Chapter 347: Fated Reunion
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.
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28 March 1995, Hogwarts
Harry Potter disappeared from Hogwarts feeling conflicted. For some reason, the entire country had gone to shit in the few months he wasn't around. Voldemort returning wasn't something he expected, but he had prepared himself for it. The option was always there, especially as the Horcrux in Neville's scar was still intact. The good news was that Voldemort's return wasn't without some severe losses on his side, mainly his serpent Nagini.
Bar Longbottom's scar, that was the Horcruxes gone. Nagini would have been pretty tricky to track down and to be honest, Harry didn't even know if the snake was even a Horcrux in this universe. Still, as far as he could tell, Longbottom was the only reason Voldemort was immortal, and that alone was a problem.
When Neville channelled the scar, he directly made a connection between himself and the soul shard, which wormed its way into his very soul, bypassing his mother's protection, through the boy's family crest. This deepened the bond between Neville's soul and the Horcrux, making it more robust, less flimsy than the one he just destroyed in his counterpart's scar.
It was still theoretically possible, but the killing curse would have to be a lot more powerful for it to work properly. It would have to be a perfect spell, with just enough power to spread the curse between the two of them, without killing either, but with the connection between the soul shard and Neville's soul being severed.
The sheer precision required alone was beyond insane. No, it was literally impossible. The margin of error was so small that any small variation, even something as benign as some extra gases in the air, might change the spell enough and make it too weak to remove the Horcrux, and the lack of any planned air would simply kill them both. Only an act of God, or more appropriately, fate, would save Longbottom. The prophecy wasn't destroyed; it still held power, so it was possible. It just wasn't even close to being probable. It was the true power of fate, to make a slim idea of chance work. It was humbling in a way, but also terrifying.
No, he would not think of Ragnarök. He had more important things to focus on. Daphne.
What had she been up to? Longbottom had told him that she was in her family home and hadn't been seen since the task. He sincerely hoped that she wasn't involved in the war in any way. Voldemort really couldn't have picked a worse time to come back, and publicly at that.
Voldemort was a terrifying wizard, extremely talented, and able to fight Dumbledore to a standstill many times. He had literally gone through enough rituals to empower an army but connected them brilliantly to be able to carve himself a body that could channel enough magic to blow up a village. It was some of the Homunculi of old, which were rumoured to have been created by an extinct family in Germany. He didn't really remember the name, but he remembered being impressed by them. They were created by a mixture of Alchemy, Flesh craft, and Blood Magic. In a way, they were essentially a new breed of magical creatures that were enslaved and used as weapons by creators. They could channel magic in a way that was far superior to any wizard, who was limited by the efficiency of their magical circuits and had to be careful not to strain them.
Like most oppressed races, they inevitably rebelled and massacred their entire family, but barely got to enjoy their victory as they perished a few years later at the hands of the Light Champion of the time, Charlemagne, who saw them as a threat to his conquest of the German lands. Apparently, the battle was a fierce one and the Champion came very close to dying, even ending up severely wounded. But nevertheless, the Homunculi were dead. The few survivors, if there were any that it, probably perished from natural causes. They weren't designed to live for long and were purposefully sterile.
Anyway, from the tales, he could infer that Voldemort found rituals to mimic their physiology somehow, and coupled with his genius, was able to somehow stand up to Dumbledore for years.
He was a terrifying foe, and Lily obviously played him like a fiddle. She probably wouldn't be able to match his spell for spell, but Voldemort's power waned significantly without any followers. With Lily essentially being in control of half the country, she was probably already observing every single potential threat and used her Lycans – which he assumed was an army of werewolves that were as strong as Remus Lupin – to massacre them.
Harry didn't know where she was planning on going with this. It was safe to assume that she knew about the Horcruxes since she probably had a report about what happened to Hermione. However, she probably had no idea how many there were, or what happened to them. It was obvious that there was more than the Diary considering that it was used as a weapon, not as an anchor for Voldemort to revive himself, but Lily was running into this blindly.
She was probably hunting down his Horcruxes and hoped the attacks would delay him enough to kill him. She was probably taken by surprise by Voldemort's return.
The only good news is that Lily was obviously not powerful enough to just defeat Voldemort. He hadn't really been sure about the effects of whatever he had done back in Durmstrang, but it must have done something. Harry remembered how that dimension felt, like a mixture of heat and ash, a world of suffering, decay, and rot, something that his mother wanted to master, to channel into the material plane, even at the cost of killing her own son.
If she had that kind of power, she would have easily destroyed Voldemort. At least, she should have. He wouldn't have died, of course, but he would have lost his body. This was a power that Lily Evans had planned on using against Dumbledore. It was her net of safety and yet she wasn't using it and the simplest reason would be because she couldn't.
Harry couldn't help but feel a small trill of vindication at the thought. Lily Evans had betrayed everyone and everything for this power had fought him, her own blood, and sacrificed him for it, only to lose it in the process, while he was still safe and sound. He had hoped that the backlash would have hurt her as well, but something seemed to have worked.
What he had done was a blind strike at best, a hope for survival, and it worked. Durmstrang still stood, there wasn't a massacre, only Voldemort's return, and most importantly, he was still alive. He didn't know for sure how the backlash affected Lily's dimension. He had no idea what could have happened, but he only wanted it to hurt her.
If he had any doubts about Lily before, they had disappeared after the events of the third task. He knew that the reveal of her working with Dumbledore was bad, but that Hermione had purposefully presented it to break their alliance. They had both overreacted to the news, but the situation was still technically salvageable. But what happened in Durmstrang sealed the deal. Lily Evans was an enemy and would remain an enemy.
However, now was not the time to think of Lily and Voldemort. No, he had a much more important goal.
Daphne.
He needed to see her. He needed to show her that he was alright. He also needed to know she was alright, especially considering what Neville said about her. She hadn't been seen since the third task, and the rumour was that she was in her family home, grieving.
Harry quickly turned back from his avian form as he arrived at the Greengrass family home. To be honest, it was probably rude to just arrive while bypassing the heavy wards so easily, especially since they probably cost a lot of gold to power properly. They were pretty old; it seemed like Hogwarts wasn't the only one with strict wards that could be activated in dire times.
Thinking back, he had been in the mansion exactly once, during dinner back in Summer. Her father was such an asshole. And her mother kept embarrassing Daphne at every chance. It would have been a surprisingly fun dinner if only the Greengrass patriarch hadn't been there. God, that felt like an eternity ago. It was before the bullshit with the European tournament and the broken prophecies. It was even before Lily had even revealed herself.
Any thoughts were completely interrupted as he heard a very familiar song with his Arcane Hearing. His heart stopped and his breath completely caught in his throat. The soft, haunting melody floated through the air, a mixture of frost and nature, like a small forest in winter. It was far less fast-paced than it was before he left. A small tear appeared in Harry's eye. He could feel the sadness that it evoked, the sheer magnitude of the heartbreak.
It was Daphne's song, in the garden. She was using her magic, her family crest specifically, to grow a small garden of flowers around her. Harry walked, entranced, towards the garden, his heart racing with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
He had missed her, in the last few months. He had done his best to stifle the feeling while he was away. It would have been impossible to concentrate on a way back if he kept thinking about her. Her song immediately soothed his own, letting the tension that he didn't even know existed, fade away into nothingness.
As he stepped closer, the vibrant colours of the blossoms seemed to sway in time with her gentle melody, almost like they were dancing just for her. It was a slow dance, as mournful as the blonde's song, but there was so much beauty to it.
Seeing her there, focused and serene, warmed his heart in a way he hadn't felt in a while. He noticed the hint of sadness in her eyes, a slight crease in her brow as she concentrated on her magic. It was clear she was trying to find comfort in her work, but Harry just found himself just staring at her, watching her work.
She obviously noticed that someone else was there, "I thought I told you to leave me alone while I'm practising."
"Daphne," he simply said, his voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to break the spell of the moment.
However, that was enough for whatever magic she was maintaining to unravel. She turned with pure shock in her eyes, which quickly morphed into happiness and disbelief, "Harry?"
He just stared at her as the emotions on her face kept changing, "Is this real?"
Harry nodded, and funnily enough, the whirl of emotions settled on anger, "Where were you?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly, "I thought you were dead. The ground shook for a bit, but that was it. And then Lily came out, saying that you died. I looked for you. I spent weeks looking for any sign of you until I had to leave Durmstrang because my parents were worried about me. This is beyond cruel, Harry. Why would you make me go through this?"
She was slowly tearing up as her voice cracked under the weight of her emotions, and Harry could see the pain etched on her face. Each word felt like a dagger, but it paled in comparison to what he could hear with his Arcane Hearing. He could feel her very emotion in a way that was truly raw, and she was definitely underplaying the agony she felt when he was gone.
He wanted to reassure her, to show her that it was an accident, that he missed her every day, but words failed him. It had never really happened before. He always had something to say, a clever little retort for every criticism, valid or not. But he very rarely found himself truly speechless.
Harry didn't know where the urge came from. It was probably because he couldn't quite find the words, but he found himself closing the distance between them, reaching out to cup her face gently in his hands. With a sudden surge of determination, he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers, pouring everything he felt into that single moment.
When he would look back at it later, he would undoubtedly say that it was the best decision he ever took in his life.
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AN: So, finally, I decided to officially start the romance between Harry and Daphne. I'll be entirely honest, I don't think I'm good at writing romance scenes. I'm more experienced in writing lore and fighting scenes. It was why I kept putting off the start of the romance in this story. I hope I did an alright job and I'm sort of counting on you guys for help on that front. As usual, I don't mind rewriting this chapter, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.