Remnants of a lost age

Harry had always enjoyed the silence of the castle at night, after the hustle and bustle of the school during the day, it was a nice change. But tonight was different. Tonight was his last night at his true home before he had to go "home" to the Dursleys. Tomorrow morning would mark the end of ten months of fun and adventure and the start of six weeks of slavery and neglect with a little bit of child abuse thrown in for good measure.

As he rounded the corner into the transfiguration corridor, the raven-haired boy heard voices up ahead. Harry sped his pace up slightly while still keeping his footsteps silent. He spied a sliver of light under McGonagall's classroom door and put his ear up against it.

"He's just a boy Albus," Came the voice of his transfiguration teacher "he needs someone to be there for him"

"While it pains me to say this Minerva, the prophecy states that Harry will have to kill Voldemort or die trying so he will have to get used to the idea of killing."

This unexpected reply threw Harry off-guard. How could the headmaster say that? While Quirrell's untimely demise at his hands had not bothered Harry, he was still hurt that Albus Dumbledore, famed leader of the light, would willingly sacrifice his sanity if it meant that the dark tosser kicked the bucket a few years earlier. Clearly Harry had missed something during his little moment of realisation as the sound of McGonagall shouting brought him back to the present and Dumbledore replied by reciting the prophecy:

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

Harry stumbled back in shock and fear, his mind reeling at the amount of information it was currently processing. He had to defeat Voldemort. Him. The skinny little freak from Little Whinging had to defeat the most feared dark lord in recent history. Not knowing what to do about this turn of events, he ran. Having had a lot of practise running from Dudley and his gang, Harry was quite fast and could keep running for a fair while. With this in mind, Harry had no idea how far he'd run or how long but when he stopped, he collapsed, exhausted and overwhelmed. But instead of crying or screaming at the unfair load fate had dumped on his shoulders, he laughed at the irony of it all. Just when he thought the craziness was over for a few weeks, something happened that trumped everything so far put together. It was a long time that Harry sat there, slumped against a cold stone wall, laughing, but when he finally stopped, his head cleared up and he realised he needed a way to kill old Moldyshorts because he sure wasn't going to do it by shear magical prowess. He looked around and his eyes rested on a familiar object leaned against the far wall. The Mirror of Erised.

"Maybe this will show me how to defeat Voldemort" He slowly walked up to it with his eyes on the floor, afraid of what he'd see. When he looked up he was not ready for what he saw. Instead of his parents or him defeating Voldemort in some elaborate scheme, it was just his reflection. Punching the wall in frustration, he screamed internally at his luck. Of course, it was too much to ask that the powerful magical artefact to come out of the ten-minute fight between him and Quirrell undamaged. A flicker of movement brought his attention back to the mirror and he saw his Mirror-self turning around and walking out the door. Suddenly the view switched to outside in the corridor and he watched as his Mirror-self made it around many twists and turns and down into the dungeons, where he proceeded to go deeper than Harry thought the dungeons went until he came across a large room. At the other end of the room there was a large circular door fitted into the stone. The door was covered in intricate patterns and looked to be older than Hogwarts itself. His Mirror-self walked over to the door and took a small stone sculpture out of his pocket. It must have been some sort of key as when he inserted into a slot in the middle of the door, the patterns started turning in all over the place and as pieces lined up they receded back into the wall. Mirror-Harry turned around, winked at Harry and put the key back in his pocket.

A sudden weight came into existence in his pocket and Harry gasped in shock. The young wizard reached into his pocket even though he already knew what he would find there but seeing the key in his hand was another thing all together and it set him running of through the corridors. As he careened around a corner deep in the dungeons, he realised that he had no idea where he was going and stopped to get his bearings when suddenly…

"Hey!"

He forced himself not to turn around to see the hated caretaker hobbling towards him as the hood of Dudley's old hoodie could only do so much to hide his identity. He ran around the corner and looked for somewhere to hide. One door near him was open a crack and he slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind him. Pushing his ear against, Harry listened as the footsteps and laboured breathing got louder and louder and then eventually faded away. Breathing a sigh of relief, Harry turned around and slid down the wall until he was sat on the floor. That was close. And now he was lost with no idea how to get to the room with the door. The raven-haired wizard looked up to figure out where he was and saw a familiar door at the other side of the room.

Laughing, Harry pulled himself and walked over to the door, feeling the concentric circles covering the door in intricate patterns. Seeing it in front of him, Harry could see just how old it really looked. This could've been older than Merlin from looking at it but that was impossible. Hogwarts didn't exist until 1000 years ago and that was well after Merlin's time. Harry pulled the key out of his pocket and held it up, it looked just as old as the door and very fragile, like it would crumble into dust if he so much as held it too tight. Gingerly, he inserted it into the slot at the centre of the massive door. As soon as he'd pushed it in fully, he stumbled back as the whole thing started shifting and turning. Some of the weird symbols at the top lined up and a large chunk of the door slid back into the wall. Slowly. More of the symbols lined up and more of the door slid back revealing the expansive cavern that Harry remembered seeing in the mirror. Coloured stones and crystals dotted the walls, some of them glowed, some just sat there but none were like anything the young wizard had ever experienced. He moved over to the wall to his left to see them closer. One glowing green crystal seemed to have a lightning bolt patterned inside it and another green stone had the distinct and unmistakable shape of a leaf. Turning to face the main area, Harry realised he was standing on a ledge a few metres up from the cave-floor. Some steps carved from the rock in front of him leading down to a pedestal with a strange box on it. Walking towards the steps, he took another look around. The cavern really was big, the ceiling was concealed in a veil of mist with only the tips of stalactites visible. To his right strange shapes were embedded in the floor, made seemingly out of a lighter rock. Harry wonder was brought abruptly to an end when he walked straight into the rock pedestal at the centre.

"Oof! Damn that hurt." His voice echoed around the large cavern.

He looked down to see that weird box. Now he got a close-up look, he realised it was made of metal, a little bit bigger than a shoe box and had a weird symbol on it. It was a circle split horizontally down the middle with a smaller circle in the centre. The top half was red and the bottom half was white. He reached out to touch it and jumped back as a line of white light split the symbol directly down the middle. The white light expanded as the two halves pulled apart; once the light had faded, it revealed three metal balls that seemed to be what the symbol was depicting. They a black indentation in a horizontal band around the middle with a white circle on one side. Picking one up, Harry turned it over in his hands and ran his fingers over the small circle, it stuck out slightly- kinda like a button.

The ball opened and a flash of bright, red light made Harry cover his eyes. When the light had subsided and he could see again, there was a weird-looking bird standing in front of him. It was small with a big tuft of white hair and a single red and white feather on its head. It looked at Harry and tilted its head, chirping at him.

"were you inside that thing?" it nodded its head in response. Suddenly, it dawned on the young wizard that he was talking to a bird.

"can you… understand me?" the bird nodded again.

"okay, a bird that understands English," Harry spoke to himself "probably not the weirdest thing living in this castle but I'd bet my Nimbus that it's up there"

"Holy shit!" He paced in front of the bird and buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, it was to see two large avian eyes two inches from his face.

"Aaahh!"

Harry stumbled back in surprise and tripped over a loose rock, landing on his back on the floor. As he was laying there, groaning in pain, the bird fluttered down to land on his chest. Once his head had cleared from the pain, he looked up at the bird and it looked back at him. He reached up and stroked its side with his index finger.

"you're quite cute aren't you"

Harry wasn't sure but he was pretty sure its answering chirp was a resounding yes. Catching sight of the box behind the bird, he remembered that there were two other balls in there that probably had some other weird and wonderful creatures in them. Lifting the bird from his chest, he walked over to it and lifted the second ball out of the box. He hadn't noticed before but this one had a small etching of a sword just above the button to release the creature inside it. A sudden, sharp pain on his hand made him drop it and it clattered to the floor.

"Ow! What the hell!" the green-eyed wizard glared at the bird who'd pecked hardly on his hand.' Harry bent down to pick it up again and the bird landed on it, shaking its little head fiercely.

"you don't want me to open it?" the bird shook its head again

"Uh… okay." He was very confused by this strange behaviour. Why couldn't he open this one? Did it not like the creature inside it?

Deciding to humour his strange new companion, Harry walked over to the box and picked up the third ball. After another flash of bright, red light, Harry's second new companion of the day appeared before him. This one was much stranger than the bird, which had now come to rest on his shoulder and seemed to have finally stopped its constant motion. His new companion seemed to be a black and blue dog standing on two legs, a large black patch surrounded its eyes and nose and it had small metal bumps on its wrists. The strange dog-like creature backed up, raising its… hands? Paws? Whatever they were defensively and narrowing its eyes suspiciously.

"woah there, I'm not going to hurt you " harry spoke in a calm voice, being raised by the Dursleys he could understand not trusting people.

It raised its eyes to where the bird was perched on his shoulder with a questioning look. Harry's strange new friend looked back at the dog, then at Harry then back to the dog as if deciding something. After several minutes of looking back and forth between the two it chirped at the dog happily and fluttered into the air slightly before landing back on his shoulder. The dog nodded and then jumped up and down in happiness, seemingly very excited about something. It ran around in circles around Harry and then jumped up and landed on his other shoulder.

Harry patted his new friend on the head and turned back to the box to retrieve the last item hidden in it. The small red box was about the size of a smartphone he had once seen advertised on the Dursleys TV. It fit snugly in his hand and had a crack going down the side. Turning it around the little wizard saw small hinges on the other side and realised it could be opened. The two screens on the inside flickered to life when he pulled it open and a mechanic voice emitted from a speaker underneath.

"Hello, I am Dexter."

"Hello Dexter, what are you?"

"I am a pokedex, my purpose is to educate young trainers about Pokémon"

"What are Pokémon?"

"Pokémon are creatures that utilize a unique form of energy to bend the elements to their will."

Glancing at the creatures perched on his shoulders "How do I identify Pokémon I don't recognise?"

"point me at the Pokémon you don't recognise and press the small red button to scan them and I'll tell you all of the information I have stored about that Pokémon."

Lifting the dog down to the floor while the bird fluttered down to land next to it, he held the pokedex up to face the dog and pressed the button. Harry stumbled back slightly in shock as a beam of white light shot out of the back of it and ran up and down the dog.

"Riolu, a fighting type, it knows how people and Pokémon feel by looking at their auras. It doesn't approach dangerous opponents."

Turning to face Riolu "so that's your name, Riolu"

Riolu jumped up with an excited noise somewhere between a bark and a squeak and nodded his head furiously.

Turning to the bird "so let's find out your name little guy"

Harry yelped in pain as the bird pecked his hand when he went to pet it.

"Ow! Little girl?" the bird chirped happily in response.

Harry grabbed the pokedex and turned it to face the bird and a second beam of light scanned the bird when he pressed the button.

"Rufflet, a flying-normal type, known as a natural-born warrior, soon after its hatching, it will challenge its parent to a fight in order to gain their acceptance."

"A natural-born warrior, eh? Well we're going to get along great, I'm in Gryffindor, the house of the brave"

After a couple minutes of getting to know his new friends Harry put them back in their pokeballs and went back to the common room to try and get a few hours sleep.