A Cold, Corrupting Fate

Book 6 of 'Harry Potter and the Second War'

Albus Dumbledore is dead, and the Minister for Magic is in the hands of the Dark Lord. Beset on all sides by enemies, Harry Potter must find a way to victory without losing himself along the way.

Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it. The title is from 'Destroyer of a Soul', by Lionel Johnson.

I hate you with a necessary hate.

First, I sought patience: passionate was she:

My patience turned in very scorn of me,

That I should dare forgive a sin so great,

As this, through which I sit disconsolate;

Mourning for that live soul, I used to see;

Soul of a saint, whose friend I used to be:

Till you came by! a cold, corrupting, fate.

Why come you now? You, whom I cannot cease

With pure and perfect hate to hate? Go, ring

The death-bell with a deep, triumphant toll!

Say you, my friend sits by me still? Ah, peace!

Call you this thing my friend? this nameless thing?

This living body, hiding its dead soul?

Prologue: Dreams within Dreams

The little boy ran as fast as he could, his arms pumping and his eyes streaming. The bigger boys were coming, their taunting cries ringing out ahead of them. He turned a corner, his feet splashing in a puddle, and he skidded to a halt, his heart sinking. It was a dead end.

Harry Potter watched as the boy sagged, hope leaving him. Something about the boy was familiar; blue eyes, badly cut black hair, and perhaps something about the jaw line.

"Here, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!"

The little boy closed his eyes for a moment, but opened them before he turned around. Three other boys, bigger and older, stood at the mouth of the alley. They were standing in carefully constructed nonchalance, their hands in their pockets and grins that could not quite hide their gleeful viciousness. One of them, standing in the middle and slightly better dressed, looked at his companions meaningfully.

"Why's he keep running away from us, eh? We just want to play, Tommy…"

"Please – Andrew, I just want…"

"Shut up, you little whiner!" said one of the other two boys. The third cracked his knuckles with a leer. The first boy, presumably Andrew, looked offended.

"Now now, lads, play nice. We had fun, din't we? Had a nice run around, caught ourselves a prize. Tommy ain't going to stop us playing with the prize, is he?"

The boys advanced on Tommy, laughing, and Harry looked away. He knew what was coming, and did not feel the need to watch it. He nearly jumped out of his skin as he realised that his vigil was not a solitary one.

"I'd forgotten this," Titus said. He did not look away, staring moodily over Harry's shoulder as the slapping sound of a beating began to ring out. "Andrew was a bastard. Not literally. He was the matron's son. King of the orphanage, he was. Had his own little gang, and he'd beat us for the tiniest reason. He always got away with it too."

"How could you forget…" Harry trailed off. "Never mind. That's Voldemort, isn't it? Young Tom Riddle."

"Who else was it going to be?" Titus retorted, flicking his eyes to meet Harry's. "It certainly isn't you, is it?"

"Suppose not," Harry said. The sounds of violence from behind him had ceased, and he looked back at the group. The three boys were standing over Tommy – Voldemort – and dusting their hands off. Voldemort was curled on the floor, sporting the beginnings of a nasty looking black eye and spotted with blood.

"See you soon, Tommy," Andrew said carelessly, and he wandered away, followed by his lackeys. Harry watched him go with thorough distaste. The trio disappeared around the corner, and Harry looked back to Voldemort. The young boy had raised his head, and there was a look of fierce determination on his face. He went to stand, and curled back up, wincing.

"Yeah. Bruised for days," Titus said.

Voldemort crawled towards the wall of the alley, and slid himself upwards. Using the wall for support, he made his way to the mouth of the alley. As he reached it, he slipped, and fell to the floor once more. There was a muffled cry of rage, and the young boy slammed his hand down into the puddle he had slipped in earlier. There was a splash, cut short. Voldemort stared at the puddle, his face clearing in bewilderment.

The water had iced over.

The young boy poked at it, as if he didn't believe it were real. He immediately pulled his finger back, possibly shocked by the cold.

"Was this the first time?" Harry asked Titus. The spirit nodded absently.

"Yep. Makes you wonder how I could forget it really, doesn't it?"

"You're not really him though, are you? Not anymore," Harry pointed out.

"True."

Voldemort stood up, his pain apparently forgotten. He cast one final look at the ice, and then scurried away. Harry could just imagine what he was plotting.

"Yep."

Harry looked at Titus, confused.

"I spent the next few weeks trying to work out what I'd done and how," the spirit elaborated. "Took me ages, but I managed it. Then I just needed to work out how to make it do what I wanted."

"It can't have been easy," Harry said. He had some experience of that himself, after all, and he had a fairly well rounded understanding of how magic worked. For a young orphan who didn't know magic was real…

"It wasn't, but it was worth it," Titus said with a flash of satisfaction. "The other two – Bobby and Edward, I think they were called – left not long after. Adopted by somebody. But Andrew…well, he lived here. It took a while, but I got my revenge." He smiled. "He never bullied me again."

"Never bullied him again, you mean. You're not Voldemort," Harry said again.

Titus rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Don't complicate things."

"Please! Please, I'm begging you…"

Harry looked up sharply. "Did you hear that?" He set off at a jog towards the mouth of the alley.

"Hear what?" Titus called after him. Harry looked over his shoulder to tell him to follow, but he couldn't see the spirit. Or the alley. He looked forwards again, and everything was white.

He tripped and fell, catching himself on his hands. When he looked up, he was somewhere else.

The room was distantly familiar to him. Dusty shelves stood on all sides, crammed full of things that he did not recognise. He looked closer at one and recoiled; it was a withered, blackened hand that flickered with a hazy pulse of magic. A quick glance around suggested that the other items were of similar nature, and he looked away from the shelves.

"Where are we?"

Titus stood there, looking round with curiosity burning on his face. Harry shook his head.

"I don't know. I've seen it before though. Can't remember where it is though."

"Well, that's a Hand of Glory, I think," Titus said, pointing at the wrinkled hand. "Not exactly reputable, wherever we are."

Harry opened his mouth to ask, but then decided he didn't want to know. He moved forward slowly, treading carefully. The shelves tapered off, clearly forming an aisle, and when he reached the end he poked his head around the corner. He was met by the sight of ice blue eyes, and a tall young man walking towards him. He barely had time to gasp before the man had walked straight through him. He jumped back, turning to watch the man in shock.

"What did you expect? You're not really here, are you?"

"It's still weird," Harry said. "That's you again, isn't it?"

"I thought I wasn't him anymore," Titus said.

"You're the one who said not to complicate things," Harry said without looking at him. Voldemort was prowling through the shelves, his eyes lighting on each item for only the briefest glance before moving on. It was clear he was looking for something, but Harry could not work out what might interest Voldemort so much in this dingy little place.

Voldemort stopped, drawing in a sharp breath. He reached up to a shelf, and then drew back. He looked around, his eyes furtive. When satisfied that there was no-one else around, he reached out again. This time, when he pulled his hand back, there was a flash of gold, and something dangling from a chain.

"Ah, Master Riddle! I didn't hear you arrive."

Voldemort stiffened, and his free hand twitched. For a moment, Harry could see him trying to decide whether to kill the new arrival. A heartbeat later, he relaxed. He brushed his hand over the front of his robes, and the chain was gone. Voldemort turned, plastering a smooth, polite expression on his face and bowing slightly.

"Mr Borgin, a pleasure to meet you…"

"You're insane. Do you really think you can get away with this?"

Once more, Harry's attention was torn away from Voldemort. The voice came from nowhere. This time though, Titus reacted as well, looking around in confusion.

"You can hear it now?" Harry asked.

Titus nodded, starting to walk away from the conversation still happening behind them. Harry cast one final look at Voldemort, and then followed the spirit through the shop. Titus paused for nothing, walking straight through a shelf to get to the other side. This brought Harry up short for a moment. Would it hurt? Voldemort passing through him hadn't been painful, although rather disturbing on a whole number of different levels, but it wasn't an experience he had enjoyed.

Titus poked his head back through the shelf, his face creased with irritation. "Come on! We'll lose track of it!"

"Fine," Harry muttered. The wooden beams seemed to stick in him as he walked through them, resisting his passage. They were indefinably solid, and he had to pull himself out of them on the other side. Titus did not wait for him to recover, but headed off in the direction of a fireplace, covered in dust and flakes of burnt wood. It hadn't been used for quite some time, although there was snow on the window. It was possible that Borgin did not feel the cold, although by the looks of the rest of the shop, Harry thought it more likely the man was simply cheap.

"So, do you know who that Borgin bloke was?" Titus asked as he examined the fireplace.

"No…yes!" Harry said, correcting himself as a thought struck him. "I knew I'd been here before – Borgin and Burke's. It's a shop in Knockturn Alley."

Titus looked back at Harry, his brow wrinkled. "Knockturn Alley? What on earth were you doing there?"

"There was an accident with some Floo Powder," Harry said, waving the question away as if it were unimportant. His attitude did not work.

"You got lost in the Floo network? That's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard."

"It happens to loads of people!" Harry said defensively.

"Yeah, but I don't have to share their heads, do I? This way." Titus ducked down, and stepped over the grate into the fireplace. When both feet were inside, he vanished. For a moment, Harry lingered, looking back the way they had come. He wanted to know what was going on, but he wanted to know why Voldemort was here, and what he wanted with the chain that he had stolen.

Of course, he had no way of knowing if this was a memory or a dream. If the former, then there was the chance he could learn something useful. If the latter…well, he didn't really want to know what the Dark Lord dreamt about. Perhaps the chain would turn out to be carved from the bones of his enemies, or something.

After a few moments, he stepped into the grate. Whatever else was happening, he didn't want to be alone.

Within seconds, he was bitterly regretting his decision.

It was not a normal Floo trip, if there was such a thing. Instead of a steady path of green fire, Harry was thrown out of the fire into a hazily defined sky. He fell through rain clouds, lightning lashing at the choppy sea below. He just had time to notice a split in the cliff-face before he hit the water. There was a splash, and he landed in a room he did not recognise. It was dark, the torches extinguished and the windows covered. At the rear of the room, on a pedestal, stood a cup of some kind. It was heavily warded; Harry could taste the power seeping into the air around it. He took a moment to look around the room, and screamed as a vast, hulking figure slashed its arm down at him. He ducked away from the hammer-like fist, going for his wand, but it wasn't there. The shape turned to him, and in desperation Harry leapt through the covered window.

On the other side stood Voldemort. The Dark Lord was cloaked in silence, his red eyes narrowed in thought. At his feet was curled a stout man with wispy hair, great gasping breaths wracking his body. Harry edged closer, looking around to see if either Titus or the thing that had attacked him had followed, but he could see neither of them. As he neared the two figures, the man on the floor uncurled slightly, allowing Harry to see his face.

His nose was caked in blood, and he was missing an eye. His hair had started to fall out, and his skin had taken on a sickly grey pallor. His clothes were torn, and Harry could not see his hat at all, although the chain around his neck was as pristine as ever. All in all, Cornelius Fudge had seen better days. He whimpered slightly as he realised that Voldemort was still there, and the Dark Lord placed his foot on Fudge's face. He seemed not to notice that the Minister was awake; instead, he simply looked around the room thoughtfully. Harry had the impression that he was trying to arrive at a decision.

For the first time, Harry pitied Fudge. He had never had a great deal of respect for the man, however well he had acted in the aftermath of Voldemort's return, but to see him like this…quite apart from the uncomfortable memories it inspired, Fudge had been completely robbed of any dignity. As he watched, Voldemort raised his wand. Fudge twitched, looking up at it with terror.

"Please…please…don't kill me. I'll do anything."

"What could you possibly offer me that I could not take for myself?" Voldemort asked him. The Dark Lord's voice dripped with icy disdain, and something about it seeped into Fudge's skin. The minister stiffened, and with an effort rolled himself up until he was sitting. Voldemort watched him in amusement, until the Minister spoke.

"I hope Potter makes you burn."

"Potter will do nothing to me, Minister," Voldemort hissed. "But even if he could, you would not be there to see it. Avada Kedavra!"

In the instant it took for the green light to swell into existence, Fudge spat one last defiance onto Voldemort's robes. Then he slumped backwards, his face glazing over into the peace of death. Voldemort looked down at him, wiping away the spittle with a wave of his wand.

And then something exploded deep within Harry's centre, something so dark, so foul, so wrong, that he thought it would consume him. He fell backwards, convulsing from the un-naturalness eating away inside him, and then there came the roar of flames – an angry scream of resistance from his very soul.

Harry Potter awoke.

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A/N: The use of the poem here doesn't quite fit the generally accepted meaning – apparently it was written as a swipe at Oscar Wilde for corrupting one of Johnson's friends – but I think if you read it with Voldemort in mind my reasons for leaping on it should be fairly obvious. Read and tear it apart in in-depth reviews, please!