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Chapter 28: The Greatest Wizard of Them All

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Harry awoke to a beautiful Thursday morning. The sun was already up above the horizon and the sky was almost crystal clear. The air was tolerably warm, but there was a hint of the colder weather yet to come in the morning air. Harry put on his flip-flops and his terry cloth robe then went out on the balcony. While it wasn’t unusual to see an early broom flyer zooming around in the morning, but this morning Harry counted no less than twelve witches buzzing the tower. One of them was the Head Girl, Pansy Parkinson.

“Good morning, Harry!” she yelled as she came to a hover over the balcony. “The sun’s nice and warm why don’t you take off that heavy uncomfortable robe and get a few rays. It’ll do you good; you’re starting to look all pale with not being able to get out and all.”

Harry saw that about six other Slytherin girls had come over to hover by the balcony. One of them was Millicent Bulstrode, a very nasty temperamented girl whom Harry loathed. “I left something on your door, Harry. I had hoped you’d be a gentleman and return it to me. I would have thought that after all this time on McG’s leash that your nuts would be hanging down around your knees.”

“You know what I think, girls?” said Pansy. “I think he’s been locked up so long his nuts have overflowed and backed up into his cock. I bet six of those nine inches he supposedly has is just excess jizzm trying to get out.” The girls all laughed hysterically at this, and even Harry had to admit the mental picture was a bit humorous. “Of course, you can easily prove me wrong, Harry. Why fight it, baby, Slytherin girls always get what they want in the end. All you have to do is just give in; we won’t hurt you… well… not too much anyway.”

“But I don’t love you, Pansy, and I’m saving myself for the woman I love,” Harry replied with a grin.

“Oh, bollocks,” she snorted with a knowing sort of grin. “You haven’t been saving anything. Don’t you think we can tell you’re getting laid somewhere around here? You don’t have that little bug-eyed, desperately horny, virgin look like your loser buddies Longbottom and Weasley have. Anyway, nobody’s talking about love here, just a little recreational shagging. Ciao, baby!” Then the Slytherin’s took off to resume their broom flying.

It followed in that vein most of the day. It turned out that there were many who believed that Harry had cheated and used some type of spell to enlarge his cock. Harry figured that this was more of Filch’s work passing on McGonagall’s theory. Those who spoke to Harry wanted to either confirm the rumor, or find out how to perform the trick on themselves.

It wasn’t until right after the evening meal that Harry knew he would have a chance at trying to talk to Merlin, if he could find him. Using the Marauder’s Map, Harry waited until he saw that McGonagall was in the Main Hall and then made his move. Returning to the rotating staircase, Harry uttered the password and the stairs began to rotate downward, below the main floor of Hogwarts. For several minutes there was little to see in the faint flickering torchlight except solid stone, until finally, the steps halted. Harry found himself standing in a very dimly lit cave, the air was very still and stale.

Harry couldn’t be sure exactly how far down he was below Hogwarts, but he was deep inside the bedrock. Stepping out into the cave he used his wand to help light his way. He wasn’t sure where he was going, or even what to look for.

“I guess I’ll know it when I see it,” he said to himself.

As he moved further from the steps the only light came from the tip of his wand. The darkness and the strangeness of the cave all combined to create a delusional effect on Harry. He began to lose track of time and distance. Even though he knew that he hadn’t been in the cave very long, and hadn’t gone all that far from the steps, he began to feel like it had been longer.

Harry continued down the tunnel until he came to a branching Y in the passageway. Now for the first time Harry had to make a choice. He was worried about how to find his way back to the rotating steps when he noticed the stone walls in that part of the cave had repeatedly been chipped to make markings. Harry took a moment to study the marks so that he would recognize them when he saw them on the way back.

Thinking for a moment, Harry chose the left-hand passageway to try first. He wasn’t sure why, it just seemed like the right way he needed to go. The passage continued for several hundred yards with a number of twists ands turns before it began to widen. A little further and Harry realized that he had entered a much larger cavern; the light from his wand tip could no longer illuminate all of the passage before him. It was when Harry moved past a jutting block of stone that he first saw the glow of light.

At first Harry thought it was the last sunlight of the evening, and that he had exited the cavern and would now have to go back and take the other branch, but after a few moments he realized that this wasn’t sunlight he was seeing. The light had a golden yellow tone to it, but it was a softer light than sunlight. Hurrying on, Harry saw the source of the light; it appeared to be a yellowish crystal that stood about six feet high. Looking inside the crystal Harry was able to make out the figure of a man inside. He was dressed in odd robes, and appeared to be about 60 years old. His face was covered in a short beard, and his head was bald on top. This had to be Merlin. He certainly didn’t look like the greatest wizard of the ages now. Harry could not see any family resemblance between Merlin and himself.

The surface surrounding Merlin looked to be like a light golden amber glass. There was nothing else inside the crystal except Merlin standing there with his arms raised as if he were casting a spell. That others had been there over the centuries was evident by the trash of the ages around the amber. There were old wooden crates, and some nearly rotten pieces of canvas and leather. Old empty bottles littered the site as well a few rusty cans. According to Dumbledore, all Harry had to do now was go to sleep and dream of Merlin; no easy feat given that all there was nothing to sleep on except a hard rock surface.

Fortunately, Harry remembered he was a wizard, it took a bit of trying but he finally transformed some of the wood and canvas debris into a passable cot. A call to Poontang resulted in a pillow and blanket. Harry made himself as comfortable as he could, but he still couldn’t sleep. Harry entertained the thought of calling Poontang again and getting a little relaxed that way, but figured that was a bad idea. So he lay there for a while trying to roll over the recent events in his mind and sort through them. Somewhere along the way in the process, Harry dozed off.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Harry was a bit confused as he sat on the hill overlooking the lake. It was the same view he had seen a thousand times just outside of the main gates at Hogwarts, but things seemed somehow different. The mountains, the lake, the slope of the hill, the big things looked the same, but not the little things. The Whomping Willow was gone, Hagrid’s stone hut was missing and there was an odd looking wooden building on the site. The biggest shock was when Harry turned around to look at the castle, there was no Hogwarts. There were a few stone and timber buildings around a central hall, but there was no castle. It had disappeared. Everything had an odd feel to it; it was like when he had dreamed of Sirius and Tonks, only everything here was different.

It took a moment or two for Harry to realize that a few yards away sat an older looking man on a short wooden bench. There was something familiar about him. He was bald, and wore a wizard’s type of robes, but with markings and a style Harry had never seen before. Beyond that, there was nothing remarkable about him. He was of slim build, and slightly below average height. He had a beard that was about half the length of that which Professor Dumbledore had worn, although the stranger’s beard was just as white as Dumbledore’s had been.

The older man surveyed him with a knowing eye, looking him over from head to toe. Finally, he seemed satisfied with Harry’s presence. “Hello there, Harry James Potter,” the man said in a plain voice.

“Hello, Sir,” replied a still slightly confused Harry. “Excuse me, Sir, but who are you and where are we?”

“I’m Merlin of course. Who did you think I was? I mean you came looking for me, not me for you. As for where we are, you should know that too. We are where Hogwarts will stand in your day, but since the dream world we presently exist in is in my mind it hasn’t been built yet.”

Then Harry remembered, he had searched for Merlin’s tomb, found the crystal, saw the figure inside. The man standing before him now was the same person who he had seen in the crystal. Harry now understood that he was in the land of dreams, Merlin’s dreams to be more exact. This is what Hogwarts looked like when Merlin lived here.

“What were you doing just now, Sir?” asked Harry.

“I was getting a feel for exactly who you are, my boy,” said Merlin. “Very few come to visit me anymore. Those that do tend to be those that want something from me. So I’m quite cautious of those I let enter my thoughts. I am quite curious about you, rarely do young people come to me, and often through the long ages it’s been elder wizards who desire knowledge, or power, or a gift from me.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not that much different from the others then, I was sent here by Professor Dumbledore to ask your help with defeating a dark wizard named Lord Voldemort, but I don’t know what kind of help I need.”

“Well then, since you’re already here, and since I don’t have anything better to do at the moment, tell me your story. Start from the beginning, and tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”

As best he could Harry spent a little over three hours telling Merlin about his life and his problems with Voldemort and what had transpired so far. Merlin seemed interested in the story; Harry probably figured he didn’t get much entertainment. Mostly Merlin just sat there and listened patiently, only rarely did Harry hear him make a little “humph” type noise as something struck his interest.

“Quite a story you have there, my boy. Yes, you are of my blood, I sensed it in you right away. That is why the elves in the bordello consider you their master. Their ancestors were part of a breeding experiment by me to satisfy my carnal appetite for a variety of lovers without having to use other outside sources that would infuriate Morgana any more than she was already pissed off at me. Their powers were created using my blood, and they are drawn to my blood. So apparently you are my heir, and the last of my blood other than that which you have already conceived in Godric’s heir.

“This Desiree creature and her daughters sound fascinating. I always loved the company of beautiful women, but then that’s what got me into this particular fix I’m in. It’s been a thousand years since I’ve had a woman. Imagine it, Harry, a thousand years without any pussy. Everything else that I need I have here, except that.”

“You mean that in a thousand years no woman has ever come to you seeking something?” asked Harry.

“Oh, there have been two or three women, but they were elderly witches. Dried up buckets of sand between their knobby wrinkled legs for cunts. It takes a certain level of power to awaken me to a presence attempting to enter here. Not just any witch or wizard can do what you have done. No … no young nubile women have been here.

“I guess you want to know how you can defeat this Voldemort or Tom Riddle character. Well essentially what Dumbledore told you already is true. To destroy him once and for all you must destroy all vestiges of him in the world, to do that you’ll have to destroy the Horcruxes, and kill the body he now inhabits. You’ll have to draw him into open battle, so that means he’ll have his Death Eaters gathered around him for protection and firepower. If he’s as powerful as you say then the only way you can defeat him is if you choose to become a warlock. The power of my bloodline to do so is present in you even though you are far descended from me. There is only a faint trace of me left in you, normally you would not have had this old power rise within you, but you were conceived on the Hallows, and you are the last of my seed. That amplified and condensed the remnants of my bloodline within you. Harry Potter, you have the ability to become a true warlock, and that hasn’t occurred in centuries.”

“What do I need to do to become a warlock then, Sir?” asked Harry.

“You need to assemble a coven that will bond themselves to you, the more powerful the bond the more easily you can take on their power and use it. You said that you never understood Dumbledore’s statement that the ability to love was a powerful weapon that Voldemort couldn’t understand. Well the best bond to have if you are a warlock is that those bonded to you are in love with you, and you with them. You see Voldemort’s weapon is hate. Hate is a powerful individual emotion in magic, probably the second greatest in that class. The ability to hate everything is what makes Voldemort powerful, but hate does not fare well as a bonding agent except in special cases where hatred is shared for a third party. That bond usually won’t hold for long because hate usually brings distrust with it, and the distrust weakens the bond.

“Love, on the other hand, is the most powerful individual emotion in magic. I can feel the love within you. You were conceived in a powerful act of love and that stays with you, it draws others to you. Voldemort underestimates the power of love, even though he has experienced its power once before to his great loss. Your mother’s love sacrifice formed an impenetrable magic shield around you that he couldn’t defeat despite his hate driven power. You have what is probably the most potent combination for potential greatness. The ability to become a warlock and the ability to love and be loved by others.

“The best option for a warlock when planning to engage a powerful enemy is a coven with love between the group, which engenders trust, and hate for a common foe. Your witches should have their own personal grievances with your enemy, but love you. For the personal bond to be strong your witches should have surrendered to you sexually. Sex is powerful magic in itself, it’s the essence of life, and about the oldest of old magic. If a witch willingly grants you access to penetrate her body and use her to satisfy your lust, then she will grant you access to her power to use to satisfy your needs there too. Trust is the key, when you call upon her power to enter you it must be surrendered without reservation.”

“How many do I need for a coven, Sir?” asked Harry. “Voldemort is very powerful.”

“I had three witches bonded to me and two wizard apprentices. From what I’ve seen inside you there is that potential for you also. Fleur and her sister, Gabrielle, would bond with you, and you’ve had them both sexually already. They also seem to have no problem with sharing you, and they have their father’s death to revenge. Oh, boy, have you had them, I’d wish now I’d invented that Tickle Twat stuff your friends made back in my day. I might have kept Morgana on a better leash with that at my disposal. The muggleborn witch you had that thought you were an elf, this Hermione, she would bond to you. She knows what will happen to her if Voldemort comes to power.

“As far as magical power goes, if I had to pick three, I’d choose Fleur, Hermione, and this Ginny girl. They are the most powerful, but getting them to bond with you and accept the others as sisters, that’s your biggest obstacle. And if you can attract more than three to you then I would. The male apprentices should be wizards who revere you, if they are indebted to you for a great kindness or service done to them that will also strengthen the bond. Something like a life debt would be good.”

Biggest obstacle didn’t really cover it, thought Harry. Ginny was a jealous girl, and she had those dangerous boots. If she found out about Fleur, and the baby, Harry would go from a well hung warlock to a nutless wonder in about two seconds. “Sir, once I have a coven, what do I do then, how do I make the bond with them?” Harry asked.

“The bonding is a power like being a Parselmouth, Harry, it’s already there waiting until needed. In my case I had them kneel before me as we joined hands, they swore themselves to me. I guess the modern parlance would be they declared themselves to be my bitches. Then I reached out mentally to enter them, to open the channel, then their power was drawn into me, I could feel it surge like a wave coming ashore. That power was mine to use. You only speak Parseltongue when you need to; it’s not a conscious thing. Neither is this, when you need to join minds you’ll do so, you can reach out to them, and draw their power into you, making you far stronger than Voldemort.”

“I still need to know how to find the Horcruxes and destroy them,” said Harry. “If he’s hidden them I need to find where they are.”

“You’ll have a problem there I’m afraid. There is no telling where they are hidden, or whom he gave them too. You got lucky when the diary turned up and exposed his scheme of survival. You should be able to locate the missing pieces using the Horcrux that was accidentally made inside you.”

“So Dumbledore was right,” said Harry. “I actually am one of the Horcruxes without knowing it.”

“I think so. This involves a bit of guesswork on my part, but it’s probably a pretty good guess given that it’s coming from me. A Horcrux is just a bit of magic, Harry. Because of the scar, you carry a part of Voldemort with you. You are a Horcrux he unintentionally made using the murder of your mother as the catalyst. Voldemort depends on those pieces of his soul to protect him from death. That’s how he survived when the killing curse ricocheted off you and hit him. It destroyed his body but the soul couldn’t die because it wasn’t all there when the curse hit it.”

“So part of the bastard is sitting somewhere inside of me right now? Is that why I can see and hear what he’s thinking, because a part of him is actually living inside of me?

“Yes and he always has been since that night. That’s why magic has a hard time distinguishing between you and Voldemort, because there is a part of him inside you. You two also have the same type of wand, your wand is identical to the one used to make the Horcruxes in the first place. The fact that you could see through his eyes at times confirms it, but I think Albus was wrong about the snake. I think Voldemort would only have used inanimate objects for the Horcruxes. Albus told me that when he found you after the attack he incinerated the remains of Voldemort’s original body, and that laying beside your crib was a watch that the Wizengamot had presented to Albus after the Grindlewald affair. He had placed it on a shelf in his office and forgotten about it. Apparently, Tom Riddle had stolen it when he had visited Dumbledore. I’m sure he intended to make that watch into the final Horcrux. When he couldn’t get an object that was the property of Gryffindor, he got an object from his living heir.”

“But my Mum messed up his plans to make a Horcrux out of my death.”

“Exactly, you didn’t die,” said Merlin. “You see each successive Horcrux gets more difficult to make so he has to demean his soul further each time. To make the sixth, and last, Horcrux he was going to murder a baby, the last of the great dynasty of Merlin.”

“How can I destroy the Horcrux inside me?” asked Harry, as he feared he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Oh, that’s easy, just kill yourself and the scar dies naturally with your body,” said Merlin. “That’s why I said I doubted Voldemort would have made the snake a Horcrux. The snake is mortal, when it dies so does the part of his soul it inhabits. A snake is a simple minded creature, Voldemort could inhabit its mind quite easily and control it without making a Horcrux.”

“All right,” acknowledged Harry. “However, if the spell rebounded on Voldemort’s body, why wasn’t the big part of him killed, and only the bits in the Horcruxes left lying around forever?”

“It was Harry. Voldemort died, but the main part of his soul that inhabits his body is sentient, it figured out how to come back.”

“But how can you come back from the dead?” asked Harry.

“If you are not really completely dead then you can’t pass into the next world, you’re sort of trapped in a nether region. He escaped back in spiritual form like you first met him. Now he has a new body and he exists in five remaining parts. He planned to make himself into seven parts, the main soul in the body he occupies, and six pieces holding him here like a sort of ship’s anchor. We know that two pieces are now destroyed, and that leaves five pieces. You are one, he is another, and there are three other objects which house bits of him.”

“So I have to die to finally destroy him, to kill myself to destroy the Horcrux. That sucks?”

“But with enough power at your disposal, and some practice, you can call the piece of his soul out of you and transfer it back to him, and then kill it along with Voldemort’s current body. However, we are talking about something that will require a lot of power to perform. It would be best to destroy the objects first before you try that to weaken him as much as possible.”

“So the piece in me will return to Voldemort, then I can kill them both?” mused Harry. Harry stared incredulously at Merlin for a moment or two. How could he make it all sound so damned simple? Harry hadn’t a clue how to perform magic like this.

Merlin looked over at Harry and seemed to know what he was thinking. “I guess you think I’m a bit mad, but that’s the only real chance you have to destroy him and live. By the way, if the other Horcruxes are destroyed and you do die to take out the last one then remember that with the Horcruxes gone any wizard of reasonable ability can kill Voldemort, doesn’t have to be you.”

“I’d really like to come out of this alive if I can.”

“Me too, or I wouldn’t bother helping you, would I? Now, you have to be careful, if Voldemort thinks you’re hunting the Horcruxes then he’s going to grab them and go underground with them. He’ll send others to do the dirty work. You’ve got to draw him out into the open, and destroy him before he can react.”

“Destroy him,” said Harry. “With what? Last time we faced off our wands locked. It caught him by surprise then, but he’ll be ready for it now. If I can do that to his wand, he can do it to mine. While I’m tied up with him his Death Eaters will surely finish me off.”

“Your absolutely right, Harry,” said Merlin. “You need something more powerful than just a wand; you need a true weapon designed for fighting on this level.”

“There’s the sword of Gryffindor in the Headmistress’ office,” said Harry. “I’ve wielded it before. Can I use it instead of my wand?”

“It could be used,” Merlin, mused. “Remember also that you have two hands, you can carry two weapons. You said your friend Moody gave you a Black Wand that can be used as a main gauche in your left hand to fend off attacks by Death Eaters. The sword of Gryffindor might be enough, and you channeled it through Dumbledore once before when you were in danger.”

“What do you mean that I channeled it through Professor Dumbledore, I didn’t know that the sword even existed? It just came to me in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Harry you are my only living descendent. Godric Gryffindor was my sworn apprentice; to prove his loyalty to me he willingly bonded his bloodline to the service of mine. Think about what happened, you drew the sword of Gryffindor from the hat of Gryffindor. Yet you are not descended of his blood. Only Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore had the power to do that by right of blood, and now it has fallen to Fleur and Gabrielle Dumbledore. Who then could call upon Gryffindor for aid and receive it, but the descendent of his old master?

“It wasn’t your loyalty to Dumbledore that brought the hat and sword, or even Fawkes, to you in Salazar’s deadly chamber. It was Godric’s loyalty to me. You, my descendent, my blood, needed help, and you unconsciously called for it down there. The remaining Earthly artifacts of Godric Gryffindor, his sword, his hat, and his Phoenix, came to you in fulfillment of their Master’s sworn oath to serve my bloodline. Just as his descendents would have fought to the death to save you if they were there. You were channeling then. So you already have the power to become a warlock within you, you’ve already used it once unknowingly, just as you used the Parseltongue ability unknowingly when it was needed.”

“But that’s not what Professor Dumbledore told me when I returned the sword,” said Harry. “He said it meant I was a true Gryffindor.”

“He had to come up with something to tell you,” said Merlin. “You were what, twelve years old? Would any of this have made sense to you then? No. So he told you that bedtime story to answer your questions and shut you up. He probably started figuring out about your descent from me about that time. He would have known what your getting the sword meant.”

“So if I can form a coven, and reclaim the sword of Godric Gryffindor, I can defeat Voldemort?”

“No promises, but that would be your best shot at victory. The girl Fleur is the rightful owner of the sword, she should be able to call it from the Sorting Hat now. Oh by the way, you said you were frightened of Dementors. The crystals you have are a good defense, especially if you want to capture and torment the bastards, but the sword also works on them. Plus, with enough practice, the Dementors will be terrified of you, in fact most everyone will.”

“Why is that?” asked Harry.

“Because of the power you can bring to bear if you desire to. Starting out you must have magi willingly bond themselves to you to share their power, but once you are powerful enough, you can draw from others unwillingly. There were warlocks who turned evil and began to drain the magical ability from others by force, leaving them a shattered shell. Even their very life force was taken to keep the warlock eternally young. They were defeated only by great concerted efforts and at the cost of much blood. Have no doubt, Harry, even if you use this power for nothing but good, and the betterment and safety of all, you will be feared for having it.”

“I don’t see any alternative though,” mused Harry. “I either become a warlock and destroy Voldemort, or he destroys me. That’s what we call a no-brainer these days.”

“Good, then we’re done here. I’ve got to go anyway. See you around, Harry.”

“Wait a minute…,” Harry started, only to realize he was awake again and back in the caverns.