Chapter 257: Fire and Blood

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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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1 November 1994, Beauxbatons, France

Sirius Black, he used something similar for his phasing trick. Was this woman using the same dimension somehow? The only person connected to it other than Black was… "Lily Potter…"

He hadn't realized that he had said that out loud, but the woman froze, her wand in her palm, before slumping slightly, "Hello, Harry."

It was hard to quantify what was going on inside Harry's head. Calling this situation complicated would have been an understatement. It was something that he definitely did not need, especially with Dumbledore's return and the inevitable return of the Great War.

He did not need a mother, especially at the age of fourteen. That hadn't always been the case. Harry remembered when he was younger, in those old days in the Dursley home, when he watched enviously as his aunt doted over her son, wishing that one day, someone would give him even a fraction of Petunia's affection for Dudley. It was a nice dream in a home with very little for a growing mind to experience. After all, it was his dreams of a better future that pushed him to keep fighting, and not succumb to the sad fact that he was ignored by his only living relatives.

Of course, he had grown past this ridiculous dream, maturing enough to understand that the Dursleys' behaviour was a mark against them, not him. The memories of his previous life sealed the deal. Harry definitely did not need a mother, but the child he used to be would have done anything for one.

Unfortunately for him, his mother happened to be a psychopathic woman who had murdered her husband and probably caused one of the biggest catastrophes that magical Britain had seen in decades. It was sad that her body count was probably higher than Voldemort's.

He knew that she could be alive since the resurrection stone hadn't summoned her, but he had assumed that she was trapped in whatever dimension Sirius Black was connected to. Even if she had died there, her soul wouldn't have been recorded by the magic in his dimension, and the stone also wouldn't have been able to summon her either…

Which brought him to another point. Sirius Black's crusade was built entirely on his hate of Lily Potter. Considering that he never really tried to go after her, it meant that she was either trapped and escaped, or he didn't know that she was back. Harry was leaning towards the former.

Deciding to test his hypothesis, he spoke up, "When did you escape?"

The woman stiffened once more before righting herself, "A few months…"

"So, around the time of the Third Task of Hogwarts' tournament?"

"You're very perceptive. At least you got something from me… How did you know that it was me?"

"Your magic. It came from the same source as whatever Black was doing. He was the key, wasn't he? And when he died, he let you out. His soul must have been forced to reunite before passing, even as he died in both dimensions. The rules of death created a temporary gate to do so, and you used this to come back while keeping a connection to the realm you were trapped in… Like a key to a lock."

The woman did not respond immediately, and instead waved her arm, letting the shadows obscuring her face disappear. Harry never really had any photos of his parents. He never saw the point of them. The dead were dead, and he never had the time to know them enough to mourn them. However, he was surprised when he realized just how much he resembled her. Outside the obvious, like their exact same eyes, Harry noticed that they had the same nose, the same cheekbones… A lot of small details that he never really looked for became apparent. It was different now that he was seeing her, this was really the woman who had given birth to him… his mother.

Even their smiles were similar, "Well, at least you didn't inherit James' mind. That would have been disappointing."

"You're very casually talking about the man who you killed in cold blood."

The woman flinched but the reaction was gone in a fraction of a second, "I never wanted to marry James. I didn't hate him, but he wouldn't have been my first choice… I married him for protection, not that it worked… Killing him was a last resort. You have no idea what it was like that night, in Godric's Hollows. I read the history books, and they barely mention anyone but the Lestranges and Crouch Junior. They did not say anything about the hundreds of mercenaries from the Unspeakables, nor did they mention the light-infused wards that Dumbledore cast so that no one could leave. I could have risked my life and fought, but I just couldn't risk you… And so, desperate times called for desperate measures."

"And James Potter paid the price for it. However, there is something that I just don't understand… I researched the idea a lot, and from my calculations, even a human sacrifice wouldn't have been enough to cause the devastation that you caused…"

The redhead looked ecstatic about the question as if she had waited for years for someone to ask her about this, "Well, that's because a human sacrifice wouldn't be able to. I did not use James' life force to power a spell. I respected him enough not to do that. It wouldn't have been able to destroy the village, let alone break the walls between realms. But a broken prophecy, well, that's a whole different thing."

"A broken prophecy? Isn't that a contradiction?" Harry asked, confused by the concept.

"You were there when I gave your friend an explanation about blood magic. A magical promise is like creating order out of chaos, and the world does its best to make it true. However, if it's broken, then the results are unpredictable. The energy of the promise is released explosively with just chaotic results. Now, think about it, what is a prophecy other than a promise from fate itself? Breaking a prophecy, making it so that there is no way it could be fulfilled, well, the energy release is simply incalculable, and if someone harnesses it... Imagine that, the power of Fate itself, in the palm of your hand for a fraction of a second… It's like nothing I had ever experienced before."

"And you used it to massacre a village…"

The redhead growled, "No, I didn't. I used it to forge a connection to another realm. I calculated everything perfectly. The ritual to control the flow of magic was a masterpiece of mine. However, I didn't expect Sirius Black. He destabilized the matrix, wrenched the gate open, and let the energy from the other side destroy the village. It took every ounce of magic I had to shield you, and as exhausted as I was, I couldn't stop myself from being sucked into it as it collapsed."

She took a deep breath before continuing, "I stayed trapped there for decades, surviving purely on the realm's magic. It took me a while to notice Black's half-soul. I tried using the connection in his soul, but it was too faint, too unstable. I admit that I took my frustrations out on him a bit. I needed someone to truly kill him on the other side while I did the same on my side. Yet, you somehow managed to surprise me when you killed him in both places at once. And thus, I became free, by your hand."

Harry did not comment on the story. He didn't know if it was true or not. It was very hard to discern the woman's intention, but he knew for sure that she probably had many hidden agendas. No one would go through so much trouble to stop any kind of magical sensing if they didn't have something to hide, "Then, what are you doing here?"

"Couldn't I just want to reunite with my son?"

The sad thing was that the way she spoke up was so warm that anyone who didn't know her true nature would have been fooled. Harry was looking at it, her core, and so far, everything just felt like an act, like something that she forced herself to say…

And so, the last Potter raised an eyebrow at her statement, "You could have done that at any time during the summer, or just came to see me, not hidden as an Unspeakable. You would have been trying to reconnect instead of gathering an army of werewolves. What did you do to manage that? I'm guessing you promised to cure them using Lupin's ritual. That's not even mentioning the Department of Mysteries. You must have some influence there because no one even doubted your presence. The attack on the Department of Mysteries, that was you, right?"

The woman refused to speak up and Harry continued, "You're here for a reason, something that has to do with the tournament, right? Everyone is so obsessed with it… You, Dumbledore… There's something else going on in the background. There's more to this competition than meets the eye… I wonder what it is?"

And just like that, the smiling motherly look disappeared, and in its place was an icy expression, "So, this is what it feels like to be on the other side of this. How unusual… No wonder people don't like it," she then looked Harry in the eyes, "You're right; there is more at play here, but that's not the only reason why I'm here. You're my son, Harry. I have waited for over a decade to see you again, put myself through hell just so that you would be safe."

"Safe? How do you explain Sirius Black hunting me down, convinced that I was some kind of key…"

Yes, that was the crux of the problem. Sirius Black shouldn't have gone after Harry out of anything but hate, yet the man was convinced that killing Harry would have stopped Lily somehow. He knew that deep down, with a conviction that spanned down to his very core, to his very soul. And, considering that a part of his soul was near Lily… It wasn't hard to make a conclusion.

"That was a mistake, I'll admit to that. But everything worked out, didn't it? You need me, Harry. You know that for a fact. All this time that I stayed here, I was just gathering strength, creating another faction outside of Dumbledore and Grindelwald, to make sure that we wouldn't be so easily threatened by them…"

It was a nice offer, a third faction with enough firepower to oppose Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Grindelwald. That was the thing though, would that be enough? He didn't know and if it was, and they won, then what would Lily do? That was the main thing… What did he know about Lily Potter, really?

She was brilliant, there was no doubt about that. She was a muggleborn that surpassed any other mage in her generation. She was manipulative. Harry saw the way Lupin was obsessed with the woman, and the way she had gained a dedicated army of werewolves in months meant that she was charismatic enough to make people follow her. To be perfectly honest, she sounded a lot like Tom Riddle.

Not Voldemort, but Tom Riddle, the first person he considered to be his equal in both mind and magic, not the madman he became in his mad quest for immortality.

The question remained. Ignoring their familial relation, would Harry ever join someone like Tom Riddle to make a stronger power bloc?

He didn't know. And it wasn't like he was pressed for time, "I need time to think. Until I make a decision, I want you to stay away from me and Daphne."

The woman looked solemn when she nodded and turned. Before she left, she decided to speak up one last time, "You know, Harry, I really do hope we'll get to know each other. I just want you to know me without other people's biases, and I am confident that you'll see that I'm not a bad person. Oh, and one last thing. If you're planning on joining the first task, I'd recommend that you be very careful. Dumbledore wants Flamel's diary, and he won't be afraid to play dirty."

Before he could respond, the woman melted into shadows, leaving Harry alone with his thoughts. Yes, this definitely complicated things.

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AN:

Not sure about this chapter tbh. I wanted it to be more epic than this, but this felt like how the conversation would go... Don't worry, there will be a blowout later, but there has to be a reason, and putting it here just felt unreasonable, I guess. I wrote this in 3 different ways, and this one was the one that felt the more natural, I guess. Depending on how you think about it, I might change it. So, as usual, let me know what you think or 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.