Harry potter : Forgotten Lord

Night before Christmas Break

He was currently playing a game of chess against Padma, and it was a rather equal match up for a change. Since Padma had taken up a new style of play to combat him specifically she had thrown him off balance. She called this new style of chess 'Blitz Chess.' He had missed these matches; with all the recent events which had required his attention, he had hardly had time to enjoy the little things.

At the moment they were playing Blitz Chess, which as the name suggested was a rather fast paced game, with a 15 second time limit between moves to make it more interesting. Since it limited his ability to think 6 six moves ahead all the time, he no longer had the time to study the board extensively between moves.

Blitz chess was all about making quick decisions and taking calculated risks, where the wrong moves could end the game in minutes. Normal chess was mostly about foresight and planning, which he could normally win by default considering his proficiency with the mind arts. Blitz chess on the other hand required much faster thinking and the ability to adapt on the fly to a fast changing situation. He had a feeling this type of thinking and decision making would be far more useful to him throughout his life.

Checking the door, he wondered how long it would be until Penny turned up. "Looking for someone," Padma inquired between moves, obviously noticing him checking the common room on a regular basis.

"Yea Pad, I need to talk to Penny this evening," he replied, before making a move, designed to counter her knight.

"What about?" she asked, before making her own move.

"Bit nosy tonight, aren't we," he replied cheekily.

"Like you said, knowledge is power," she replied, with a small smile.

"Well, if you must know, it's about the whole troll incident," he replied, before making his move, which unfortunately resulted in his bishop being taken.

"Oh," she replied. "Is this about the possible life debt," causing his head to shoot up fast from the board.

"How do you know about that, Padma?" he asked, before making his own move, trying to counter her rook.

"Well, I am a pureblood after all," as if that was an acceptable answer before explaining further. "My father taught me about such things before school, whilst my sister was busy with our mother clothes shopping. Plus, I saw some of the books you've been reading, about debts and magical oaths, so I put 2 plus 2 together to get 4," she answered smugly, happy to be using muggle sayings like that correctly.

"Well, please keep it quiet. I want to explain it to Penny first, and wouldn't want someone else to mislead her," looking around the room, wondering if anyone else had heard them speak of this sensitive topic.

"Sure, I just hope whatever oath you picked is reasonable; she is our friend after all," she replied seriously. "If you're a bastard about this, I guarantee the female population of Hogwarts will make sure you regret it," she said threateningly, yet knowing deep down that while Harry could be rather mercenary and ruthless at times, he was good to his friends.

He just nodded to his friend's threat, "Do you think anyone else knows about life debts?" he asked, wondering just how common the knowledge was.

"I doubt many would know about it until it happened to them. I think only purebloods would know about it, but only due to their parents teaching them about common oaths and stuff. Wouldn't surprise me that only sixth years and above know of such things." She replied seriously, before making her own countermove.

"Why do you say sixth years and above then?" he asked, making his own countermove, and wondering why Daphne knew about it at her age then.

"Simple, most households start training their children after they have completed their OWLs," she replied, moving her bishop to check his king. "Check."

"Then why did your father teach you then?" he asked seriously, before moving his king accordingly.

She moved her knight, "Checkmate," she stated smugly, before explaining. "A couple years ago my brother almost died and was in a coma for a long time. Therefore I was the heir to the family name, if the worst happened, hence my education started earlier than normal, due to the fears of my brother's death.

It forced me to take up his duties in his place, otherwise it wouldn't have happened until I much older. It's probably the reason why I'm a raven actually. I was forced to grow up earlier during the eight weeks he was in the coma; my father didn't know whether my brother would live or die," she admitted soberly.

He knocked over his king in a sign of defeat, before responding, "Sorry to hear about your brother Pad, fancy another game?" hoping to avenge his defeat after realizing that Pad had slyly used the conversation to distract him from the game. Padma's explanation had also explained why Daphne knew about such things; she was the heiress to the Greengrass name. It reinforced his decision to act now; Longbottom was in the same situation as Daphne and could have already been educated about such debts considering he was the sole heir to his family name.

Just then Penny walked through the common room door, heading in their direction, before sitting down beside him, once again almost sitting on his lap.

"Penny, could I talk to you sometime this evening, after you're done packing? There is something I seriously need to talk to you about," he asked, trying to be as discreet as possible in this open of an area.

"Sure, I am already packed anyway, we can talk now if you'd like," she stated.

He looked at Padma, who just nodded that this was fine, "Let's go then," he said, before offering Penny a hand.

...

Dorm room

"What do you want to talk about then Harry?" Penny asked, after she finished putting up a silencing ward on the room, as Harry had asked, before sitting on the corner of his bed, flashing him a bit of her smooth, well-toned legs in the process.

"I don't know where to begin Penny. What do you recall about the Halloween incident?" He asked carefully. No matter how much he had thought this conversation through or researched the subject, he was still uncomfortable with it.

"Not much, just that you, Neville, and Ron saved my life." She said with an unsure smile.

"I wish it were that simple, however it is much more complicated than it would seem," he said, rising from his chair to take out the books that he had smuggled out of the library over the course of the week, before handing them to a now visibly concerned Penny.

"I've marked the parts that you need to read," he said seriously, passing her close to a dozen books in total. He would not risk getting this wrong by relying on only one resource.

He all but threw himself into the chair next to his desk; he didn't know how much time had passed as all he did was watch as his friend's expressions worsened with each book she read. Her expression turned gradually into one of despair, before tears began to appear.

Making his way over to his bed he sat down, pulling his friend into a tight hug while trying to comfort her as best he could. "Take some deep breaths, we need to talk this out," he said carefully, before pulling her into an even tighter embrace.

He didn't care much for time, he just sat there holding her tightly for as long as she needed it, eventually the tears beginning to lessen. As soon as Penny had calmed down enough, he spoke, "The crux of the problem we're facing is that this is possibly a 3 way life debt; if it was just me, it wouldn't matter, I wouldn't use it against you or demand any kind of payment, but we don't know what the others might do," this caused her tears to start flowing again.

"Shhh, don't cry, nothing has to change. I found an oath which could be used to solve this," he said in his best reassuring tone, his magic unknowingly filling his words, a result of the charged emotions of the situation.

"Oath?" Penny asked uncertainly, between the tears and gasping breaths.

"Yea ... its call a 'Companion Oath,' in short you become my vassal and ally, bound to me by magic so that you could never intentionally betray me." He said carefully, while loosening his embrace of her, "And I become bound by magic to protect you as best as I can," before carefully handing her the book containing the oath. "It's actually quite a reciprocal relationship in some ways."

Penny continued reading while he spoke, "This is the best oath I could find; I looked for the last week going over all the references on the subject in the library, trying to find a way out. There was one other way, but I doubt you want to get married this early in life, especially to me, merely in satisfaction of a debt."

"All the other oaths were darker in nature, or in some way influenced you too much for my liking. I have no desire for you to be turned into a mindless slave, and I have no desire to watch someone else do that to you either. I will make a magical vow to you right now, if you ask it. I just want to keep you from a possibly worse fate," he said carefully.

"Just be glad that it's not Malfoy or someone like that that you're indebted to; you know their views on first-generation witches and wizards." He said, before deciding to tell Penny about his childhood, to reinforce why he would never abuse his position and authority over her this oath would give him.

"Penny, let me tell you something that I've told no one else," this caused Penny to look up from the book. She knew that Harry would never share something personal or damaging unless he felt it was terribly important or the person had his trust. She suspected it was a bit of both in this case.

"After my parents were murdered, I was given to my mother's sister to be raised. From the day I arrived in that house I was abused, beaten, starved, and mistreated.

I was treated and worked like a slave from the moment I was old enough to follow instructions. I had no birthdays, no Christmases, I didn't even have a name other than 'freak' or 'boy' until I started school," he said calmly as possible, before looking back at Penny, whose whole attention was on him.

"They spread rumours about me, being mentally damaged, violent and ungrateful for their generosity to cover the abuse; I still have scars covering my body. They allowed me to be bitten by my aunt's dog and left in a tree overnight," pausing to pull up his trouser leg to show the bite marks.

"I suffered. They were scared of my magic, and they knew I was a magical before I could even speak.

My magic would heal my wounds, heal my broken bones, so there were never any visible marks or a need to take me to the hospital where questions would be asked. Just for the cycle to repeat itself the next time my uncle had too much wine, or had a bad day at work," he said coldly, but internally raging at the memories of abuse and helplessness, his magic churning powerfully around him begging for release, to tear and rend.

"My uncle took it as a challenge, so the beatings increased in regularlity and intensity. I was locked in a cupboard under the stairs; that was my bedroom you see, whilst my cousin had his own bedroom and a playroom.

This lead, among other things, to my eyesight being damaged, I recently found out. Many nights I fell asleep in a pool of my own blood, just to be forced to clean it up the next day as if I had made a mess to intentionally sully their home." He got off the bed and took off the t-shirt he had been wearing to reveal the scars he carried with him always, to the shock of Penny.

"These scars have faded a bit due to the fact I've been taking an extensive regimen of potions to fix the damage since the start of term, but simply put, the medi-witch that confidentially treated me said that I would have died if I had been a non-magical child. But these scars I visibly carry are but a fraction of the total damage done to me.

The medi-witch report said that I have internal organ damage, 60 bone fractures and other malformed bones, due to them having healed incorrectly. In short I'll be taking several powerful potions a day for the next couple of years before I am anywhere near healed.

...

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