Harry Potter and the Spirit of Revenge
Chapter 14: They Who Came Before

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I'm I doing wrong (to correct it).

Hogwarts
A Hall Near the Gryffindor Common Room

Hermione Granger ran back to her room. She was deathly worried about Harry. Luna ran behind her, and when Hermione stopped for a moment to rest and recover her breath, the small blonde Ravenclaw reached for her hand. "Get your things." She said. "You'll want to take notes, I think. Take my drawing, too."

Hermione stared at her. But at Luna's insistence, she obeyed. While she got her notebook and a quill, Luna talked with the Fat Lady. Nothing of consequence, just asking about how she was. The Fat Lady thrived on attention, and by the time Hermione returned, the two were like old friends.

"Luna?"

"Be patient, he will come soon."

"Who?" she feared it would be somebody from St Mungo's, come to tell the school that Harry was dead.

"Hello, Hermione."

It was a voice she had feared she wouldn't hear again. "Harry! How?" It was, effectively, Harry Potter, but his posture was strange.

He looked exactly like he did yesterday, except he wore his usual Muggle clothes, too big for him. "I… I need to talk to you. Something happened, and I don't know what to do…"

Luna grabbed Hermione's hand, looking at Harry all the time. "Hello, Harry. Green suits you." she said, her voice barely heard. Hermione stared at her, she had never seen Harry with any piece of green clothing, but for some reason, he had a very strange expression on his face.

Hermione broke him out of his thoughts. "Harry, what happened? You are supposed to be at Saint Mungo's!"

He smiled crookedly. "Yes. I guess I am. But let's go somewhere else. I want to tell you everything, but not here, I don't want to be seen." He extended his hand.

Hermione grabbed it without hesitation, though she noticed just how cold it was. Luna extended her own hand. "I'd like to go too, Harry."

He did hesitate, and turned towards Hermione. "She knows more than I would think possible. She knew you would come."

Harry thought about it, but soon he decided, and took Luna's hand. She flinched minutely at the contact with his cold skin.

Grimmauld Place #12

Sirius Black sat bonelessly on a stuffed chair, absently drinking a cup of coffee, watching over the mysterious woman Harry had brought with him. She was a complete unknown. Her features Asian and exotic. No doubt she was beautiful.

Once again, he wondered who she was, and why Harry had brought her to his prison. Harry hadn't told him that.

Suddenly, three people materialized next to him. In complete silence. Once again, bypassing completely the wards. He didn't even feel their arrival.

"Hermione! Harry! And..?"

"Luna Lovegood, Sirius. She's a friend." Hermione answered, while Luna bowed.

"Pleased to meet you, Lord Black."

"Um… uh… welcome to my house, but I am no Lord, so, just call me Sirius. Now," he turned towards Harry. "would you like some tea or coffee?"

"Nothing for me, Sirius." Harry answered, looking at his guests.

"A tea would be nice, Sirius." Luna answered, primly sitting next to Nagini.

"Kreacher! Tea. And be nice to my guests!"

An old house elf appeared a moment later, his face twisted in disgust, but silent; levitating a tray with a teapot, and four sets of cups and saucers. A platter of biscuits next to the teapot. He deposited everything on a low table, and left silently, without waiting to be dismissed.

Suddenly, Hermione remembered Luna's warning, her relief at seeing Harry again and in good health had distracted her.

She brought Luna's drawing from her pocket, unfolded it and gave it to her friend. "Harry! You are in terrible danger! I don't know who he is, but the Man in Green is after you! You must do something! Flee! Hide! I don't know!"

Harry took the drawing, looked at it for a whole minute, his brow furrowed. Silently, he passed the sheet to Sirius, whose eyebrows almost disappeared under his tangled hair. "Where did you get this?"

"Luna had a vision. She drew it while I was waiting for you at the Hospital Wing."

Soflty, Harry said. "I have nothing to fear from the Man in Green, Hermione."

"But..! Harry! Just look at what he did to the Death Eaters! He could kill you!"

He stood, and stared deep into her warm brown eyes. He sighed, with infinite sadness, "Voldemort already killed me, Hermione."

"Oh, God! He poisoned you? Cursed you? There must be an antidote!"

He shook his head. "No, Hermione. He already killed me. A Killing Curse."

"But, then…"

"I have nothing to fear from the Man in Green, as you call him." He began to grow taller, while his clothes changed around him. In a moment, Harry Potter was gone, and in his place, stood the cold and angry figure of the astral avenger, "I am him, and he is I; for I am the Spectre."

Hermione almost fainted, but controlled herself. For once, she had so many questions she remained silent. Her mouth opened and closed several times. "Oh, Harry…" she managed to say. "What have they done to you..?"

Impulsively, she hugged the Spectre. It was like standing inside a mausoleum. But she held on to her best friend, crying freely.

The Spectre stood there, immobile, for long seconds; while Hermione cried on his chest. He looked at Sirius, asking silently for advice. The man mimed a hug. Luna nodded enthusiastically.

Slowly, hesitantly, the Spectre hugged her too. Gradually, the grim figure of the Spectre was replaced by Harry Potter.

He held Hermione in his arms until she finished crying.

She awoke to the sounds of sobbing. There was loss and sadness in those sobs. But somehow, there was some relief, too.

Nagini opened her eyes and looked around. Standing close, she saw her ma… her friend and saviour, hugging a girl as if she was his only hope of salvation. And she hugged him with the same desperation.

Next to her, on the couch, a teen girl looked down at her, and put a pale index finger over her own lips, asking for silence. Nagini nodded. Instinctively, she blinked.

She blinked!

Decades has passed with her eyes covered by a hard transparent shell. She had no eyelids to blink with.

Somehow, she managed to raise a trembling hand, and studied it for a long time. Her hands were back! She looked down, marvelling at having a human body again!

She wanted to run, to scream, and dance!

Laughter bubbled on her mouth, and tears ran from her eyes. She covered her mouth with both hands, stifling the sounds that threatened to come out in a rush.

Tears!

She could cry again!

Silently, a man with long and tangled black hair, streaked with grey, extended a hand to her.

She took his hand, and stood up clumsily. She almost fell down. The man grabbed her by the waist, smiling apologetically, and helped her walk. Nagini looked at the teen girl, still sitting on the couch, the girl nodded at her.

The man guided the former snake to a hall, where Nagini saw the portrait of an old woman, looking angry and scared at the same time.

The man glared at the portrait, and put a finger over his lips, demanding silence. The old woman turned around so she would not look at them.

Slowly, they went up the stairs, one step at a time. Nagini exulted on the feeling of the hard wood under her bare feet. Everything she felt, everything she saw, was a new wonder. Her senses felt both strangely dull and wonderfully acute.

The man whispered. "My name is Sirius Black. My godson, Harry, brought you here. So, you are a guest in this house. I guess you'll want to rest a while. I'll leave you in a bedroom, I'll send a house-elf with a change of clothes and a bathrobe and towels if you want to take a bath. Some food too. Something light would be appropriate, I guess. If you need anything else, just call for Kreacher. I'll instruct him to treat you like the guest you are."

With some difficulty, Sirius opened a door, and guided Nagini inside.

Back in the parlour, Hermione finally had finished crying. Harry looked deeply into her eyes, moved by her emotions. He knew in his heart that he had taken the right decision. He would protect Hermione from any harm. Even to the cost of his own soul.

"What happened, Harry? How come you are this Spectre? I saw a man who looked like you do now in the news, last year, green hooded robe, tight white shirt and all (1); and he destroyed a whole country! Last night, the twins showed me a very old book, with a woman who looked alike to… to the Spectre, killing some Roman soldiers!"

"I… I didn't know that..."

Harry passed a hand over his hair. "Now that I think about it, I have some questions too. There was a man who said he would tell me more. I just have to call him, but I don't know if he could cross the wards."

Sirius came back right then. "I could add his name to the book, just like I did for Winky."

"I'm not sure if that would work, he said he is known as the Phantom Stranger."

A shadow coalesced at the end of the room, and the mysterious man appeared. Hermione and Sirius gasped, at his arrival. Sirius mumbled something that sounded like "I need to update the wards…"

"My apologies for the intrusion, Mr. Black. I promised Mr. Potter I would come when he called for me." Respectfully, he tipped his hat, but didn't remove it, its shadow was disturbingly deep, hiding his eyes completely. "The Presence has decreed that the new Spectre know about his predecessors, and I have been sent to impart that knowledge. I was not instructed about any witnesses, so I will leave that decision to Mr. Potter."

"Will they be safe?"

"Your friends will not be harmed, but knowledge can be dangerous. Few are the individuals who are entrusted with this knowledge, and a price must be paid. Sooner or later. I can't know what will it be, should you chose to know."

"My grandmother told me about you, Stranger." Luna said, putting the bowl back on the table. "Harry has already paid his price, if there is a price to pay, I will pay too."

"Miss Lovegood. This is a grave matter. Are you sure?"

"I am. If it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for Harry, I wouldn't be here."

The Phantom Stranger kept silent for a few seconds, "Your grandmother was a very brave woman. It was a privilege to meet her." He bowed respectfully, and looked at each of the present with his inscrutable, shadow-hidden eyes. And took possession of a chair as if it was his throne.

"Untold aeons ago, the Presence, the Creator of the Universe, designated parts of themselves to perform specific functions. You might think of them as something close to gods or maybe angels. You would be both right and wrong at the same time, for human minds were not made to understand these matters."

At a silent wave of his hand, images appeared around them, replacing Grimmauld Place, however, the furniture remained in place. Sirius almost fell from his chair.

They looked at each other for a few seconds, the Stranger continued. "For a long time, these Aspects performed their tasks, but eventually, the Aspect of Wrath rebelled against the Presence. This is the same entity who expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden, who razed Sodom and Gomorrah, who flooded the Earth; and many other feats of destruction." They saw an impossibly beautiful garden being destroyed by fire, two cities perish in unspeakable violence, a titanic wave covering the lands.

Hermione raised her hand to ask a question. Her voice trembled when she asked "Was that the Spectre?"

"No. This is an older entity. Now known as Eclipso (2)" he shook his head. "I will come back to him later. For the moment, know that he exceeded his limits, and was cast down as the Spirit of Wrath, and then replaced by another entity. This second Spectre-Force was responsible for the Ten Plagues of Egypt, for example." They looked helplessly as the lands of Egypt were struck by one plague after another.

The Stranger paused for a moment, to put his teacup back on the saucer. "Eventually, the Presence sent the Forgiveness Aspect. But this aspect could only stay on the world for a short while. When he was born, the Wrath Aspect was consigned to Limbo, for how can Wrath and Forgiveness walk the Earth at the same time? It was when the aspect of Forgiveness met his pre-ordained fate that things changed." They saw a hill, crowned by three crosses made of wood, each one holding up a martyred prisoner. Hermione gasped, burying her face in her hands.

A monstruous skull, with eyes full of madness, erupted from a volcano, destroying the land around it. "This day was to be known as Dies Irae. The Day of Wrath. The entity would have destroyed the whole world, to avenge the death of the Forgiveness Aspect."

He allowed them to settle for a while. "However, it was stopped by force, and it was decreed that, from that day on, Aspects of the Presence could only walk the Earth if joined to a human soul. A soul compatible with each aspect would be selected among the recently dead, and be offered the choice between continuing to the Afterlife, or join the Aspect and be its awareness."

"The first Aspect to have a human partner was precisely Wrath. Forgiveness' blood was still fresh on the land it had been spilled on, so the Aspect of Wrath was sent to a far away land. India. Where a man and his family were cruelly murdered. This man, Caraka, was the first Spectre, as it is still now."

A thin man bled to death, next to a woman and a child, dead by knife wounds. The man's soul vanished into the darkness. "Caraka ranted about the injustice of the world, about the death of his family. And when the goddess Kali offered him the choice between returning to the reincarnation cycle or go back to avenge the murdered innocent, he took the second option." Caraka's soul joined the same unfleshed skull-thing they had seen before, changing him into a four-armed ghost, with a different bladed weapon in each hand. His skin was white as chalk, and he wore a green hooded cape and a loincloth of the same colour.

"For a hundred years, the Spectre fulfilled his mission. Imparting gruesome revenge on any murderer fated to meet him." A succession of gruesome acts of revenge followed. The Spectre was absolutely merciless, delivering the most bloody fates he could inflict with his blades. Rare was the criminal who was not found in pieces. And those, met similarly painful ends. Crushed, burnt to ashes, turned into statues and then broken to rubble.

"I don't know what happened to turn Caraka from the path he had chosen. I know a few years after his fall from grace, a new avatar was chosen." Hermione inhaled brusquely when she saw the next person to wield the power of the Spectre.

"That's… that's!" she tried to speak.

"She was known as the Banshee. I see you have heard of her."

Hermione nodded frantically. "The Twins showed me an old engraving, showing her killing Roman soldiers."

"She, as the Spectres are wont to do, had good reason to want revenge. Defiled by the same soldiers who tortured and killed her family; her limbs broken and twisted, and she was left to die of exposure next to the broken remains of her sons and daughters. This, I will not show to you, in deference to her wishes."

"You knew her?"

"I am much older than I look, Mr. Potter. I roamed the Earth in search of Forgiveness for a long time. (2) Enough to say, I have been a part, and mostly been apart, of Wizarding Britain since its foundation, in King Arthur's time. I was there when Camelot was built. And I was a witness to its fall."

Luna put her cup on the saucer. "You must have seen so many things. Have you ever seen a Crumple-Horned Snorkak?"

"I have. Rare is the wizard or witch who can find them." He waved his hand, and from behind a chair, a bizarre creature peeked out. Luna's eyes lit up with joy. The creature sniffled the place. And finally, curled up to sleep at Luna's feet. She caressed the creature, and whispered a word to the Stranger, "Thanks."

"You are very welcome, Miss Lovegood. Unfortunately, this little one cannot stay with you. her family would miss her too much. In a few minutes, she will go back to her family's nest."

"Oh…" Delicately, she picked up the creature, and put it on her lap, where it continued snoring softly. Until it vanished into thin air.

For the next hour, the Phantom Stranger showed them a succession of avatars of the Spectre Force. All of them met sad fates, both in life and in death.

Until the last Spectre arrived. Jim Corrigan.

Harry already knew about how he had come to wield the Spectre's power. He kept silent while the Phantom Stranger revealed Corrigan's story, thinking.

"Last year, the Spectre faced his predecessor, Eclipso, who is an Entity of pure malice and destruction. His last incursion put the world a step away from destruction, usurping the previous Spectre's will, and almost destroying the world. A group of magical heroes, including myself, tried to stop this corrupted Spectre, but he was too powerful for us. However, in the end; the true hero was a regular human. A man gifted with no power, but simple human compassion. He reached to the tormented soul of Jim Corrigan, and brought him back to the light."

The Stranger took a sip from the teacup. An action that made him look somewhat more human.

"James Brendan Corrigan managed to break the cycle, with help from his friends. He was the first Spectre not to condemn themselves to damnation, instead, he earned back his place in Heaven (3). And, in doing so, he prompted a change of the rules. No other Spectre shall begin their mission ignorant of the dangers to their souls. I have been sent here to offer you council, if you accept it. There are others in this world who would be worried about the dangers a newly awakened Spectre might pose. I asked a few of them to not disturb you. Others are outside my reach, for several reasons I am not at liberty to discuss. And lastly, as you are a child of portent and prophecy, I am allowed to introduce you to another who carries a similar weight on his shoulders."

The mysterious man waved a hand again, and the group found themselves back in Grimmauld Place.

"Unlike your predecessors, Mr. Potter, you are gifted with a deep well of compassion. I trust you will carry your duties with a zeal tempered with that same compassion."

Harry stood up, facing the Stranger. "I will. You spoke of Corrigan's friends. Couls I speak with them?"

"One of his allies is coming to England as we speak. She will make herself known soon. In the meanwhile, I must leave you, my own duties call."

Unlike the noisome methods of wizards, he departed in complete silence. The Phantom Stranger vanished as if he was made of mist.

Harry sat down on his chair. Hermione took his hand in hers, while Luna did the same with his other hand.

Author Notes:

(1) Actually, the Jim Corrigan version of the Spectre wore no shirt, but the image quality in the news was not good enough for Hermione to notice that detail. She simply assumed there was a shirt.

(2) For this story, I am keeping to the first of the four possible origins of the Phantom Stranger, as shown in Secret Origins issue 10 (Jan, 1987)

(3) This is a very short recap of the Ostrander-Mandrake run in The Spectre. Again, I say it is one of the finest examples of how to weave a great story for a difficult character.