The three Peverell brothers.
Had they lost someone precious to them, was that where it had begun?
"With all their lives, they tried, and they made progress -"
The Cloak of Invisibility, that could defeat the Dementors' sight.
"- but their research wasn't finished -"
Hiding from Death's shadow is not defeating Death itself. The Resurrection Stone couldn't really bring anyone back. The Elder Wand couldn't protect you from old age.
"- so they passed on the mission to their children, and their children's children."
Generation after generation.
Until it came to me.
Could Time echo like that, rhyming, between this far into the future, and that far in the past? It couldn't be coincidence, could it? Not this message, not in this place.
My family.
You really were, my mother and my father.
"It doesn't mean resurrecting the dead, Harry," Mr. Lupin said. "It means accepting death, and so being beyond death, mastering it."
"Did James tell you that?" Harry said, his voice strange.
"No," said Mr. Lupin, "but -"
"Good."
Harry rose up slowly from where he had been kneeling, feeling as though he were pushing up a sun upon his shoulders, raising the dawn above the horizon.
Of course other wizards have tried. I am not unique. I was never alone. These feelings in my heart, they're not so special, not in the wizard world or the Muggle one.
"Harry, your wand!" There was a sudden excitement in Mr. Lupin's voice, and when Harry raised his wand to look at it closely, he saw that it was gleaming ever so faintly with a silver light, welling out of the wood.
"Cast the Patronus Charm!" urged Mr. Lupin. "Try casting it again, Harry!"
Oh, right. So far as Mr. Lupin knows, I can't -
Harry smiled, and even laughed a little. "I'd better not," Harry said. "If I tried to cast the spell in this state of mind, it'd probably kill me."
"What?" said Mr. Lupin. "The Patronus Charm doesn't do that!"
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres raised his left hand, still laughing, and wiped away some more tears.
"You know, Mr. Lupin," Harry said, "it really takes a baroque interpretation to think that somebody would be walking around, pondering how death is just something we all have to accept, and communicate their state of mind by saying, 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.' Maybe someone else thought it sounded poetic and picked up the phrase and tried to interpret it differently, but whoever said it first didn't like death much." Sometimes it puzzled Harry how most people didn't seem to even notice when they were twisting something around to the 180-degree opposite of its first obvious reading. It couldn't be a raw brainpower thing, people could see the obvious reading of most other English sentences. "Also 'shall be destroyed' refers to a change of future state, so it can't be about the way things are now."
Remus Lupin was staring at him with wide eyes. "You certainly are James and Lily's child," the man said, sounding rather shocked.
"Yes, I am," Harry said. But that wasn't enough, he had to do something more, so Harry raised his wand in the air and said, his voice as steady as he could make it, "I am Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, the son of Lily and James, of the house of Potter, and I accept my family's quest. Death is my enemy, and I will defeat it."
Thrayen beyn Peverlas soona ahnd thrih heera toal thissoom Dath bey yewoonen.
"What?" Harry said aloud. The words had popped up into his stream of consciousness as though from his own thoughts, unexplained.
"What was that?" said Remus Lupin at the same time.
Harry turned, scanning the graveyard, but he didn't see anything. Beside him, Mr. Lupin was doing the same.
Neither of them noticed the tall stone worn as though from a thousand years of age, upon it a line within a circle within a triangle glowing ever so faintly silver, like the light which had shone from Harry's wand, invisible at that distance beneath the still-bright Sun.
Some time later:
"Thank you again, Mr. Lupin," Harry said, the tall, faintly scarred man was about to depart once more. "Though I really wish you hadn't -"
"Professor Dumbledore said that I was to portkey us back to Hogwarts if anything unusual happened, whether or not it seemed like an attack," Mr. Lupin said firmly. "Which is eminently sensible."
Harry nodded. And then, having carefully saved this question for last, "Do you have any idea of what the words meant?"
"If I did, I wouldn't tell you," Mr. Lupin said, looking rather severe. "Certainly not without Professor Dumbledore's permission. I can understand your eagerness, but you should not go trying to uncover any ancestral secrets of the Potters until you are an adult. That means after you've passed your NEWTs, Harry, or at least your OWLs. And I still think you've picked up entirely the wrong idea of what your family motto is meant to say!"
Harry nodded, sighing internally, and bid Mr. Lupin farewell.
Harry went back through Hogwarts, to the Ravenclaw Tower, feeling strange, and strengthened. He would not have expected any of that, but it had been all to the good.
He was passing through the Ravenclaw common room, on the way to his dorm.
That was when the shining creature came to him, gleaming soft white beneath the candlefires of the Ravenclaw common room, as it slithered out from nowhere, the silver snake.
Þregen béon Pefearles suna and þrie hira tól þissum Déað béo gewunen.
Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated.
- Spoken in the presence of the three Peverell brothers,
in a small tavern on the outskirts of what would later be called Godric's Hollow.
Chapter 97: Roles, Pt 8
For the second time that day, Harry's eyes filled with tears. Heedless of the puzzled eyes of the Ravenclaws in the common room, he reached out to the silver creature which Draco Malfoy had sent, cradling it in his arms like a live thing; and stumbled off in the direction of his dorm room, heading half-blindly for the bottom of his trunk, as the silver snake waited silently in his arms.
The fifth meeting: 10:12am, Sunday, April 19th.
The debtor's meeting which Lord Malfoy had demanded from Harry Potter, who owed Lucius Malfoy a debt of some 58,203 Galleons, was held within the Gringotts Central Bank, in accordance with the laws of Britain.
There had been some pushback from Chief Warlock Dumbledore, trying to prevent Harry Potter from leaving the security of Hogwarts (a phrase that caused Harry Potter to raise his fingers and silently make quote marks in the air). For his own part, the Boy-Who-Lived had seemingly pondered quietly, and then assented to the meeting, strangely compliant in the face of his enemy's demand.
The Headmaster of Hogwarts, who acted as Harry Potter's legal guardian in the eyes of magical Britain, had overruled his ward's assent.
The Debts Committee of the Wizengamot had overruled the Headmaster of Hogwarts.
The Chief Warlock had overruled the Debts Committee.
The Wizengamot had overruled the Chief Warlock.
And so the Boy-Who-Lived had departed under the heavy guard of Mad-Eye Moody and an Auror trio for the Gringotts Central Bank; with Moody's bright-blue eye rotating wildly in every direction, as though to signal to any possible attacker that he was On Guard and Constantly Vigilant and would cheerfully incinerate the kidneys of anyone who sneezed in the general direction of the Boy-Who-Lived.