The Only Thing to Fear...
AN: Round 11 submission for the QLFC. I chose the Chaser 1 prompt, Movies. My team is Pride of Portree. After not being able to think of a suitable movie for the competition, it was suggested I do Jurassic Park. I got about 175 words in before I found myself stuck and not knowing how to proceed. After a day of agonizing over my story and the deadline approaching I was informed of Wes Craven's death, thus I found inspiration for restarting and going for a crossover with A Nightmare on Elm Street (Freddy Krueger was my favorite childhood villain between ages 12-16). My optional story prompts are:
1. (phrase) now or never
10. (word) eyelash
12. (quote) 'Laughter is the sun that drives winter from a human face.' -Victor Hugo
Special thanks to Oni no Tenshi (Story Please) for edits and the news, however unfortunate, that motivated me to write this.
R.I.P. Wes.
Standing in a driveway on a June night dressed in casual clothes, seventeen year-old Harry Potter stared at the house. It wasn't a remarkable house, really it was the worst place he knew. At least, it appeared to be. The Dursley household, Number 4 Privet Drive. Except the address was different whereas everything else looked the same. 1428 Elm Street.
Taking a deep breath Harry stepped forward, 'I don't want to be here,' he thought, thinking of his prick of a cousin and the pig's despicable parents. He reached the door and just as he was about to knock it slowly creaked open of its own accord and Harry was left looking into a void of pitch black, knuckles still raised in slight confusion.
"One, two, Freddy's coming for you."
Harry spun on the spot, wand at the ready, heart pumping loudly in the ensuing silence. There on the sidewalk stood a stoic little girl, watching him. Harry swallowed, a lump in his throat.
'This feels wrong,' he thought to himself, a chill running up his spine as looked at the unnerving child in return. "Who are you?" Harry asked her suspiciously. He received no discernible response.
Deciding that nothing would be accomplished by standing there in a staring contest, Harry began walking towards her. The door slammed shut with a BANG and Harry jumped and twisted around to aim his wand behind him. Nothing. Turning back to the girl he found her not even a foot from him staring up at him with coal black eyes with no whites wearing a red and green striped sweater. Her lips peeled back as she hissed menacingly at him, before lunging for his face with a clawed hand.
"HARRY!"
Harry leaped up and rolled from his bed, somehow holding his wand and aiming at… "Ginny?!" He panted, sleep fading from his vision.
She was kneeling on the bed in her nightshirt looking at him with concern. "Harry? Are you alright? You were having a bad dream."
"M'fine," Harry mumbled, lowering his wand. 'It felt real, but wrong,' he mused recalling the general creepiness of the nightmare. Rubbing his eyes to get rid of a stray eyelash, a pinch of pain alerted him to a shallow cut on his cheek. Harry pulled his hand away to see a slight smear of crimson.
"Harry! You're bleeding!" Ginny quickly got out of the bed and bent down to examine Harry's face.
"S'just a scratch," Harry responded, absently. His brain was awhirl with the possibility of the dream having been real...somehow.
"Voldemort?" Ginny whispered, anxiously.
Harry looked at her, "No, I don't think so. There was this weird girl, I was at my aunt and uncle's house. She hissed at me before she attacked."
Ginny seemed relieved at Harry's assurance, then her face formed into one of seriousness. "Let's go talk to Bill, he can check to see if this a curse or not."
"Three, four, better lock your door."
The hair on Harry's neck raised as he looked around for the source of the haunting, child-like voice and saw nobody. Just a lit, empty street and the house. The same house, same address. He drew his wand. How he had the wand he didn't know, but he took comfort in it's presence.
This time Harry reached the door and simply turned the knob to let himself in. The lights were on, yet they were clearly off when he was outside… Taking a breath, Harry called out, "Hello? Aunt Petunia? Uncle Vernon? Dudley…?" He trailed off in the silence, then braved the threshold and into the house.
Standing in the hall, he saw the pictures on the walls, containing Vernon, Petunia, Dudley, Marge and some landscapes. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. Stepping forward, he passed the entrance to living room on his left. 'Nothing out of order there,' he thought to himself after taking a glance around.
THUMP.
Harry's head jerked upward to look at the ceiling, breath caught in his lungs. 'Someone's here,' he thought panickedly.
Licking his lips and breathing again, Harry turned toward the stairs, 'Only one way up. Or down for that matter.'
It took him a moment to get his feet moving again and he made his way to the staircase, grasping the wooden rail with one hand and keeping his eyes and wand trained at the exit from the stairs to the first floor hallway. 'The lights are dimmer there...' he noted, fear clenching his stomach.
One step after another, he ascended. It felt like an eternity. Harry knew fear, knew it well, but this was a different sort of feeling. Stronger, more irrational. The fear he was used to was a knowing fear. He knew Voldemort, the dark wizard was a tangible person. A psychopathic, fearsome, and powerful man, to be sure, but a man nonetheless. Walking up those steps took everything Harry had, because he didn't know what lay in wait for him. The girl came to mind, but she too was an unknown. The very atmosphere was oppressive, charged with malice and full of tension as he strained his ears for the next startling sound or horrific appearance.
As Harry crested the stairs he came upon the landing, except it seemed to stretch unnaturally far, too far to accommodate the house it was in. 'Wrongwrongwrong,' his mind sang uneasily.
Harry pushed himself forward again, wand at the ready, and made a few feet. A door to the right opened, slowly, a glowing red light beyond it. Harry's eyes widened, following, as it swung on its hinges and he swallowed the lump of fear in his throat.
A scuttling body charged from the room, its limbs twisted unnaturally as it skittered on all fours towards him at an unearthly speed. Harry screamed and fired a silent Stupefy, missing by a mile. The terrible...thing grunted raspily as it closed in and Harry stumbled backwards blindly as he cast Sectumsempra over and over again, his spells flying embarrassingly far from their intended target.
The creature dodged, climbing the wall effortlessly and scuttling across the ceiling like a spider without pausing for a moment. Its impossibly twisted, horrific face stared straight at him, its mouth open in a silent snarl. The leathery expanse of its face was scarred with burns that warped its facial features beyond recognition. On its body was the same striped shirt as from the first dream, the one with the horrifying girl.
Harry backpedaled until he reached the staircase and he stumbled, falling backwards down the stairs. The thing chuckled cruelly and leapt like a predatory creature, its arms and legs twisting backwards. The creature's voice wasn't anything like Voldemort's. It was deep, echoing, and unfathomably sinister. Its slimy tongue whipped out, stretching impossibly long and reaching for his throat as Harry landed heavily at the bottom of the stairs, his body aching and-
Harry's eyes snapped open, but all he saw was the ceiling of his and Ginny's room. He lay on his back on the floor, breathing heavily. He heard footsteps running down the hall to the bedroom door. Ginny burst in looking worried having left for the restroom earlier.
Looking at one another, they reached a silent understanding. This wasn't just going to go away.
Harry and Ginny had floo-called Ron, Hermione, Luna, and Neville and apprized them of the situation.
"So, this thing looked like a little girl at first then it was a burned, human-looking monster? How do you know it was the same thing?" Ron asked, slightly disbelieving.
"Because it wore the same shirt with green and red stripes," Harry said a tad impatiently.
"Did it look familiar? You said wasn't Voldemort, so what it it?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know, but there were these rhymes. One, two, Freddy's coming for you," Harry recited. "Three, four, better lock your door. I think it's a he and he's called Freddy."
Everyone stared at Harry. He rolled his eyes, "Obviously not that Fred."
Ron muttered, "Creepy stuff Harry."
"You could take the Dreamless Sleep potion," Hermione suggested.
"Yeah, but for how long?" Harry responded, "I can't just live my whole life drinking it and avoiding my dreams. Pretty sure there'd be some side-effects from that."
"You haven't managed to hit him with a spell yet. Do you think you could kill Freddy?" Neville asked.
Harry looked at him, a little surprised Neville would be the first to suggest killing. "I don't know," Harry answered.
They weren't really getting anywhere, they didn't have enough information to go on. All they knew was a monster named Freddy had taken residence in Harry's dreams, and Harry couldn't just stop sleeping or depend on the Drought of Dreamless Sleep forever.
And soon, the sun would be setting.
"Can you take turns watching me sleep? If things seem to be getting really bad, will you wake me up?" Harry asked them.
His friends looked at each other and back him. Luna spoke for them all, "Sure, Harry. Just don't do anything reckless, it wouldn't be fair of you to get mortally wounded and die after we wake you up."
Harry smiled tightly, nodding.
They drew lots and Ginny took the first watch.
Harry was at the landing on the first floor of the nightmare house and once again everything seemed ordinary. No stretching hall, no dimness, no Freddy.
Yet.
Reaching for his trusty wand Harry's hand grabbed thin air… 'What?!'
"Five, six, grab a crucifix." The next verse flowed nowhere and everywhere.
Glancing at the floor in the vain hope that it had dropped out of his pocket, Harry frantically tried to think of what he could use as a weapon.
'Maybe Petunia's curling iron?' He found it stashed under the sink in the bathroom.
"It probably won't burn him with my luck, but it's better than my fists," he muttered.
Standing, Harry left the bathroom, holding his makeshift weapon in one hand like a club. Suddenly, the lights flickered and he heard a hissing to his left he slowly turned his head to look and saw a rather big snake. It was striped red and green and had the head of the monster he had encountered last night wearing a brown hat. It would have been comical if he'd not already experienced two nights detailing exactly how horrible it could be.
The face grinned, but the expression didn't reach its eyes, which stared predatorily at Harry as if he was a tasty meal. Then it spoke… with Dumbledore's voice. "Harry my boy, tucker in."
It lunged, its mouth gaping with pointed teeth. Harry was barely able to dodge, jumping to the side, his face still frozen with shock at the demon's mimicry of his old mentor. He climbed to his knees as the Freddy-snake readied to launch itself at him again. Outrage and desperation coursed through him as he swung the curling iron at the monster's head and with a dull, wet crack it split open like an egg. Vile fluids leaked out onto the carpet, but the thing still moved. It slithered itself, broken head swaying, up and over the rail of the staircase to the ground floor of the house.
Harry, avoiding what he assumed to be the foul creature's blood, followed and looked down. Nothing. 'How had it not died?' He wondered in shock. Picking up the curling iron, he headed downstairs after it.
"Seven, eight, better stay awake."
Harry reached the bottom and saw a trail of the black and green ichor trailing around the corner. The telly in the living room switched on of its own accord. A figure in black was strolling up to the screen, it wore a robe and the same brown hat.
"Voldemort?" Harry questioned, deeply disturbed. He quickly realized it couldn't be the real Voldemort. The Dark Lord was long dead.
"Harry Potter, we meet at last," it quoted at him in the same whispery cold voice the Dark Lord had used back in his first year.
"What do you want?"Harry asked, shakily.
"Your soul boy, I want your soul," Freddymort answered. It smiled at him, flashing rotted teeth. "And what Freddy wants, Freddy GETS!"
The screen zoomed in on the face and suddenly blew up.
Harry felt a calmness settle into him. Freddy wasn't such an unknown anymore. Still frightening, because the twisted, demented creature wanted to kill him in the most sadistic ways possible, but he'd confronted the same in Voldemort. He could face Freddy too.
The trail led to the hated place where he had lived for many years: the cupboard under the stairs. A faint red glow seeped from under the door.
Gathering his determination, Harry gripped the curling iron.
'I dub thee Excaliber, O' curling iron.' Harry's lips quirked at his mind's attempt at levity when faced with bad odds. Said quirk vanished as claw marks suddenly slashed diagonally through the door, as if the wood was made out of paper.
Harry gulped, but steeled himself and moved forward. He turned the handle and the door swung open.
Instead of his old sleeping quarters he found it had become another staircase that wound down under the house. 'Proof that this isn't really the Dursley's house,' his mind rationalized. He descended.
Pipes came into view and steam occasionally billowed from a leak here and there, the red glow which seemed to have no source only increased the ominous feeling he had. 'It's like the entrance of Hell, if Hell were a boiler room,' he thought.
Finally the winding stairs came to a grated landing. It was almost too hot and humid to bear. He spotted the massive furnace and the floor below. Then there was a screeching, the sound of metal sliding against metal. Harry looked across the way and saw a man on the landing at the other end of the place. The details weren't readily visible, but he was wearing a sweater and hat. Harry knew it was Freddy.
"So, Harry," Freddy's voice rumbled in predatory smugness. "Do you like the stage?"
"Who are you? Why do you want to kill me?" Harry asked in an attempt to get more answers.
"I'm the guy who's going to butcher you and your friends. I only needed you to mention me to them and now I have a foothold in your world," Freddy answered in that demonic voice as he walked around the landing that circled the room and towards Harry.
"My world?" Harry pressed, closing in on the ladder that would take him to the floor.
"The parents killed me in an act of vigilantism," Freddy went on, tone taking a vengeful quality. "But I came back in the dreams of the children who still lived and remembered me. Now I am eternal, and infecting your Wizarding World!." Freddy began to laugh, obviously pleased at the opportunity presented to him.
Harry who had been climbing down ran to the open furnace looking around for something, anything, he could use that would be better than the damned curling iron.
'Should have stopped by the kitchen,' he thought darkly.
He saw a desk to the right of the furnace and ran towards it. He spotted a familiar shape. 'My wand!' Just as he was grabbing for it the wand floated, seemingly of its own accord, out of Harry's reach. His eyes followed it up to Freddy's hand, who still stood above on the landing. The brief bubble of hope became a moment of panic. 'He can't use it can he?!'
"Is this what you want, Harry? Your little stick?" Freddy taunted.
Stepping back, putting distance between himself and Freddy, Harry said, "It isn't like you can use it."
Freddy frowned, his scars pulling with the motion. "I don't need a little stick to kill you Harry. I may not have magic as you do, but with the powers I wield here in the dream, well, it's as good as," he growled. Then he vaulted over the rail and onto the floor, a fifteen feet or so. He landed without so much as a grunt.
Passing the furnace Harry found inspiration, 'Shove him into it.'
Freddy stalked closer, "'Laughter is the sun that drives winter from a human face,' Harry." Bringing Harry's wand up and watching for a reaction, Freddy effortlessly snapped it in half and laughed.
Harry boiled in anger. 'Just a little closer,' he thought, restraining himself.
Freddy was now directly in front of the opening of the furnace, 'Now or never!' Harry made his move and charged at the monster. The burned man's eyes widened at the show of courage before he was tackled. Harry brought the curling iron to bear on Freddy's face once, twice. The third attempt failed as Freddy slashed Harry's chest.
Bleeding, Harry flinched and fell away, shrugging the pain off while Freddy was getting up holding head. Harry came at him again, knocking Freddy into the furnace and kicking as hard as he could at the man's bottom half that hadn't made it through the opening.
Freddy was howling in pain and terror, legs kicking as he tried to force himself back out. Harry wasn't having that though. Grabbing his legs, Harry used the last of his reserves to push his enemy the rest of the way, then shutting the furnace for good.
Opening his eyes Harry felt Ginny shaking him and saw her in tears. She grasped him and he hissed in pain, remembering the cuts he received. "It's done," he breathed.
"Was so worried about you…" she said.
"I mustn't have been gone THAT long, Ginny. No one else has taken a shift yet," Harry said, with a wheeze. Ginny had stilled at that. "Ginny?" She moved to sit back and he looked at her, and horror constricted him as he saw her bloody face, eyes missing from their sockets. She slowly reached for him, as she chanted:
"Nine, ten, never sleep again."