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HRA# Chapter 12: The Souls of the Parents (2)
🕑 Added 2025-01-13 12:07:51 +0000 UTCHarry had been about to pack up and leave when he abruptly turned back, a thought surfacing in his mind. During his curious perusal of wizarding books, he had noticed something intriguing—ghosts existed within the wizarding world.
When a wizard passed away, if they harbored an unrelenting obsession or unfulfilled desires, their soul could return to this world in the form of a ghost.
Souls—apart from the elements, they were another domain of expertise for a shaman. Shamans not only communicated with spirits to seek wisdom but could also summon them to assist in work or battle.
This raised a question... His parents... Were they wizards too?
Parents.
Every time Harry encountered the word, his emotions became tangled. In his life, there were three couples who could claim that title.
The ones he held dearest, however, were not related to him by blood—the Bloodhoof couple, the honorable Tauren who had raised him.
Waving his hand, Harry dispelled the four totems representing the elements and chanted a spell anew. This time, under his guidance, the totem shaped by the earth element stood alone—a larger, sturdier pillar that represented ancestral worship in Tauren culture.
The carvings on the totem pole depicted the heroic Tauren who had sacrificed themselves for the tribe over countless years. While Harry wasn't summoning Tauren ancestors this time, considering his true lineage... it should be fine, right?
Closing his eyes, he invoked the spirits of the ancestors—a fundamental skill for any shaman. He had done it countless times and was adept at it.
But this time, unlike the symbolic murmurs of the elements he usually heard, Harry found himself in a thick mist.
Dark, smoky tendrils enveloped everything around him as he walked down an endless path. Beyond the road beneath his feet, there was only the boundless, deep green fog.
It felt like many eyes hid within the mist, watching him—some curious, others greedy.
Was this the afterlife in the wizarding world?
Harry's spiritual instincts flared, but he remained unafraid.
Guided by the spirits, he pressed onward, holding onto the invisible thread that connected him to something ahead.
Eventually, he saw two figures—a man and a woman.
When Harry finally opened his eyes in the real world, he saw the two spirits floating before him, their faces marked by the same confusion.
Their translucent, bluish-green forms differed from the pearly white descriptions in wizarding books. Wisps of smoke trailed from their spectral bodies. Harry couldn’t discern if the woman’s eyes matched his emerald green, as Hagrid and Ollivander had claimed, but he could make out the man’s features.
The man’s face bore a striking resemblance to his own.
Or rather, Harry thought, his face resembled the man’s.
“...Harry?” The woman’s trembling voice broke the silence. She reached out with both arms. “Is it really you, Harry?”
A ghostly embrace.
To be honest, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. The sensation of a ghost passing through one’s body was akin to being doused in icy water on a frigid winter day—a coldness that pierced both body and soul.
Harry sighed and turned to look at the sorrowful woman. Her inability to physically hold him seemed to deepen her sadness.
“Yes, it’s me,” Harry hesitated, but ultimately uttered the two words, “...Mother.”
Relief washed over him.
Back in Azeroth, Harry had resented his biological parents, wanting to question why they had abandoned him, leaving him to grow up under the scolding of his aunt and uncle.
That resentment, paired with the love of the Bloodhoof couple, had driven him to abandon his human identity and grow up as a Tauren in Azeroth.
And he had done so resolutely.
Yet, after returning to the world of his eleven-year-old self, Harry learned the truth—his biological parents hadn’t abandoned him intentionally. They had died as heroes. That revelation seemed to unlock something within him.
They were no different from the heroes who had sacrificed themselves to protect Azeroth.
While this didn’t alter Harry’s established worldview or self-perception, it did allow him to release the resentment he had held toward his parents.
At least—he was certain they had loved him, just as the Bloodhoof family had.
“And you too, Father,” Harry added, turning to the male spirit hovering in front of him.
The man, James Potter, waggled his eyebrows and grinned as if trying to communicate silently.
“Aha!” James twirled in the air. “Finally! I get to hear my child’s voice!”
Do ghosts shed tears?
Harry could see them in his mother’s eyes—Lily Potter’s gaze was brimming with gratitude and joy.
There was so much to say—conversations that spanned life and death, between parents long gone and a grown child.
But—
Pop!
A faint crack, the sound of Apparition, interrupted them. Harry was well-acquainted with it by now.
Turning toward the garden, he spotted a sullen-looking man standing in the street. Beside him, Mrs. Figg, their neighbor, was walking toward him anxiously. Both were staring in his direction.
No, Harry realized, the wizard who had Apparated wasn’t looking at him—he was staring at the spirits beside him. His mother.
“...Lily,” the man’s whispered words carried on the wind to Harry’s ears.
“Oh?” Harry thought to himself. “This might get interesting.”
“Snivellus!” James Potter’s disgusted voice rang out the moment he noticed the newcomer. “Why is it you?”
“Don’t talk like that, James. The child is here,” Lily chided. Harry couldn’t tell if her ghostly punch was light or heavy, but it silenced James for a moment.
The sullen man didn’t seem to hear anything. His eyes remained fixed on Lily.
James, however, bristled with anger. Though his ethereal form couldn’t block the man’s view, he positioned himself in front of Lily.
“Hey! Snivellus! You looking for a fight?” James snapped. “Stop staring at Lily!”
“I said not in front of the child!” Lily scolded, likely twisting James’s ghostly arm. She floated aside and addressed the man with a complex expression. “Severus... are you okay?”
It was as if the man had been struck by lightning. Harry could see him visibly shudder, his entire body trembling violently.
