Chapter 28
The Legend of the Half-Blood Prince
That night Harry slept better than he had for months. With the weight of the prophecy lifted from his mind he was able, for the first time in quite a while, to dream about something other than death and Lord Voldemort. He was flying on his Firebolt high in the sky, laughing as he swirled around clouds and through thunderstorms. A large eagle with the body of a lion flew up alongside him. He raced it to the peak of a nearby mountain, buzzing over some ruins and a small, forested village as they went. Now he was back at Hogwarts, soaring effortlessly through the castle towers before shooting out over the lake. He dipped the nose of his broom downwards and entered into a dive, headed straight for its icy center. The wind screamed around him. He fell further and further, faster and faster, the shimmering surface of the water reflecting the sun back towards him in a million points of light. Soon he could see a group of merpeople staring back up at him from below the surface of the lake, each gazing up at him in astonishment as he rocketed towards them. At the last moment he reared back on the broom and shot back into the sky, the force from his dive causing an enormous splash. With a feeling of ecstasy he got only from flying he shot through the bottom of a dark cloud and burst through the other side, finding himself in a glorious, light-filled sky.
It was then that he felt it.
A presence. It was small and barely perceptible, but he felt it just the same. Somebody else was in his dream.
He felt his dream slowly, imperceptibly change. He was looking over his shoulder at the sun as he flew away from it. Its warm rays touched his shoulders as it grew smaller and smaller. Soon it was no more than a small, buzzing ball. A Snitch. Instinctively he reached out and grabbed it. He opened his hand to look at it and found that it wasn’t a Snitch, but a small glass orb. A small glass orb with a strange light inside. It felt warm in his hand. Hundreds of other orbs appeared behind it, each sitting on small stands set into large, wooden shelves. He was no longer soaring through the air on a broom. He was in the Hall of Prophecies.
Harry observed as the presence guided his dream, not bothering to resist. It was a strange feeling; the thoughts and memories that flashed through his mind were still his own, but somehow the presence knew how to guide them, to direct them to the information it was trying to get. Whoever it was, they weren’t aware that he was observing.
The orb in his hand began to grow hot and Harry realized it contained the prophecy concerning him and Lord Voldemort. An image formed in the orb as he looked at it, a tall, slender figure with large glasses. The figure rotated slowly above the orb and soon it became a young Professor Trelawney. The words of the prophecy started to go through his mind.
Realizing the prophecy was something he didn’t want the presence to know, Harry tried to turn his focus away from the figure and on something else. He did it slowly, gently, realizing if he did it too quick the presence would be on to him. He decided to focus on the wooden shelves. There were hundreds of them. Hundreds of long, wooden planks fastened to each other, criss-crossing and intersecting like some great structure. Wooden planks.
Harry felt the presence become frustrated and it tried to veer his attention back to the prophecy. But it was too late. There was another image in his mind now, an image that had been going through his mind for quite a while now: a small, cramped room with wooden beams criss-crossing across the ceiling. There was a wooden shelf in this room as well, only it was small and short. The top shelf was completely empty. It was the room he had seen at the end of Ravenclaw’s second diary.
At first the presence continued trying to pull Harry’s attention back to the Hall of Prophecies, but all at once it stopped as if surprised at the new image. Harry could feel confusion from the presence as it lingered for a split second on the image. Then, all at once, the presence left. Harry was alone.
Once again he was soaring through the skies above Hogwarts, the wind blowing tears out of his eyes as he yelled in jubilation.
***
Harry woke to a soft knock at the dormitory door. He sat up and searched for his glasses. Finding them on a shelf next to the bed he looked around the room. Everyone else was gone. The knock came again and the door opened slightly, revealing a bright, red head.
“Harry? Oh good, you’re awake.”
Ginny entered the room, followed closely by Ron and Hermione “ Hermione looking anxious and worried, Ron confused and apprehensive. Harry had agreed the night before to tell them about the prophecy, and apparently Ginny was wasting no time in making him keep his promise. Studying his best friends’ faces, he briefly wondered what Ginny had told them “ it was obvious from their expressions that they expected the worst. It was probably better that way, Harry figured.
They took the news rather as he thought they would. Tears welled up in Hermione’s eyes as she hugged him, Ron simply stared at the corner of the room before saying in amazement, “Blimey, Harry. No wonder you’ve been studying so much! Why didn’t you tell us sooner? We could have helped.”
They talked about the prophecy for a while, each sharing their different opinion on what each part could mean which Harry found very helpful, as each had their own views that showed him there were many different ways to interpret the prophecy. After all this Ron and Hermione still looked shocked, and Harry realized it would take some time for it all to sink in. Though he was sad to realize that things would never be the same between them, Harry was glad that he had told them about it “ it had felt strange and almost unnatural to have kept a secret from Ron and Hermione for so long.
Eventually there was nothing else to be said, and Hermione suggested going down to the Great Hall to see if they could scavenge any last bits of breakfast. The rumble in his stomach telling him he was hungry, Harry agreed, and the four of them started to head out of the common room. After Ron and Hermione had left Harry pulled Ginny back into the room.
“Thanks Ginny.”
Judging by the number of students in the halls, breakfast had just ended and the first morning classes were about to begin. Though they each had classes beginning in only a minute or two, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all wanted to walk with Harry and stay with him as he ate. Eventually he was able to convince them that he would be ok and they should go to class. Grabbing a few pieces of untouched toast left on the Ravenclaw table, Harry hurried out of the now empty Great Hall to meet with Ron in Herbology. He had just turned the corner leading to the main corridor, a piece of toast stuffed into his mouth, when he ran into Professor Dumbledore and Professor Sinistra walking the other way.
“Ah, hello Harry,” the headmaster said cheerfully. “You know, the toast here is rather good, but I don’t know if it’s worth skipping class over. Now the raspberry tart, that’s another story…”
“Oh, er, hi Professor,” Harry replied, removing the piece of toast from his mouth in embarrassment. He was about to offer an explanation (Professor Sinistra was looking at him dubiously) when Dumbledore narrowed his eyes briefly, cocked his head to one side, then said with a smile, “I take it you have completed my assignment?”
Harry hesitated (for a split second horrified that he had forgotten an assignment from the headmaster), then relaxed as he recalled their previous meeting and could say that he had completed the assignment in question.
“Yes sir,” he replied in relief.
“Excellent! Then I shall see you at our usual time this evening. Good-bye Harry.” With that Dumbledore and Professor Sinistra continued walking down the hallway, conversing with one another.
As he resumed his course towards the greenhouses for Herbology, Harry felt a surge of excitement followed by a quick stab of fear. Excitement that he could finally resume his Occlumency lessons and possibly learn more from Dumbledore about what Voldemort was up to lately; fear because he had broken into the Ravenclaw common room since their last visit and there was really no way he could hide it.
Herbology passed by rather uneventfully (with the exception of a Screaming Ficus swallowing Parvati Patil’s wand whole) and Harry soon found himself in Defense Against the Dark Arts watching a terrified Neville Longbottom trying his hardest to fight off Professor Grendelhall in a mock-duel.
“Now quick, get ready for the next jinx, WAND IN FRONT OF YOU BOY! ALWAYS IN FRONT OF YOU!” Grendelhall shouted by way of instruction as she closed in on Neville, surprisingly nimble for such an old woman. For his part, Neville had improved tremendously since their fifth year, able to block most spells and fire back a few of his own, though he still had a tendency to let his guard down. Grendellhall shot off two more quick jinxes that Neville was able to block, his tongue protruding from his mouth in intense concentration, and it looked like he was about to make it when he tripped backwards over an empty chair, fell flat on his back, and lost his wand in the fall. Grendelhall cackled, cast a quick Summoning charm on Neville’s wand, then walked over to help him up.
“Your surroundings, Longbottom, never forget about your surroundings!” she said as she pulled him to his feet. She turned to the class.
“Dark Wizards will use any means they can to gain the upper hand. Never become so focused on your spells that you forget where you are!”
Professor Grendelhall then divided the class up into pairs and had them practice a few new spells on each other. Hermione with paired with a Ravenclaw named Douglas Nance (a quiet, thoughtful boy with specs that Harry had often seen with Dunston Marlowe), Ron was paired up against Parvati, and Harry against Theodore Nott, the Slytherin whose father was a Death Eater.
Harry found it hard to focus on the duel as his mind had already gone ahead to this evening’s meeting with Dumbledore. Although he was fearful of what the headmaster might do once he found out Harry had taken the second diary from the Ravenclaw common room, he was also immensely curious what, if anything, Dumbledore could tell him about the small cramped tower room with wooden rafters. Harry had given up on finding it after the incident at the orphanage, but now that the weight of the prophecy was lessened he found himself eager to try once again.
Nott circled around him, a cold, determined look on his face. Apparently he was waiting for Harry to make the first move. Realizing he would have to wait until his meeting with Dumbledore to have his questions answered, Harry raised his wand and was about to cast an Impediment jinx when he was interrupted.
“Nance!” Grendelhall’s shrill voice called from across the room. She stomped over to where Ron and Douglas Nance had been dueling next to Harry as the rest of the class continued the exercise. “Was that your Confundus jinx that just broke my vase?”
Harry looked to the left side of the room and saw the vase she was referring to, a fat, ordinary piece of pottery that had been smashed into pieces. A simple Reparo charm would put it together in a snap.
“Um, yes ma’am,” Nance replied in confusion. Stray spells flying around the room were common in Defense Against the Dark Arts, especially on days they practiced dueling.
“Detention!” Grendelhall snapped triumphantly.
Nance’s mouth dropped open in bewilderment. Even Harry was surprised.
“I can’t have novice wizards like yourself destroying my classroom simply because they haven’t learned how to point a wand yet, can I? See you tonight after supper,” Grendelhall said merrily over her shoulder as she walked back through the dueling students.
“I swear, that old kook’s the most detention-happy teacher there’s ever been!” Ron said later as they walked through the corridors after class. “Snape’s going to have to really get on it if he wants to catch up. I mean, putting Nance in detention just because his spell hit a vase? The only thing more ridiculous than that was the time she got Nott for dropping his quill in the hallway.”
“Well, maybe it was an important vase,” said Hermione, always the one to defend teachers, though even she didn’t seem convinced by the explanation.
“Yeah, I’m sure that was it,” Ron said sarcastically, then opened his eyes wide in alarm as Hermione looked daggers at him. Eager to change the subject he quickly added, “Erm…Harry, did you hear she put Malfoy in detention this morning?
“Really?”
“Yeah. She was walking behind him in the corridors when she heard him call Hagrid a ‘despicable drunken oaf’. Gave him detention today and tomorrow for ‘disrespecting Hogwarts staff.’ So I suppose she’s not all bad.”
After grabbing a quick dinner and hastily finishing an essay on the restorative powers of Mandrake for Herbology, it was finally time for Harry’s meeting with Professor Dumbledore. He walked through the corridors, still feeling the strange combination of excitement and trepidation, as he rounded the final turn in the corridor leading to the headmaster’s office. Apparently Dumbledore had informed the gargoyle guarding his door that Harry was coming, for it immediately leapt aside when he arrived revealing the revolving spiral staircase. Pausing briefly, Harry took a deep breath and ascended.
“Ah, greetings Harry,” Dumbledore said from behind his desk as Harry walked into the room. The headmaster was pacing behind his desk, apparently in the middle of a conversation with a few of the portraits that hung behind his large oaken desk. The past headmasters and headmistresses turned towards him curiously, as though he had been the subject of their conversation.
“Welcome. Please, have a seat,” the headmaster said, motioning to the empty chairs as he strode back to his desk, stopping for a brief moment at Fawkes’s perch. Fawkes gazed up at the headmaster and sang a soft note, his brilliant red plumage shining in the light of the sun coming from the window. Harry took his usual seat at the other side of the desk.
“To be truthful with you, I had hoped you would finish your ‘assignment’ long before now, Harry. But I am delighted to see you here just the same,” said Dumbledore cheerfully as he took his own seat and regarded Harry from behind his half-moon spectacles.
Harry had been amazed at how quickly Dumbledore picked up that he had shared the prophecy that morning. He hadn’t felt any probing into his mind, yet somehow the headmaster seemed to know instantly.
“Sir, if I can ask, how did you know I shared the prophecy when I saw you this morning? I mean, I didn’t feel you in my mind at all.” Harry asked.
Dumbledore shook his head with a small chuckle. “That’s because I didn’t use Legilimency, Harry. The absence of the usual marks of stress on your face was enough to clue me in. One doesn’t need to read minds to see that”
“Oh.” Harry replied, somewhat abashed. He hadn’t known he had been that obvious.
“When did you share it?”
“Er…just last night.”
“And how did Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley react to the news?”
“Well, actually I told Ginny Weasley first.”
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, apparently surprised. “Really? A good choice. I believe young Miss Weasley’s past experience can provide a unique insight into this situation.”
“Yes. Then I told Ron and Hermione this morning. They seemed to take it all right.”
“Excellent. Now tell me, how does it feel now that the secret is out?”
“Loads better,” Harry replied truthfully. “I kind of wish I had done it sooner.”
Dumbledore nodded wisely. “I’m glad that you see that Harry. We all need people we can confide in, no matter how strong we think we are. I am no exception to that rule either.”
The headmaster gestured to the portraits behind him, many of which were still studying Harry interestedly. Harry found this slightly odd, as they most often pretended to be asleep when anyone was in the room. The sight of all of them gazing at him suddenly jogged his memory, reminding him there was something else he wanted to ask the headmaster.
“Professor, last night I was dreaming about flying around on my broom when…” Harry stopped for a moment, unsure how to describe what he had happened, “…when I felt someone. It seemed like they were watching my dream with me, and after a little while the dream started to change.”
The headmaster leaned forward in his chair in interest.
“Tell me about it, Harry,” he said seriously.
“Well, it was pretty late in the night, after I had spoken with Ginny, and I was dreaming about flying. Then I got this strange feeling, like someone looking over your shoulder while you’re reading a book, and I felt the dream start to change. I…I was back in the Ministry of Magic, I think, and I was holding the prophecy in my hand. The prophecy began to glow and it became really warm. Before I could stop it, Trelawney…I mean, Professor Trelawney appeared, just like it was out of your pensieve, and she began to quote the prophecy.”
Dumbledore’s eyes widened in alarm. Seeing this made Harry pause in his narrative.
“What happened then?” the headmaster urged after a short time.
“Well, I realized that it might have been Voldemort, so I quickly changed the image to…to something else. I don’t know if it was him or just my own dreaming, but I thought it would be safer to change it anyway,” Harry replied uncertainly, hoping that he had done the right thing. “When I focused on something else, whoever it was seemed to become frustrated and tried to change it back to the prophecy, but I kept focusing on this other image, and eventually they went away.”
Harry looked up at Dumbledore, who now wore a look of relief on his face.
“Er…do you think it was Voldemort?” Harry asked.
The headmaster leaned back in his chair and looked at Harry.
“I have no doubt it was Lord Voldemort, Harry. He is still trying whatever means he can to discover the full content of the prophecy, and I am glad you had the presence of mind to hide it from him. Tell me, did he ever become aware that you were watching him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You would definitely know if he did. Very impressive,” the headmaster said, gazing at Harry in what seemed to be admiration. “Well Harry, this tells me two things: First, Lord Voldemort is once again attempting to use the link between the two of you. He will try to get certain information out of you this way, so you must always be on your guard. He will attempt it again, make no mistake of that.”
Harry gulped inadvertently. Being told that one of the evilest Dark Wizards ever known was likely to pop in and out of your dreams over the next little while wasn’t very comforting.
“And second?” he asked, wanting the headmaster to move on.
“Second,” Dumbledore said with a smile, sensing Harry’s discomfort, “it tells me that we are finished with your Occlumency training.”
“What?” Harry asked, looking at the headmaster incredulously.
Seeing this, Dumbledore explained. “Now I don’t mean that you have mastered Occlumency, Harry, that takes decades to accomplish. But I have no doubt that it was Voldemort who attempted to enter your mind. He would naturally wait until you were the most vulnerable. He would also be the only one who could use your memories from the Ministry to get at what you were hiding, for they were his memories too. The fact that you were able to divert him, one of the most accomplished Legilimens alive, without his knowing it, shows that you are sufficiently skilled in the art and that our time here would be better spent in other activities.
“Congratulations Harry, you have passed.”
Taken aback, Harry looked back into the eyes of the headmaster, not quite believing what he was saying. Had he really repelled Voldemort out of his dream? Was he really good enough at Occlumency to do it again? Dumbledore had just said he was, so it must be true. At that realization Harry began to feel a warm, pleased feeling spread throughout his body.
“Out of curiosity though, what was this ‘something else’ you diverted his attention to?” Dumbledore asked casually.
The warm feeling disappeared. Harry had been hoping he wouldn’t ask that question, as answering it would be admitting that he had broken into the Ravenclaw common room and taken the second diary.
“Well,” Harry began sheepishly, “Do you remember at the end of Ravenclaw’s diary, that blue room with the bookcase that I asked you about?”
“Yes,” Dumbledore replied, interested. Harry noticed that quite a few of the portraits had turned to look at him as well.
“Well, after you showed me the diary I kept thinking about that room, because it seemed like a hint or something. Like a clue. When I asked you about it you didn’t tell me anything, so I thought I’d try to find it myself…”
Harry hesitated, not wanting to say the last part. Every single one of the portraits were now staring intently at him. Apparently he was going to get into more trouble than he had thought.
“And this blue room was the image you showed Voldemort?” Dumbledore asked casually.
There was nothing for it. He might as well come clean.
“Well, no. It turns out that I found the blue room (Harry made sure not to say the Ravenclaw common room) and the bookcase, which had another diary in it, and at the end of that diary there was another clue, a small, curved room with wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling and another bookcase with the top shelf empty. That’s the image I showed Voldemort,” Harry gushed out in one breath.
“Oh, and right now the diary is hidden in my trunk wrapped up in an old T-shirt,” he added quickly, not wanting to leave anything out.
Harry gazed cautiously into the wizened face of the old headmaster. He expected him to be surprised. Expected him to be angry. He half expected him to raise his wand and turn him into a three-toed sloth. What he didn’t expect, however, was for him to swivel around in his chair so he was facing the portraits, laugh triumphantly, and say:
“Well, Percival, it appears that young Mr. Potter here does in fact have the ‘intellectual ingenuity’ to pursue the Half-Blood Prince, doesn’t it?”
Many of the portraits laughed and began speaking to one another excitedly. The portrait Dumbledore seemed to be addressing was of a stout, proud looking warlock with a large bald spot and a dark black beard that hung in ringlets from his face. He looked extremely surprised and flustered. Harry recognized him as one of the largest protestors when Dumbledore had decided to show him the Headmaster’s Vault.
“Had the wrong read on a student again, eh Percival?” shouted a blonde, thin wizard hanging on the other side of the wall. “Pity that being dead hasn’t improved your judgment at all, eh? Ha ha!”
This comment was followed with laughter and jeers from some of the other portraits.
“Oh quiet, the whole lot of you!” the portrait named Percival snapped. “I admit it, I was wrong about the boy. Now you don’t need to carry on about it like children!”
“Well let’s not give the boy too much credit,” said a smooth, sarcastic voice Harry recognized at once as Phineas Nigellus. “It’s most likely that brainy, female, Muggle-born friend of his did most of the work, isn’t it Potter?”
“No, I found it on my own!” Harry replied defensively, not even sure what they were talking about. The reaction of the portraits had made him supremely confused. He looked up questioningly at Dumbledore.
“Ah, my apologies, Harry. Allow me to explain,” he said consolingly, still with a broad smile on his face. “You see, some of my colleagues here have doubted whether or not I made the right decision to share Rowena Ravenclaw’s diary with you. Some of them,” here he looked meaningfully at the man named Percival, “think you lack the necessary attributes to embark on the quest for the Half-Blood Prince. Tonight, however, I am proud to say you have proved them wrong.”
“Oh yeah, if the boy is so smart, let’s see him find the third diary then, hah!” snapped Percival to scattered boos and hisses from the other portraits.
Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What was going on? Had they been testing him? Had it all been a lie? There was no Wulfric Gryffindor? Half of him felt angry at being used. The other half disappointment.
“Then, the Half-Blood Prince isn’t real?” he asked bitterly.
“Don’t be a fool, boy. Of course he’s real!” barked the blonde wizard indignantly from the other side of the wall.
“That hasn’t been proven yet, has it Tradwell?” retorted Percival, raising his eyebrows severely.
Several other portraits had opened their mouths to join the argument when Professor Dumbledore raised his hand for silence. “That is enough, everyone. We can resume our debate on this matter some other time. I believe Harry here has the right to an explanation.” He turned towards Harry.
“The Half-Blood Prince is a legend, part of the vast lore and mythology of Hogwarts. And as with all legends, some of it is fact and some of it is the product of overactive imaginations. While there has been much speculation and many theories as to the nature and background of Wulfric Gryffindor, or the Half-Blood Prince, the only sure sources of knowledge we have are the diaries left behind by Rowena Ravenclaw.”
“Why did she leave behind diaries at all?” Harry asked. “Couldn’t she have just told us where he is?”
“There is much more to the story than just where Wulfric was buried, Harry,” Dumbledore said with a frown as he shook his head. “But I think I am not the best person to give that story to you. Perhaps you should hear it as I did.”
He swiveled around in his chair and looked up towards the highest part of the wall. Then he called out in a voice that carried throughout the office, “Mortimer?”
“Yes, Albus?” said an old voice that sounded like the rustling of old parchment.
“Would you be so kind?”
“Certainly.”
Harry craned his neck backwards to see who was talking. It was a portrait of an old, small man with erratic white wisps of hair coming from his scalp and small specs at the end of his nose. The portrait seemed dusty and grainy and seemed far more ancient than the rest.
“Allow me to introduce you to Mortimer Darlisscrop, seventh headmaster of Hogwarts and the first of us to be immortalized in portrait form. Most of the knowledge we have about Wulfric Gryffindor we owe to him.”
The old man coughed a couple times and took a deep breath. He removed his tiny spectacles and polished them with an old handkerchief. When he spoke it was as though he were reciting from a book.
“The story of the Half-Blood Prince has been passed along through the headmasters since the death of the founders themselves. For centuries the brave and the wise, the noble and the…”
“The shortened version, if you would, Mortimer. Potter does have classes he has to get to tomorrow,” interrupted Phineas Nigellus.
“…impertinent youths…,” Harry heard Mortimer Darlisscrop mumble, “…no appreciation of pomp and ceremony.” When he started again he looked down at Harry and his voice sounded much more natural.
“Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin lived as close friends for much of their lives, brothers in the cause of ennobling wizardkind. After the founding of Hogwarts, however, a rift began to form between the two. Slytherin couldn’t bear Godric’s candid friendship of those he deemed unworthy to hold the gift of magic, and Gryffindor couldn’t bear Salazar’s intolerance and pigheadedness towards Muggles. As the years passed this rift grew wider and deeper and the two former friends distanced themselves from one another. Finally, Gryffindor did something that was, in Slytherin’s mind, utterly inexcusable. Disgusted and vengeful, Slytherin left Hogwarts cursing the very stones it was built on and cursing the man whom he claimed drove him from it.”
“What did Gryffindor do?” Harry asked tentatively, not sure if he was allowed to interrupt the past headmaster’s narrative.
“None of us know Harry. All we know is Slytherin was so upset he abandoned Hogwarts and vowed to come in contact with Gryffindor again,” Dumbledore said in a low, hurried tone that told Harry it was better not to interrupt.
Mortimer Darlisscrop continued. “This argument was the starting point of a decades-long battle of ideals within the wizarding race. Wizardkind has always been at odds on the proper place of half-bloods, Muggle-borns, and what we consider the ‘lesser magical races,’ and Slytherin reignited public passion on the issue by spending the rest of his life preaching the ancient gospel of pure-blooded wizard supremacy. Aided by others who shared the same philosophy, he was able to widen the rift between those who believed blood didn’t matter and the pure-blood, anti-Muggle fanatics, almost to the point of open warfare.
“It is at this point that Wulfric Gryffindor comes into the story. Always a champion of the downtrodden and neglected, Godric Gryffindor had created many enemies for himself over the years. While general public sentiment at that time leaned more towards the subjugation of the ‘lesser races’ and keeping the wizarding race pure…”
“Ahh, the golden age,” Harry heard Phineas Nigellus say mournfully before being hushed by the red-nosed wizard Harry had seen the year before.
“…Gryffindor boldly proclaimed equal status for half-bloods and Muggle-borns as well as fair treatment of elves, goblins, centaurs, and other magical creatures. Before starting Hogwarts he had even founded his own village, allowing members of any magical species the chance to live together in harmony.”
“Elm’s Hollow,” Harry whispered out loud without meaning to. Dumbledore looked at him and nodded.
“Wulfric Gryffindor, the eldest son and successor to Godric’s legacy, shared his father’s attitude regarding the magical races and frequently associated with Muggles, elves, and centaurs himself, making himself the same enemies as his father. After Godric’s death it soon became evident that all three of his sons were in great danger of being killed off by his enemies. With the help of some of his father’s close associates, Wulfric placed his two younger brothers in a safe haven and was then placed in hiding himself to save his life and preserve the Gryffindor line.
“Unfortunately, however, the ruse failed and Wulfric was killed. Nothing is known about the circumstances leading to his death, whether it was the work of Gryffindor’s enemies, the result of a tragic accident, or the cowardly act of a traitor. Whatever happened, the Half-Blood Prince (as his father’s past acquaintances had affectionately named Wulfric) was no more. It is said that in honor of his and his father’s past deeds he was buried secretly and with an item of enormous power, so powerful, in fact, that both it and the location of Wulfric Gryffindor’s tomb had to be kept secret, known to only a few.”
Harry remained silent, riveted to every word Mortimer was saying.
“One of the few was Rowena Ravenclaw, who was a close friend of Godric’s until his death and instrumental in preserving his other two sons. She was also the architect of an ingenious plan to keep the location of Wulfric Gryffindor’s tomb secret from his enemies, yet make his power accessible to future headmasters should the need arise. She did this by recording her memories leading up to the death of Wulfric Gryffindor in four separate diaries and hiding them throughout the castle in locations only accessible to headmasters and headmistresses. Each diary contains a short narrative of crucial events at the time, as well as a clue as to where the next diary can be found. The diaries culminate with the fourth and final diary, which is said to point the way to the map which leads to Wulfric Gryffindor himself.”
Harry continued to sit motionless in his seat, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what he had found himself in. He had originally thought of Ravenclaw’s diaries as some sort of exciting treasure hunt. Now he could see he was immersed in an epic struggle that had stretched over centuries.
“While Hogwarts holds many mysteries and legends, none have baffled the stewards of these ancient halls more than the Half-Blood Prince. For hundreds of years noble headmasters and headmistresses have searched for the tomb of Wulfric Gryffindor, yet none have found it. Of the four diaries that were left behind by Mistress Ravenclaw, only two have ever been recovered. Should someone succeed in locating the final diaries and, in turn, the Half-Blood Prince, that person will gain the mysterious artifact and with it, the power to shape history.”
Here the ancient headmaster’s voice became mechanical once again as he broke eye-contact with Harry.
“This information was passed onto me by Adrius Hellisfurth, sixth headmaster of Hogwarts, who had it passed onto him by his grandsire and second Regent of Hogwarts, Hellsforth Condrius, who was taught at the foot of Godric Gryffindor himself. See that it is made known to none but the worthy.”
The last part was said with a quick nod. The ancient wizard once again removed his tiny spectacles from where they were perched on his nose and was silent.
Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Founders by VoldemortsPatronus
Chapter Notes: I'm going to apologize in advance for the abrupt way in which this chappy ends. It was getting extremely long and I realized it would work better if I split it. The second half is completed though and I will post it as soon as they let me. Thanks everyone for your reviews, they really help.