Harry pointed it at the wall and made a jerking motion. The wood heated beneath Harry's hand, and a shock went up his hand.

"Shit!" He dropped the stick, his whole hand going numb. Mak was right. It was a power, but bizarre, foreign, alien to him.

"Fuck. What is that thing?" He shook his hand several times, then sucked on his fingers one at a time. Slowly, feeling began to return, pins and needles tingling beneath the skin.

"You really don't know, do you?" The trio turned back to the man, who had managed to lift his head to stare at them, thought the rest of his body remained trapped. It was a reminder that they had a timeframe. Harry couldn't maintain an act of power longer than a few minutes at a time. The things he did warped reality, but eventually, natural law always reasserted itself.

"Who are you?" Emily asked, adopting Nylah's no-nonsense voice. She made a pretty good impression.

"None of your business. The real question is, who are you? One of you is obviously magical, but you don't have a wand, or even know what one is. A muggleborn that missed Hogwarts selection maybe? But a strong one, so no, Albus wouldn't have missed that. You've got a lot of control kid. Who taught you?" Harry narrowed his eyes at the man. Magic. Mak didn't like that word. It had bad connotations. Like the word fairy, with an 'ai'. She hated that.

"We're the ones asking the questions here," he told the man. He was starting to wriggle his feet. "Answer the lady."

The man scoffed, then paused, staring at Harry intently with both eyes. "That mark on your forehead, don't suppose you were born with that were you?"

Harry subconsciously pulled his fringe down over the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, the one that Nylah said made no sense to her.

"Answer the question," Harry said, lowering his voice in an attempt to be menacing.

The man grinned devilishly. "You've got no idea what you're in for kid. The Ministry won't let this go lying down. Now they'll know that there's an unregistered magical out there. The Aurors will be on their way, given you tripped my alarms to get in here. Let me bring you in. I can help you. Train you up a bit, and you'll be top-grade material." Harry flashed a horrified glance to James and Emily, whose faces had gone just as white as Harry's. Call them what you want, cops were cops, and people like Harry, James and Emily – people whom society didn't care two shits about – were eaten alive by cops.

They bolted.

Down the stairs in a flash, Mak flying at their sides. They bounded out the front door, across the footpath, and through the gate. They ran, ran down the sidewalk, ran until they reached the closest Tube station. Only when they'd changed trains three times did they stop to catch their breath.

"Now that is interesting," Ember said from her position perched atop Ginny's goblet. The flames in her hair had flickered to life, dancing along her ashen black locks. Her eyes, like glowing coals, were fixated on Dumbledore as he sat back down after giving his start of term speech and began speaking to Professor Lupin – the first Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher in living memory to be invited back for a second year.

"Well duh," Ginny said, rolling her eyes as she stood up with the rest of the crowd of students and began to make her way towards the exit. Everyone was whispering in hushed tones to one another, making grandiose gestures and outrageous proclamations.

"That's rubbish. We're seventeen in April! We should be allowed to join," she heard her brother, Fred, exclaim to his friend Angelina. Nobody talked to Ginny, but that was pretty normal. The Triwizard Tournament.

Ember, invisible to all save Ginny, jumped off the abandoned goblet and drifted through the air, keeping pace with her despite being barely taller than Ginny's hand, her pitch-black dress hanging limply from her form. Ginny always found it odd that Ember didn't have wings. All the pictures and drawings said the faerie had wings. According to Ember, in the 'Valley' (the faerie homeland) only sky-faerie had wings. Ember couldn't understand where humans had gotten the idea about them all having wings from and found it quite insulting. Of course, she couldn't remember much about the Valley either.

"No! Don't you see! This could be the very thing you've been waiting for! A chance to prove yourself," Ember beamed, gliding in front of Ginny and folding her arms beneath her breasts.

Ginny sighed in frustration. Ember was always trying to get her to be more energised; more excitable. She loved adrenaline, and Ginny had commented several times that Ember behaved more like an excitement-faerie than an ash-faerie. Ember had instead stated that there was no such thing as an excitement-faerie, then become oddly subdued when she realised she couldn't remember why that was.

"I'm serious. Think about it. If we could enter, and win, everybody would look up to you. We could do it too, just a bit of power and 'bam!' we'd be famous! And then there's the 1000 galleons to think about. Imagine what we could do with 1000 galleons."

"Escape," Ginny whispered hesitantly, as she trailed behind the pack of Gryffindor third years. The bubble of emptiness that surrounded Ginny, devoid of people, was always more pronounced on the stairs. People didn't trust her enough to be on a moving staircase with her. In fact, the group below, of three seventh year girls, lingered at the bottom of the stairs until Ginny had moved onto the next one.

"Exactly. That would be more than enough money. We could buy an apartment, get a job out in the muggle world, away from all the eyes." Ember shivered, looking around anxiously. Ginny couldn't help but mimic her. Was that shadow in the doorway across from her deeper than it should be? She couldn't be sure. She hurried past, her sphere of isolation following unbidden. It was just her and Ember, the same as it always had been since her first year.

She reached the Fat Lady's portrait and followed Ron and his friends Dean and Seamus inside. When Ron noticed her following, he practically jumped in fright, stepping around the other two boys to make sure there was something between her and him. She ignored him, just like she ignored everyone else, and climbed up the stairs to her dormitory. She was just so tired. Couldn't Ember see that? When she told the faerie this, she always responded with the same answer, "You're always tired." She supposed it was true, so she'd stopped saying it. She didn't like the sorrow she saw in Ember's eyes when she thought Ginny wasn't looking, so she tried not to be too lethargic when her only friend was around. She wasn't very good at faking.

Ginny pushed open her door, ignoring the four empty four-poster beds all shoved close to one another near the window. She instead made her way to the red tapestry on the empty side of the room. She pulled it aside and made her way into the hollowed-out gap in the wall. She'd made this passage herself over a year ago now. The one place she could hide from the world. Ember's hair glowed softly, providing a little bit of light. The tunnel, if it could be called that, had been meticulously smoothed by Ginny's own gift. Not magic. She tried to avoid using magic now. It felt alien to her. Foreign almost. The power she used came from Ember herself, though how exactly Ember herself couldn't remember. Ember couldn't remember a lot of things. She, much like Ginny herself, was an infant crawling in the dark. They were almost perfect for one another. She reached the end of the small tunnel and crawled onto her bed. This room had once been a broom closet between the boys' and girls' staircases. Ginny didn't know how long ago it had been abandoned, forgotten, and bricked up, but it had been, and by shoving her bed into the cramped space, she could gain a little bit of privacy. Her own little cupboard under the stairs.

"Will you at least think about it?" Ember asked, sitting down on the smoothed bedpost. It had been taller before Ginny snapped off the four posters to get the bed into the cupboard.

"Sure."

Ember breathed a sigh of relief, and the flames in her hair turned bright blue. They always did that when she was happy.

"Yes! I'm going to go spy on Dumbledore, see if I can learn more about this thing." She vanished in a tongue of flame. Ember was very bad at seeing lies for what they were.

She lay down and tried drifting off to sleep, not even bothering to change out of her robes (she only had the one set, having sold the new ones her mum had bought her after the incident and all but one change of muggle clothes to a second-hand shop to get enough money to open a Gringotts account for herself). But try as she might, she struggled to keep her mind from conjuring images of her as a Triwizard Champion. When she did fall to sleep, Tom awaited her.

Albus Dumbledore was sitting comfortably, eating a lemon drop from the bowl on his desk, when Alastor Moody stepped out of the Floo. Fawkes trilled a greeting, and Albus grinned. He did so love guests, and unexpected ones at that.

"Alastor, it's been too long!" he said, gesturing to a chair opposite his desk. Alastor merely grunted.

"Lemon Drop?"

"Albus. I've got something you're going to want to hear." Dumbledore frowned. Not a house call between friends then. Alastor's magical eye spun about in its socket, no doubt searching for intruders.

"What's brought you here at this time of night?"

"My house was broken into by three muggle children." Alastor leaned back in his chair, not taking a lemon drop, real eye fixed on Albus. "Now, as you can imagine, that's not particularly an issue. Wards should have stopped them. Only, they didn't go off. Not one. They just waltzed inside and started pilfering through my stuff. It was as if the wards had been turned off, then switched back on again. They didn't take anything, but they were looking for something." That was bizarre. Alastor was incredibly paranoid. There was no way he would have let his wards get slack.

"I confronted the bastards and found to my surprise that one of them wasn't as muggle as he dressed or spoke. No. One of them was magical." Dumbledore's eyes widened.

"He performed some sort of shield charm I've never seen before, a gravity manipulation spell and a full body bind, all cast flawlessly, silently, and without a wand, or a visible spell trail." If Alastor hadn't have coughed, Albus wasn't sure he would have remembered to keep breathing.

"All of that? How old was he?!"

"Fifteen, Sixteen. Not sure. Looked old for his age though. But, and this is the good part, Albus, he had black hair, green eyes and a scar made up of jagged lines crossing his face like a lightning bolt; as if…"

"…his head had been cracked open and fused back together again," Albus whispered softly. He took several deep breaths and glanced towards an old trunk stacked on one of his many bookshelves. Two letters, JP, embossed in gold, were visible on the front.

Harry Potter. The boy Tom had tried to kill. Albus thought his plan had been foolproof. Leave the boy with his relatives to protect him from growing up as a legendary hero and developing the ego one would associate with that. If Petunia was a little harsh towards the boy, he didn't particularly care, he'd just come to Hogwarts at eleven slightly more pliable. But no. Something had gone terribly wrong. He glanced toward a framed letter on his wall. A typical Hogwarts admittance letter addressed to "Mr Harry Potter. The Sleeping Bag Furthest to the Right, Row Five, The Bunker, Barking." At the time, he'd gone into a panic. He'd sent all the agents he could to Barking, searching for this mysterious 'Bunker'. He'd learnt nothing. No sign of Harry at all. No one they interrogated even knew of the existence of such a Bunker. He'd even gone to Privet Drive himself. What he'd found was beyond his comprehension. There was no sign Harry had ever lived there at all. Using his Legilimency, he'd discovered that… something… had occurred on Harry's seventh birthday. The event itself had been scoured from every family members' mind. All they could remember was a bright flash of silver light – accidental magic perhaps? Regardless, Harry had run away and never returned. The letter on the wall was the only clue he had, and it had never reached its recipient. Each year he tried to send another, but the Owls – with added tracking charms – had always come back, unable to find the boy.

Now. If what Alastor said was true…

"Your memory if you would Alastor. I need to see everything."

Authors Note:

Hi everyone. To our Gemini Curse alumni, welcome back, to our new readers, greetings from Ghost and Miracle!

This story is our final test before we hunker down and complete our original series of novels. The trial of realism. We've written this story – through the veil of fanfiction – to get a grip on the construction, foundation, and execution of magic systems. Our goal here is about creating a believable and well-realised hard magic system. To do this, we employed the three rules outlined by Brandon Sanderson, the author who coined the terms, "hard and soft magic systems".

1. An author's ability to solve conflict with magic in a satisfying way is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

2. Weaknesses (also Limits and Costs) are more interesting than powers.

3. Expand on what you have already before you add something new. If you change one thing, you change the world.

We believe we've succeeded, but ultimately, that decision is up to you, the readers. So, we want to hear what you think. What did we do well? What did we do poorly? We also recommend readers familiar with Sanderson's work to keep an eye out for references we've snuck in. It goes without saying that everything in the cosmere and all his other works (including the three rules above) belong to him, just as everything Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. We own nothing but our creativity and a keyboard.