Disclaimer
I don't own Harry Potter. That would be JKR's. I don't own plenty of other things I've drawn inspiration from. But I will mention those as they come up.
I read a lot of fanfiction, so I may have read yours. If you feel you wrote something I used, message me, and if I have previously read yours, I'll give you the credit you deserve.
Author's NoteI have been silent for a long time, and there's a reason for that.
After my summer exams last year, I went on a week long "data collection and analysis" course up in Scotland, which amounted to doing surveys of plant and animal life, as well as shore transects, multiple quadrats, and pitfalls. This island had no internet connectivity at all, so I couldn't read, or upload, any fanfiction for the time I was there.
So I spend my evenings writing, and got up to about chapter ten. And most of the extra chapters were over five thousand words.
And then my computer completely died. I lost everything. All my notes, all my edits, all my work.
I probably lost over one hundred hours worth of work on this one fic. So, understandably, I was a bit annoyed. I'm currently re-re-writing, and changing the plot a small bit.
So here's the first run through of Chapter One. It has been beta-ed, by my younger brother, and I'll re-upload new iterations as I get them.
Captain Moody paced back and forth, his wooden leg making a heavy thunk each time it struck the floor. His blue eye whirled in its socket, focusing on a face, through the door, searching out hidden wands, and then back to rest. It paused for a moment, and then began spinning again. James looked away, feeling dizzy, and instead stared at the captain's marking along Moody's shoulders, marking him above regular Aurors. Moody reached the end of the line, and growled deep in his throat, the sound making the line of wizards and witches beside him straighten slightly, whilst trying to avoid his attention.
"Cadets, today we will be learning about Parkson. The twist is his most renowned modifier, and you should all know it by now. Prove you deserve to be here!" With a wave of his wand, the floor rippled, and two of the waves rose up to head height, about four feet apart, and then a jab of the wand, the first barrier turns crystal clear. "All of you, stunners at will. I want three in a row, no more than two feet from the floor. If you hit the first wall, you walk out. No arguments. You don't deserve to learn any more of Parkson's tricks."
A barrage of red beams leave the line of Auror cadets, all calling out their incantations, and most veer up and over the first wall, before slamming down into the gap. A few don't quite come down in time, striking the ceiling, and one glances along the top of the first barrier. That spell's caster doesn't wait to be called out, but flees from the room before he catches Moody's attention.
"I'm not going to tell you that you did well – you're second year trainees, I'd expect you to be able to do this silently. You have a week to learn, and I'm not going to teach you. The second Parkson modifier we'll be teaching is the phaser. The pre-incant is gheist, and will pass right through the first solid it encounters, to a depth of up to three inches. Good for breaking through cover and armour, useless on shields, buildings, and your partners." The cadets flinched at this, horrific images playing in their minds. "Again, stunners. Two shots, and I want at least the gheist to be silent, give your opponents that extra surprise." A cruel smirk flickered across his face as he replayed a particularly vicious memory. Another barrage of spells flashed across the room, and most passed straight through the transparent barrier, before splashing harmlessly onto the second. The cadets' faces lightened somewhat, nobody had failed this time.
"That time, you did do well. Third and fourth we have maxi- and mini-. You can practice these on your own time, and I want to see them working perfectly by next week. Black!" one of the cadets, this one a young man with a large mop of curly black hair and silver eyes, stepped foward, snapping his arms to attention. "Show me the wand motions for each, and tell me why we use them."
Black nodded, and raised his wand hand, keeping his upper arm tightly pressed against his side, then jerked his arm back, and threw the whole arm forward, keeping the wand steady and pointed directly at the walls they'd been targeting. "Sir, both have essentially the same wand movement, although Parkson's minimiser does not have the backwards jerk. The maximiser is used to overpower spells, and will be used primarily by the 'heavy' man on our teams. The spell will be brighter whilst travelling, and effects will be multiplied several times, dependent on how much power the caster desires to push. Permission to cast, sir?"
Moody nodded slowly, and conjured three red and white targets on the first wall. "Granted. The ooze hex, Black. Normal first".
Sirius nodded, and jerked his wand around. A small green spark flew through the air, and hit the first target, spreading a few inches across the surface. "That was my normal casting level, sir. Any wizard or witch would create that much ooze, but the consistency of it would vary. If I actively push..." This time, the spark was brighter, and when it landed, the entire set of rings was coated. Sirius whipped his wand around, and grunted as he threw his wand forward. This spark was a small star travelling across the room, and as it hit, the ooze flowed down the wall, a quivering pile that was possibly large enough to bury a man in.
"The minimizer acts the same sir, the caster deliberately holding a rein on his magic, The spell colour will be muted, as will the effect. We are to use this to avoid detection, and to avoid casualties when in populated areas, sir!"
"Well described, and well cast. At ease, Black. The final two you need to learn are, again, paired. Parkson's cap, and the trigger. There are no motions for these, and they are restricted. You are not to reveal these to anyone, especially with the conflict with He-Who-Must-Be-Named. Do you all understand? You can leave now if you feel you have to, and you will be going on vacation to the North Sea if any of you share these. Are we clear?" Nobody moved.
"The cap is simple. It is a combination shield and deflection charm, held right on the tip of your wand. Each wand has a limit to the number of spells that it can hold, normally three to six. If you go over this limit, the spells will release, in a random order, in uncontrolled directions. The spell you use has no effect, and neither do any other modifiers you may or may not decide to use. Once you cast the cap, you will be unable to cast until you release. This is dangerous, cadets. If you forget you have the cap on, you may forget what spells you have stored. For this reason, it is official Auror and Ministry policy to NEVER store any offensive spells. You will come to me, one at a time, to find out how your wand's limit. Yaxley, you're up first!"
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The pale man stands, gazing up at the cottage with a sad smile on his face, his dark hair unruffled in the light breeze. He ignores the background noises, the children running around on the street, and focuses on the small stick held in his hands. With the tiniest of flicks, he points it at the house. Four spells rocket out, smacking into the front door. It collapses under the shock, and four differnelty colour bubbles spin outwards, towards the end of the property. The pale man smiles – the bundle was something he'd worked on himself, even crafting two of the spells himself through long hours spent doubled over musty tomes.
In a strange nod to his childhood, he'd taken to calling it the anti-Houdini. An anti-apparition hex, a portkey ward; a patronus limiter, all of which his followers know. And one more, one of his most feared creations – the floo buster. Not content with simply blocking floo travel, this was one of his larger projects. The patronus limiter had taken a while to create, and was difficult to cast, but was a simple spell, a ward against a single charm, albeit a high-powered one. No, it was the floo-buster he was most proud of, and jealously guarded. The spell travelled quickly outwards in a sphere from contact with a solid, and transfigured all floo powder it encountered into a pale yellow solid that Slytherin himself has used to kill his opponents. The spell had been modified, of course, as the pale man wasn't interested in transfiguring a wand (well, he was. But that wasn't what he wanted, even if that was what Salazar had worked with, and what he had reverse engineered from). The solid melted with seconds, and boiled to a gas, at which point it erupted into flames. Ironic, he muses, how their hopes of escaping through fire goes up in flames.
He'd come a long way from the firghtedn child he'd once been, but still hated bullies, which was why he was by himself. He could, at least, make their deaths quick and painless. If he'd brought any of his followers, they would have insisted on toying with his targets before they died. They didn't understand his views, nobody seemed to. But they were power, power which he desperately needed. And tonight, tonight he was going to finalize his grip on immortality.
After all, if he became immortal, he might live long enough to stop being a monster.
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A young boy kneels in a garden. His clothes are dirtied, patched, and overly large, but they were obviously of quality to begin with, once upon a time. The boy is small, even for his age, and has a mess of pitch black hair, topping off a pale face and vibrantly green eyes. The front door of the house clicks open, and a fatter boy comes out with a large of water. He has blonde hair, and piggy little eyes, and his clothes are obviously new, and look quite well made.
The smaller boy wipes off his forehead, flicking his hand to lose the sweat. He doesn't notice the fat boy sneaking up behind him, and is surprised when the fatter pours water onto his head. He flinches slightly, but makes no move to shout at the fat boy with piggy eyes. He carries on picking weeds out of the flower bed, his hair dripping water onto the soil, and waits until the fat one leaves, before he leans his head back, and tries to squeeze the water out of his hair.
A flash of movement catches his eye, and the wet nine year old grabs for it. A small snake squirms in his closed fist, hissing wildly and flailing. It rears its head back, and plunges its fangs into the boys hand, twin pinpricks of blood blossoming on the pale skin. The boy yelps in pain, and feels an odd something where the snake's fangs meet his finger. It isn't painful ,althoughthere is plenty of that from the bite, but feels like ice cold bacon grease (something he is familiar with, having cleaned up plenty of dirty pans in his short time) across his skin, before it flows down into into the bleeding wounds, and through him.
He throws the snake from his grasp, it's pale grey skin standing out on the grass, but not as much as its glowing red eyes. "How dare you handle me such, impudent coldling!" It slithers off before the boy can say anything, as he is stunned into silence. He will decide to never mention this to his relatives, as it might come across as strange, and with time, it will fade from his memory. For a while, at least.
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The boy, now eleven, although still pale, wanders down the magical street. Both his hands are full of new school equipment, and he opens his owl's cage, letting it flutter up to one of the many street signs, whilst he somehow manages to place the cage into his school trunk. The owl flutters down to his shoulder, her claws getting tangled in the neck of his shirt. She angrily kicks the open neck of the shirt to between her feet, and settles one set of scaly toes on her master's shoulder.
A man roughly pushes past the boy, and the owl's claws squeeze in surprise, breaking skin. The boy gives a sharp inhale in surprise as he feels blue feathers (although how he would know they were blue, he'd never know) drift across his skin, sinking into his shoulder. The owl butts her head against his cheek in wordless apology, and the boy grins back at her, his green eyes alight.
He looks around, trying to find his new friend, for Hagrid certainly was a friend, but has managed to become lost somehow. He shouts, but the alley is noisy, and Hagrid is out of the admittedly short hearing range. The boy starts to panic, his heat beating fast in his chest. He spins wildly, trying to stay calm –hadn't the primary teachers said to stay still, calm, and shout? But it is too much: a new world is too strange of a place to stay calm in. He feels an odd sensation, similar to the blue feathers again, but pulling him this time, rather than drifting across skin.
Not knowing what to do, the boy follows the feeling to Bell and Whistle's Allstore, where he is re-united with the large man he came with. Not knowing if this feeling was normal or not, and how it would be received, he keeps quiet about the feeling, but this one he will never forget.
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The boy, twelve now, stares down at his arm. This snake is quite a bit bigger than the previous one that bit him, and so is the pain. Rather than a slight tingle, his blood is on fire, screaming through his body, and he can't seem to focus on much else. His gaze wavers from the foot long tooth that snapped off in his arm, and he looks up at the great snake rearing above him. He meets its luminous eyes, and the hate and the fury inside him boil over.
His green eyes flash yellow, and the snake drops, completely dead. The boy's confused, but won't be for long. He feels the toxins from it bubbling through his body, he can sense his organs disintergrating, and once again, he can feel a pain that isn't pain, centred around the bite wound. He rips the fang from his arm, and slips in a puddle of his own blood. The fang clatters to the floor next to him, spinning away, towards the silent spectre and the dying girl. He hopes his death might let her live, but doesn't know how it could. The fang continues to leak vile blackness onto the floor, her robes sizzling where they touch the spreading puddle, before it engulfs the book too, which begins to slowly dissolve.
The boy lies there, amongst the bones, next to the fallen serpent, and starts to slip into unconsciousness. A blessing really, considering his pain. The phoenix lands next to him, and he can feel it, the phoenix, like the pain, dancing flames licking along his skin this time, and they feel comfortable. As they reach his mouth, he is reminded of lemons, and the time when he was first bitten by a snake. And Hedwig, when she met him, her blue feathers along his skin. The lemony feathers slide down his throat, suffocating the dying boy. He doesn't mind. He'd rather he wasn't killed at the wish of the diary, if he has to die at all.
For a moment, the cavern is completely still and silent. The snake's corpse sank to the floor, the book completely melted now. The phoenix is crying, but doesn't move, doesn't dare break the perfect stillness that's spread through the chamber. The pearly tears dropping from its eyes land with silent splashes on the boys chest, a growing, sheening puddle over his torso. The flame-headed girl is still too, but with a choked cough she rises slightly, spitting blood and sputum over the floor. She rolls over, great hacking coughs from the stomach spraying more blood across the floor.
She doesn't see the deep wound quickly scabbing over on the boy, nor the bruises across his face settle down to unblemished skin. Even if she was looking, however, she wouldn't see the long-healed cracks in his bones shifting, the bones themselves flowing like water. The boy's eyelids ripple too, like a seething mass of insects is inside, and he lunges upright, his eyes now fully open and shining with a light not yet seen.
HPHPHPHPHPHPHP
The dragon rears its head, huge gouts of flame spewing across the sky, smoke coiling out of its nose and filtering across the sky. The boy, small for his age, but seemingly tiny against this monster, strides determinedly across the sparse arena. He raises his hand, brandishes his wand, and calls out a spell. Nothing happens for a moment, but then a broom comes flying across the fields separating the pit from the castle in the distance. The crowd cheers for the boy, until his broom hits the edge of the ring. A sparkling shield lights up, iridescent clolours playing across its surface.
"And it would seem Mr Potter has tried to summon a broom! Tough luck Harry, but I'm afraid no external objects to help you!" the announcer calls out. The boy's insides freeze. He hadn't come up with a back up plan. Hermione had been sure that this one would work. He slowly turns, looking across the crowd. Ron stands there, next to Hermione. Her face is white, the red marks where she grasps her cheek standing out incredibly. She mouths "I'm so sorry" to Harry, but then buries her head in Ron's shoulder. He, too, seems terrified.
With no other option, he looks again to the dragon. She's settled slightly, no longer trying to burn the sky, but hunched over her nest; large, crimson eyes tracking Harry's movement. He girds himself, and reaches for his gift.
"SONORUS. Can you understand me?" To his shock, the dragon nods slowly, still keeping her eyes focused on the boy. The crowd stills completely, never having thought to hear their hero speak that language again. "You have an egg, in your nest..." The dragon bares its teeth and growls, a deep noise that shudders through Harry's body. "And it isn't yours! The people want me to steal it from you, putting yours at risk! Could I have it, and I promise to leave you and yours alone?"
The dragon narrows its eyes, but nods, and huffs out a breath. It lowers its head, and lets out a long tongue, wrapping around the golden egg. She draws the egg into her mouth, before dropping it, dripping saliva, into Harry's hands. He flinches slightly from the heat, and his hair flutters as the dragon takes a deep breath.
Then she flames him into pain beyond all imagining. In half a second, his skin burns, cracks, blackens, and sloughs off, his bones start glowing, before melting, and splintering. His eyes boil in their sockets, and his flesh burns to ash. In the same time again, he reforms, taller than before, and this time, the flames wash over his skin. He recognizes the feeling this time, and accepts it, feeling the warmth seep through his skin and settle deep in his stomach. Even there, he can feel the flames licking still.
The flames stop, as the dragon pauses for breath. The crowd isn't silent now, screaming at the monster that killed their hero. As he appears, his clothing ashes around his feet, the screams stop. The crowd starts cheering his survival, and the dragon looks decidedly confused. Harry rears back, and snarls at the beast, before lashing out, punching right between its eyes. With a whimper, the dragon collapses, its tongue lolling out of its mouth and along the ground. Harry kicks it, and walks off, covering himself with the golden egg.
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Harry sighs. He'd known, ever since the basilisk, that someone would find out what was going on. But still, he hadn't told anyone. Without any clue what was happening to himself, he hadn't wanted anyone else to know – he was well aware of the racism in Magical Britain. But a DRAGON outing him? It seemed just a trifle over the top. And in front of three schools, and their Ministries as well.
He continues up the spiralling staircase, and through the ornate doorway at the top. He waves to Fawkes, who trills back, before settling into a chair. He drums his fingers on the armrests, waiting for Dumbledore. Fawkes croons, and flutters over, landing on Harry's knee. Harry pets Fawkes' head, the cool flames flickering gently between his fingers. It takes a few minutes, but Dumbledore comes sweeping in, his purple robes gusting in his wake. He sits behind the desk, and peers at Harry over the top of his half-moon spectacles, eyes twinkling genially.
"Lemon drop, my boy?"
"Uhhh... sure?" Harry reaches over, takes one out of the offered pot. Dumbledore beams at him.
"Do you know, Harry, you're the first person who's ever taken one! Most of the purebloods seem to regard these as a foolish muggle invention, and the muggleborn tell me they've been told to never take sweets from strangers."
"I wouldn't know about that sir, the Dursley's always told me to accept sweets, especially if I had to follow the man back to a van. They said strangers are always friends sir." Dumbledore frowns slightly at this, but waves his arm, as if to knock away cobwebs.
"Never mind that, Harry. Now, I'm sure you know why I sent you up here. So is there anything you wish to tell me? Anything about this... Incident..."
"Umm... sir... It wasn't the first time something odd happened. You know I'm a parseltongue?" Dumbledore nodded "well that started when I was younger..."