23Despite the superficial damage done to the castle in the course of the last battle, the reparation of Hogwarts didn't actually take all that long and the school, after a few last minute appointments, was finally open for lessons the same year as the attack had been. Because of the disruption of the last year, all the students who had missed out on schooling were invited back to the school, whether they were old enough to have graduated or not, to finish their exams, but the ghosts of the war still clung to the memories of all those involved with the actual fighting, and out of the hundred students invited, only a handful of them had actually returned.
As it was, there were so few of them, the headmistress had decided to lose the house system for the returning students, instead placing all of them in a common room that had been created specifically for them. At first, several members of staff had voiced concerns that this was not the best of ideas, considering the presence of many of the old rivals, such as Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, and they had claimed that there would be students killed in their beds before the end of the year, but no one had actually expected the outcome that really occurred. Without the inter-house rivalries ( all of the older students had been put in a 5th house christened Tempus in a tongue in cheek matter) and the stresses of the war, the 20 students in the house had banded together and become invaluable to the teaching staff of Hogwarts. For Harry and Hermione, the only thing that would have made the whole situation better would have been if Ron had returned with them, but he had chosen to stay with George, helping their brother with the shop and other… issues.
At first it had been strange walking to class through the halls that he had last seen filled with the desperate struggle that the last battle had brought about, and it had made him far jumpier than normal, but eventually, with the support of Hermione, Ginny and Luna mostly, Harry had eventually relaxed and been able to once again enjoy his Hogwarts days. He had even been able to fall back into his quidditch obsession, taking on the job of seeker once again. Considering the members of the team (Malfoy had actually turned out to be a pretty good chaser once he decided to work with others) it was no surprise that the Tempus house team dominated the quidditch cup throughout the year, and despite their lack of numbers, they seemed set to win the house cup as well at the end of the year. As it was, as the exams and the end of the year began to draw closer, it seemed as though Harry and his friends had finally been able to have a calm, normal school year. Well, that was until the study session about a month before their final NEWT exams.
They had been researching influential wizarding families through time for a project for their history of magic class, now taught by Professor Saturn who managed to make the subject come alive to the disillusioned students (sometimes quite literally) when they came across the blood lines book. It was Neville that found it, as he looked through one of the dusty corners of the school library, or, more accurately, he tripped over it. Bringing it back to the table where Ginny, Harry and Hermione were still working on their giant piece of parchment, he set it down gently and called their attention to the page that had caught his interest in the first place.
"Guys… look at this, it's called a bloodline spell. According to the book, you can use it to create a family tree, stopping at your most notable ancestor. You think Saturn might be interested in it?"
And that was how it all started, Harry decided as he stared down at the youthful face of one of the (long dead) Hogwarts founders, finding no trace of deception in her soft blue eyes. He wasn't sure how it was linked exactly, but it had to be something to do with that spell that the four of them had decided to try out as a lark, there could be no other reason for them being in this completely ridiculous situation. Sighing heavily, he turned back to face Hermione, silently begging her to come up with some sort of solution to this problem, pointedly ignoring the red head who was still clutching his arm as she giggled constantly. Unfortunately, this seemed like the one time that the girl genius had run dry of idea's, just brilliant!
Godric stood there in silence, observing the new arrivals wearily as they seemed to try and find an answer to Helga's statement, though the young prince was having a hard time repressing the questions that wanted to pour off of his tongue. These newcomers were strange, they wore robes much like their students did, though they were not nearly as modest and he was sure that none of their houses had purple and white livery or a phoenix as their symbol. Both of the girls were pretty little things, though their robes displayed enough skin to make him blush so he quickly shifted his attention from them to the green eyed boy who seemed to be the leader of their little group.
It was obvious that these fighters were powerful, he could practically taste the magic in the air around them, and from their bearing it was clear that they were all familiar with conflict though they could be little older than the small druid at his side, if that. And they knew of them, that was clear from their reactions, which made it all the stranger that Godric didn't recognise any of them, though the feeling that he got from the green eyed boy was remarkably similar to the one he felt around Salazar and it was more than a little disconcerting.
After what appeared to be a silent conversation between the 4 of them (now that the youngest girl had finally stopped laughing) the green eyed boy… Harry he had been called earlier… turned back to face the two of them, running his hand through his hair in a nervous manner before answered them, sighing as he did so.
"You don't seem to be lying, so I guess you were telling us the truth earlier. If you need our help, then you have it. Where is the battle?"
In his inspection of the strangers, Godric had almost forgotten about the war that was being waged behind them, but now that they mentioned it, the faint crashes that could be heard in the background became all that he could think about it. The promise of aid was enough to make him almost faint with relief, but that was something that they had no time for at that moment. Instead, he merely jerked his head back towards the castle where sparks of light from the combatants could just about be seen in the night sky, drawing the attention of the teens before them to that spot. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry smile sadly and give all of his friends a questioning look, after he received a short nod from each of them, his expression grew grim.
"Let's go then."
With that, the small group set off at a near sprint across the grassy slopes of the Hogwarts grounds, covering the ground quickly and moving like they knew the area intimately, the 2 founders kept pace easily, growing agitated now that they had been reminded of their friends' plight. Salazar and Rowena had been sent off up to the battle nearly an hour ago and, although they were both skilled warriors in their own right, the situation could not be good for them. Within 10 minutes they were treated to the sight of the battle with bodies strewn everywhere. All along the edges of the forest, cloaked figures could be seen battling with students and teachers alike, it was enough to make Godric's vision turn red.
When he had first seen the number of attackers, his first thought had been relief, Saimhain was not present here, he must have been over confident in the strength of his follows which would work to their advantage, but then he took stock of the number of cloaked figures and his hopes fell. There were too many for them to fight off on their own. All of their own fighters looked exhausted, close to being overwhelmed… but that was before 4 new figures darted into the fighting, splitting up and covering the battlefield like a summer storm, fleeting yet destructive. They were good, that much he could give them. He almost smiled at their courage.
He only took a moment to watch the strangers cut through the little clumps of the duels, cutting down the dark mages as easily as if there was no resistance to their assault, before Helga squeezed his arm, drawing his attention back to the young woman by his side. Her smile turning almost feral again, eyes shining with hope that had not been there before, she tilted her head up to face him.
"Shall we?"
Feeling his own smirk spread across his face, the princeling nodded, and, as one, they ran head long into battle, just like they had so many times before.
Salazar hated to admit it, but for once he was in a situation that he could not think his way out of, and that in itself was almost more of an irritation than the idea that he would most likely die on this battle field, unable to keep his students safe. He hadn't even wanted to go along with Helga's insane notion of starting a school in the first place, but now that they had started the mad project, he wanted nothing more than to see it through to the end, though that did not change the fact that he was currently surrounded by about 10 enemies who were all firing on him at once. He was good, but he could not keep this up for much longer, his magical reserves were quickly being drained and he knew it. Unfortunately, so did his opponents as they decided on that moment to increase their rate of attack.
Every passing second wore down on him and he was soon gasping for each breath, fighting for each movement and every spell put more and more strain on his flagging reserves. Even though the night was cool, he could feel sweat pouring down his back as his skin began to overheat from exertion. Absently, he wondered if Helga and Godric were still fighting, or if they had succumbed already to the power of the dementors, but he shook the morbid thought out of his head quickly, it would not do to get distracted at this particular moment in time, especially as every time he downed one of his many adversaries, several more stepped up to take their comrade's place. It was like fighting a Hydra, but with the added disadvantage that there was not only one head that shot fire.
He had just about come to terms with his own mortality when he saw it, a flash of gold just off to his left, and then half of his assailants fell to the ground unmoving, their friends were so shocked by this new development that he could easily pick them off while they were still looking for the origin of the curse and, with a new leash of energy, he downed them all before any of them had time to even turn their gaze back from the night unto him. Turning, he expected to meet Godric's jovial grin and a comment on his clumsiness to have got himself in such a situation in the first place, but instead he was faced with a bronze haired girl with soft brown eyes who was looking him up and down, concern evident in her gaze. Evidently deciding that he was in no need of either her concern or her aid, the girl quickly span and ran off over to the nearest knot of fighters, her long curls flowing out behind her like a banner and leaving Salazar behind in his confusion.
When he looked around again, the potions master was both surprised and pleased to see that the tide of the battle had most definitely turned, though he could not place exactly why. All around the field there flashed bright lights and hooded figures fell to the onslaught. Somewhere in the distance he saw the flowing yellow robes of a druid and he almost smiled in relief, if Helga was here and fighting, then that meant that the two of them had been able to drive off the soulless menaces, though he would have to question them on the how later when there was not such a pressing need for their attention. After a few more moments to recover, Salazar too re-joined the fighting and everything became a blur until he was once again looking upon the 3 tired faces of his friends and watching the students gather around the lake to re-group and take stock of the various injuries sustained in the fighting.
Curiously, along with the 3 familiar, though dirt smeared, faces, there was also an addition of a new group, though they all seemed to be vaguely familiar in some way that he could not place. The red haired girl that had saved him before was there however, she was seated on the curve of the hill as a dark haired boy bent over her, apparently healing a large gash on her leg. Off to her side, another boy and a brown haired girl watched on in worry under the careful inspection of the Welsh prince Godric. He would have been interested to find out more about these strangers who had apparently come to aid them in this fight, but at that moment, his vision was obscured by honey-blonde curls as Helga pulled him into a bone crushing hug.
"Oh Sal, thank the gods that you are all right, we were so worried earlier!"
Normally, such a show of sentiment would have been rejected straight off by the cold mage, but after the night they had just had, he felt that he owed it to her to let her assuage her fears of losing any of their little group and begrudgingly wrapped his arms around her slight frame, holding her close with one arm while, with the other, he awkwardly petted her hair. Over the young woman's shoulder, he could see Godric shooting him an amused look, but he ignored it, only rolling his eyes at the man before pushing his new found limpet away slightly.
"I am glad to see you too Helga, though I must ask you, how did you get rid of those demons? When we left, it looked as though you would be over run, yet here you stand, and you were even able to join us in the battle. I cannot help but wonder how such a blessing is possible."
At his words, the light hearted, almost celebratory atmosphere for the whole gathering quickly dissolved, and he noticed that the others, barring Rowena who had leaning heavily on Godric, her face pale with exhaustion, turned to face the newcomers who were standing in a loose group, whispering intently to one another in a language that he could not recognise. However, almost as though sensing the stares being directed to them, the strangers almost immediately broke out of their little meeting and turned to face the founders of Hogwarts, their faces grave. When it became obvious that they had not heard the prior comment and so were not going to be forthcoming with an answer, Salazar felt his eyes narrow into a glare and he stepped forwards.
"Who are you, and why are you helping us? What are your motives here? You dress like our students, but not... are we meant to know you or are you just spies for the dark lord? Answer us truthfully!"
For a few heart beats, there was nothing but silence, but then, the girl from before smirked at him, stepping forwards to force attention onto herself and moving into his personal space, her leg seemingly perfectly healed now. Upon seeing the mad strange glint to the girl's eyes, the older mage found himself taking an involuntary step back. There was something about her countenance that made him feel like he was not going to like what he was about to say, a premonition that was soon proven to be true when she spoke, her accent twisting the words in a strange way and her voice echoing the sing song fashion of a lullaby;
"Well, that all depends… would you believe us if we told you that we came from the future?"
A/N: Well, there you have it, the new chapter. To be perfectly honest, I'm no too sure about this particular one, so if you have any feed back on it, I would love to hear it. Anyway, thank you to all those lovely people who favourited, followed or reviewed this story, and, if there is anything in particular that you would like to see in here, drop me a review and I will see what I can do!
