Unusual ending 9/?? - part 2

[herumtreiber]

Title: Unusual ending - chapter 9
Chapter: nine
Author:herumtreiber 
Genre: Slash, time travel, romance, adventure
Disclaimer:  I do not own Harry Potter or related characters. Nor do I make any money from the writing of these stories.
Rating: R
Warnings: Sexual content
Epilogue compliant? No way!
Chapter length: 4621 words
Beta: None.
Summary: Old meets new. Harry walks all over Draco's heart, and when he realizes his mistakes he does the unforgivable so Draco takes him back. Time travel. During HBP, disregards Deathly Hallows - that means everyone's alive, except Sirius, but...

Table of contents



The trouble with elves - part 1

After he visited Hedwig in the Owlery, Harry was making his way to dinner. He saw Tonks up ahead in the corridor. Her hair was pink and she was whistling to herself when she saw the Gryffindor up ahead.

"Wotcher, Harry! You haven't seen Remus around, have you?"

"Well, I had class with him in the morning. I don't know where he is right now."

Harry frowned, remembering Hagrid's mention of a ring. Maybe he could get that information from Tonks, who was in the Order.

"Hey, Tonks? What do you know about a special magical ring?" said Harry, sporting a disarming grin.

Tonks fingered the edge of her robe, wondering if she should confide in Harry or not. Frankly, she hated the way Dumbledore and the Order kept things from Harry, when he was frequently the target of Voldemort's carefully constructed plots. She'd even heard mentions of a prophecy.

Really, if Harry was destined to vanquish Voldemort, they should at least provide him with the timely information he needed to do so.

Tonks leaned to Harry and whispered conspiratorially, "Dumbledore is looking for a certain ring. It is supposed to be a relic of some type."

She took out her wand and toyed with it, and then she cast an Imperturbable Charm around them.

"Dumbledore didn't tell the Order why it was so important, but while Remus and I were researching" - she looked earnestly at Harry – "for ways to vanquish You-Know-Who for good, we spent a week in India.

Wonderful place and food, though it was too spicy for Remus. You'd think that a werewolf would have a stronger stomach. But that's Remus for you," said she, chuckling.

Tonks whispered in Harry's ear, not trusting that the charm would hold determined eavesdroppers. "Remus and I wondered why it is that You-Know-Who came back from the dead when he supposedly was hit by his own Avada Kedavra."

Harry observed that Tonks' hair was getting darker, that wasn't a very good sign.

She looked around and continued, "Remus thinks that perhaps he…" Tonks gulped and tried to explain what they had surmised.

"… You know what Hindus think about reincarnation?" said Tonks tentatively.

When Harry nodded, she added, "Well, what if Voldemort is able to somehow reincarnate? There was a certain Veda text… What if he…"

She struggled to find the correct words. "What if he anchored himself to some object of this world using Dark Magic, so he's able to live again?"

Tonks hesitated, and when she looked at Harry's earnest face, she resolved to continue. "Remus and I, we believe that the Headmaster thinks that's the reason You-Know-Who survived, and Albus is looking for these anchor points.

But Remus…" Tonks' voice became softer as she rubbed her stomach. "He's so cautious and thoughtful. He'll be a great father, won't he?"

She returned to the issue at hand. "Anyway, Remus thinks that the object must be protected by powerful spells, so if anyone finds those things they must be very careful. You understand, don't you?"

Tonks shuddered. "I'm sure You-Know-Who has these objects. Maybe he's been alive for thousands of years, and that's why there was that drawing of him in Ayers Rock.

Perhaps he never remembers his past lives, he never learns and is stuck in the wheel, he'll never attain Nirvana." With that, Tonks swished her wand and ended the charm.

Harry recalled that Dumbledore was coming back today. Knowing the way the Headmaster stumbled into evil things without a plan – he sighed, thinking about fake Moody and the Goblet of Fire - Harry had an inkling that he would just go and get hurt by this ring.

He hurriedly said goodbye to Tonks and walked to the stairs to go to Dumbledore's office.

When he was several yards away, Tonks called back to him.

"By the way, Harry, we decided on a name. If it is a boy, Teddy." She shrugged carelessly, her hair a wild riot of fuchsia. "And if it is a girl, anything but my name."

Harry waved his hand and smiled before he turned back to the stairs.

He ran to the Headmaster's office and when he got there he muttered, "What was that password again." He smacked his head. "Nuggets? No, Snickers!"

The gargoyle moved aside and Harry sprinted up the moving spiral staircase. He arrived at the door and paused for a moment, hearing a discussion inside.

"…I'm telling you, Albus, my Gryffindors are running wild. First Potter and Malfoy become a couple." McGonagall sniffed disdainfully. "You might remember the last time a Slytherin and Gryffindor were together." She continued on a sombre note, "You might recall how that affected Severus."

Harry gasped, mentally gagging when he thought of his mother and the greasy git falling in love.

Harry listened carefully to the discussion inside the Headmaster's office, "… Granger is intent on transfiguring herself as a man and pursuing … forbidden pleasures."

Harry goggled, and he heard several muffled gasps coming from the room.

"I'm sure it is all a misunderstanding, Minerva," replied Dumbledore calmly.

Harry reclined against the door and heard Dumbledore say, "And now, Hagrid, the ring if you please."

Harry burst into the room and found the Headmaster seated behind his desk. He noticed Dumbledore's fuchsia robes were the same shade as Tonks' hair; he had a magenta hat and his beard was tied with a silver cord. Dumbledore was holding a gold ring with a black stone, inscribed with strange squiggly lines. The Headmaster was about to put it around his middle finger when Harry shouted, "Don't! Just don't do it, sir!"

Harry took out his wand from his pocket and waved it towards the ring. He levitated it away from Dumbledore's hand and onto the desk. He chanced to gaze into the Pensieve and noticed the reflection of the light upon its rippling surface. Perhaps Dumbledore was using it, before he was joined by McGonagall and Hagrid.

"What are yeh on about, Harry?" said Hagrid in a surprised tone.

"The Headmaster sent me to look for the ring to that Gaunt house-" Hagrid stopped and looked at Dumbledore, realizing he had blurted out some information the Headmaster probably wanted kept secret.

Dumbledore steepled his fingers and said calmly, "It is all right, Hagrid. I'm sure Harry has good reasons to act this way." The Headmaster sighed, thinking that now he would not get to use the Resurrection Stone to apologize to his mother and sister, after all the trouble they had finding it; luckily Hagrid was a half-giant and therefore unusually resistant to magic, he was able to resist the traps in that house.

"Sorry, sir. But I reckon that thing must be dangerous if it is from Voldemort," explained Harry.

Hagrid and McGonagall gasped when they heard that dreaded name spoken out loud, while Dumbledore nodded sadly to Harry.

The Headmaster looked at Harry inquiringly, lifting an eyebrow.

"And how do you know that, Harry?"

"Well, sir…" Harry fidgeted, thinking about a good explanation. He stammered, "R… read it on a book in the Restricted Section… it was charmed!"

McGonagall shook her head and mumbled under her breath, "Just what we need, another unseemly book!"

After the head of Gryffindor House took the box that contained the ring, she went back to her office with a curt nod to Dumbledore. Hagrid stayed to talk with the Headmaster about his trip.

Harry made his excuses, thinking about the Room of Requirement, where he'd meet Draco.

---

Draco paced in front of the tapestry of the dancing troll the required three times, thinking about the room he wanted to meet Harry in.

When the door appeared, he hastily ducked inside when he espied a small shape materializing nearby. It was someone that Draco had noticed stalking him.

He closed the door, remembering the melodramatic house-elf. He knew Dobby's obsessed ways, having lived with him for several years. It was a chore living with two primadonnas - his father and Dobby.

When he was five years old, Draco made the mistake of telling Dobby about Harry Potter. Draco had been a bit obsessed with the Boy-Who-Lived in his younger days, and Dobby shared that obsession, unfortunately.

After Harry refused his friendship and Draco became his enemy, Dobby chose Harry. Naturally. The elf didn't look kindly upon Draco's schemes regarding Harry, to put it mildly.

Draco took out his tie and put it on the antique chair that was next to the bed. He shook his head. There was something a bit odd about the bedroom tonight, it seemed a little different.

He sat on the bed, wondering if Severus would call him tonight. Voldemort had not called upon his spies for some time and it was worrisome. Maybe the Dark Lord was beginning to distrust them? That could prove to be deadly.

Last time they'd been to his hideaway, Voldemort had been gloating. He'd spoken in Parseltongue to his loathsome snake. Draco couldn't stand the sibilant sounds of that language; it made him think of dank, dead corridors. His father loved it when Voldemort spoke that language, and that made Draco detest it even more.

He looked up when a popping sound indicated the arrival of a house-elf.

To Draco's dismay, Dobby appeared next to the door. He was wearing some Muggle clothes and several woolly hats.

The elf rubbed his hands maniacally. "Dobby will stop your schemes against Harry Potter!"

Dobby grinned maliciously. "Dobby heard… you want to pound poor Harry Potter into the mattress!" The small elf advanced menacingly on Draco, who was wondering from whom the maniacal elf heard that.

The elf snapped his fingers; he pointed upwards and a big cauldron appeared floating in midair. "Dobby will stop that!"

Draco was too stunned to react. He looked to the door when he heard another popping sound.

A wrinkled house-elf appeared. He had white tufts growing out of his floppy ears and wore an old rag around his hips.

"… Kreacher will save the pureblood who should be his master from this scum." Kreacher glared at Dobby, who turned and scowled fiercely at the newcomer.

The two elves approached each other like miniature Sumo wrestlers. They started to fight. Soon they were rolling on the floor, wrestling intently. The cauldron fell to the ground with a crashing sound and viscous liquid spilled onto the marble floor.

Draco reclined against the bed, enjoying the entertainment. He was used to Dobby and his antics; the elf usually fought with other Malfoy elves. Then Draco sat up with a start, realising that if Dobby won, he would probably conjure another cauldron. He shook his head ruefully and took out his wand. Thinking about the final movement of Mahler's Ninth, he intoned, "Adagissimo."

When the two elves stopped moving, he swished his wand at Dobby and bound him.

Draco eyed the old elf who wore the rags; he seemed a bit familiar to him. His champion - apparently called Kreacher - looked a bit tired; so walking gingerly around the spilled liquid, Draco carefully put the old elf upon the chair.

Sighing, he made his way to the door. Dobby had ruined the mood for his rendezvous with Harry. He'd send his boyfriend a note postponing the meeting.

Draco walked out the door. He didn't hear a gasp coming from inside the room. A little bit later, the chair and Kreacher disappeared.

10. The Chairman - part 1