Magic of the All Hallows Eve

I see it, I don't - Part 2

The Patron of Life is within this abode, with many secrets untold, within your year, but vastly apart, as sentient as you, but with a completely different heart. The Master of Death would be night to her day, but still be as close as the ship is to its sail", and with that, Salazar disappeared and Harry returned to normal.

"What was this fiasco?", Sirius asked.

"There was this cloaked figure like a dementor, with a ruddy spear-like thing in his hand. . .", James tried to say.

"But the more I kept reaching you I was being pulled away", Lily looked as if she just handled twenty boggarts at once.

"I believe we all need to sit down", Albus told the group and he opened a bottle of warm cider for them to drink upon as the story continued.

"So basically, this is the 'power he —", James started, but Albus cut in between.

"Indeed, James. And I'm sure, when the time is right, we can take Harry's help. But for now, he's just twelve, and Death is speeding up his game"

"But what can we do? Why is it Harry's fault that he can't live normally?", Lily all but wailed.

"For now, let the events unfold. He's already studying N.E.W.T. material, and can take on perhaps even myself in a one-on-one duel. He already has knowledge far greater than his age can ever foretell, and I'm afraid some of it", he looked pointedly at him, "is not as white as chalk either"

And so Harry was left in a daze for the remainder of the week. He just passed out his trip to the Hospital Wing as a migraine, and Hermione's memories had to be secretly altered so that she didn't remember the 'I can't see' part. According to Salazar, with whom his daily lessons now followed along with Dumbledore, who for one was awfully amazed at the reality of his situation, he became half-blind because the talk went on too long and the soul shard left behind was too small to compensate.

But outside of the lessons, Harry made sure to keep his promise intact and became sickeningly normal with his friends. His dark sense of humour was at first too much for Ron and Hermione to handle, but Neville consoled them that he got most of it from Sirius anyways.

But then there was Lockhart's class. While he had neglected the idea that his class was too mediocre for Harry and Rosier and that they should be given seperate materials, he had shrugged it off and said, "they will learn much more in this class than a Master in DADA"

 But his class was a fraud. He said jokes on which no hag would laugh, and narrated stories which no wall would hear. Oh, but Harry learnt awfully lot. Of course, Lockhart stated his favourite colour was lilac and then had a lilac-theme kitty party with the Banshee (who would probably reject him anyways) and of course, he'd stated his life's ambition to toast with the vampires, right?

When Harry wrote the same(and a lot worse) to the petty test he gave them, and Harry was sure that Lockhart won't have enough ice to cover the burns. His visual reaction was murderous for a brief second, but Harry doubted that Lockhart would be able to do anything else than a simple Banishing charm.

So it was a surprise (or maybe not) for Harry when Lockhart attempted to bind Harry down with the Incarcerous spell at Harry, who simply stared at the ropes and vanished them, but making sure it was at the exact moment to look like a ridiculously failed attempt. Come on, everyone needs a good belly laugh!

Potions was much better that Snape actually seemed to acknowledge what Harry knew, and immediately told him to brew a batch of Polyjuice potion as a test for his competency. Harry took on the challenge for himself, and later found out that Hermione too wanted to brew it and show to Professor Snape.

With a bit of Harry's tutoring, Neville found his firm footing in Charms and surprised Ron by animating his spaghetti to behave like a snake, much to the chagrin of the latter and laughter for the rest of the table.

Ron, however, was finally starting to catch on to them and finally started to do his homework by himself, and slowly improve. All was good and normal in the life of Harry Potter, just like he'd promised to his mother.

Harry thus found himself lying in his bed after a particularly tedious lesson on runic shields by Dumbledore, but suddenly the thought of that particular event in the Underworld crossed his mind. This so-called Patron of Life hadn't revealed himself yet, and Harry began to wonder why had she even done this, just for a brief talk. Anonymity could be achieved by facial transfigurations or Polyjuice too, right?

This line of thought transcended to 'magical cores', the existence of which Harry never found in all the Hogwarts library, and even Madame Pince never knew of the name. But still Harry wondered, would the Patron of Life too be innately powerful or magically prodigious? He thought maybe Death was just cheating him, and maybe he was just a child prodigy? As if on cue, as always, Death appeared.

"Greetings, Master of Death. You called for me?"

"No I didn't, but I guess I might have subconsciously did. I seemed to realise by now,  that magical cores don't exist", Harry said.

"Indeed they don't, for you at least, Master of Death", Death answered, with an aura of a knowing smirk.

"Then how did you tell that I had a 'big magical core crafted by me myself' or stuff?", Harry asked.

"If it doesn't exist for you, doesn't mean that it can't exist for others. Us Forces view magical force as being concentrated on point sources, much similar to your perception of gravity of objects. 

What I meant by giving you a big core is that I exponentially sped up your magical development building on a bit of your natural talent by merely making you inquisitive enough at an early age regarding magic, and stubborn enough to try. One change in the Sacred Thread of Time can and will lead to large differences, something you might read in Chaos Theory as the Butterfly Effect"

Harry comprehended what Death said. So he didn't have any natural or intrinsic gift so to speak — and by the same notion, neither would Dumbledore or Grindelwald or even Merlin himself have it. They merely used it tediously and worked hard to achieve it — something Harry himself did too.

He remembered missing his lunch and dinner on several occassions while being stuck on particular issues, how it took numerous hours of meticulous efforts to finally craft that first piece of communicative parchment, and how he was so driven by Dumbledore casting a fireball when he was a kid that made him so serious about learning his signature spell — no matter how complicated or Dark one might say it is.

So he finally understood what he was — he was just an ordinary wizard, who worked hard to be so much more than ordinary.

"And to clarify one doubt you surely might have — those wandless magic books were written by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore himself over the course of twenty years"

And with that, he disappeared into the darkness, leaving Harry to his thoughts.

Now Harry knew that it wasn't a compulsion charm casted on whatever book he picked up, and he could consciously stop wherever he wanted to. But sweating himself off trying to master a spell was certainly something that he loved to do, and would continue doing so. Finally after years could Harry Potter sleep soundly saying to himself,

You don't need to be hero, rather you choose to.

A/N: Wrote as a reply to one of my fellow friend reading the story as to why is your Harry ridiculously overpowered, which also seemed to quite nicely end the cut-short chapter.