Title: the day i was wooed by death
Rating: (hard) M
Pairing: Harry Potter/TMR (Voldemort)
Warning(s) Overall: depictions of violence, homosexual relations, crime scenes, blood/gore, mentally unstable character, murder
Summary:
[Inspired by NBC's Hannibal]
Harry Potter's sanity is hanging by a thread. He is a means to an end for the Aurors and as long as he gets the job done, and they get to take the credit, they don't care what happens to him. He is a priceless asset with the ability to extrapolate and get inside a killer's head. And with a new string of Muggle murders, Harry is put to the test more than ever before. Not to mention the new killer on the rise seems to have a personal relationship with Harry, leaving him coded messages at all the crime scenes.
Can Harry catch this new killer before he teeters off the edge and tumbles into darkness, or will he be consumed whole?
Time is running out and the most dangerous games happen at night.
Author's Note: Hello everyone, this kind of came out of no where but it makes sense to me. I'm a huge fan of NBC's Hannibal and I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter, so why not combine the two? It's been a long time since I've written Harry Potter fanfiction so I'm a bit rusty.
This isn't a crossover. Hannibal just inspired me. The most I'll ever take from Hannibal is probably some of the crime scenes/ideas. Otherwise, this is all Harry Potter based.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy?
Warning(s) for this chapter: some violence/gore, it's pretty dialogue heavy but Harry's at a crime scene.
Chapter One:
you won't see me coming in
Inhale, exhale.
Three, two, one.
Inhale, exhale.
One, two, three.
Inhale…
Harry Potter's eyes snap open, coolly surveying the coagulated blood creeping along the white tiles, staining the floor with smears of red. The broken body of the Muggle woman stares up at him with blank, dead eyes. Her face is twisted into an expression of absolute terror. It is the face everyone makes when they know they are going to die.
He's seen it a million times before, and he will continue to see it.
Death is inconsequential to him. It has become such a daily part of his life that he no longer bats an eye when faced with the brutality of murder. He lives day to day with a noose around his neck, waiting for the Aurors to come and kick the bucket out from underneath him. They don't care what they're doing to him when they ask for his help, they just want results.
Harry Potter's sanity hanging by a thread is of no consequence to Moody or Scrimgeour. He is simply a means to an end - in this case, a secret weapon that is particularly good at finding harbingers of death. As long as they get their promotions, he can foam at the mouth for all they care until he is no longer useful. Only when they're forced to put him down like a rabid dog will they actually care. Not because they had to stop him, but because they lost their favourite broken toy; their golden ticket.
After all, promotions are hard to earn based on your own merit. It's so much easier taking credit for someone else's work - someone else, who according to everyone on the force, is believed to be unstable and incompetent.
Easy pickings and all that.
No one would believe a borderline hermit wizard who's on the verge of a mental breakdown over two head Aurors. That would just be daft.
"Find anything yet, Potter?"
Harry didn't glance away from the body, examining the awkward angle of her arm, barely giving Moody any indication that he was heard. The dead were so much easier to look at. Living people were just too distracting.
"You aren't supposed to be in here," Harry says. "No one is supposed to be in here. That was the agreement."
"I can bloody well go where ever I like, Potter," Moody says gruffly. Harry hears the man's uneven gait, knowing that the Auror is now standing beside him. "This is my crime scene, don't you forget. Now do your job."
Harry pinches the bridge of his nose, scrubbing a hand through the tangled mess of curls atop his head. He turns towards Moody, angling his body away. He looks at the patch of skin between the man's furrowed brows. He doesn't like eyes. They're too distracting, too personal. They say too much.
"We agreed that you'd let me have the house to myself for five minutes. I can't do what you want me to with you hovering over my shoulder. This is personal, and private and I'd rather be by myself when I do it."
Moody huffs, magical eye rolling into the back of his head, no doubt watching the entrance to the house. Constant vigilance and all that rot. His aging face, permanent scowl, short, pudgy stature and furrowed brows make him resemble a bulldog.
The humor isn't lost on Harry.
He can't help thinking snidely, 'Fudge's ever faithful guard dog.'
"Four minutes and I go to the other room," Moody says, already turning towards the dining room. "I'm not about to let someone have access to a crime scene for five minutes completely unchaperoned, especially you. Who knows what could happen?"
Harry clenches his jaw at the slight jab and condescending tone, deciding to ignore it. He doesn't want to get into it with Moody right now. It honestly isn't worth the effort and Harry really doesn't want to deal with the man for longer than he has to.
"Thank you," Harry replies, tone short and clipped.
Moody grumbles under his breath as he leaves the room. Harry breathes a sigh of relief before turning back to the woman. His eyes scan her from top to bottom, taking all of the details in. She looks to be in her mid-to-late twenties, semi-active lifestyle, unattached.
There are various lacerations covering her body, some deeper than others. Underneath the metallic tang of her blood lies a peculiar smell, something heady and rich, burning hot. It is residual dark magic. The caster must have been very powerful for the oppressive weight of their magic to still linger around, hours after the murder.
Harry's never seen or felt anything like it. The killer's magic licks at his skin, curling around his own magic and tugging playfully, like it wants him to come out and play. He ignores the uncomfortable prodding, pushing the strange and vaguely familiar sensations to the back of his mind.
He doesn't know of any spell that would cause that many cuts simultaneously. That could mean it is either self invented, or it is a secret spell passed down through a dark family. Either way, it seems like a particularly nasty spell. Harry can't help but be morbidly impressed.
The Muggle's skin is burned in some places, and flayed in others. She could have likely died from blood loss, but Harry finds that far fetched. If some wizard went through all the trouble of torturing her, they most likely wanted her alive for as long as possible. The cause of death was most likely something as simple as the killing curse.
The killer wasn't focused on her death, but more so how she died. This was her last great performance in life. It was meant to mean something, to be special. What killed her in the end was of no importance as long as she did end up dying. No, it was the act of her dying that was important.
Exhale.
"What's so special about you?" Harry asks quietly, kneeling down beside her. His green eyes jump across her face over and over, looking for a sign. "Why are you so important?"
He pauses, gaze hardening, hands clasped together between his bent knees.
"No, I was wrong. You're not important at all." Harry considers the corpse for a moment before continuing. "What you stand for is what's important. It's why I killed you. You don't matter to me - you're a nobody and no one will miss you. By killing you, I've let you accomplish something in life. Your death will help me. But help me do what, is the question."
Harry taps his chin, fiddling with his glasses absentmindedly.
"Breaking into your flat was easy. You never saw me coming. And how could you when I did everything to hide myself until the opportune moment. You only saw me because I let you see," continues Harry, mind whirring as he delves deeper into their psyche. "Your life was meaningless and I gave you purpose. With your death, I gave you a reason to every piece of skin I cut away, with every burn, with every slice I transformed you, made you better. You are important because - because you are an invitation. You are a gift. I want someone worthy to come play a game with me. You are the olive branch and that is why you are so important."
Standing back up, Harry smooths a hand through his hair with a sigh. It's always extremely draining to extrapolate, especially with how deeply he'd gone. It hasn't been that extensive or intense in a long time. This killer is a tricky one. It also places a strain on his magic resulting in a rather nasty migraine. But he does what's needed to pay the bills. His health and mental well being are nothing but a second thought.
Satisfied with that he's garnered on the Muggle, Harry turns to head over to Moody when he sees it. Freezing, his eyes glue themselves to a black smudge seared into the flesh across the girl's ribs. At first he thinks it's just another burn but that promptly changes when it began to move. To anyone else it might look like squiggles but not to Harry.
No, he knows what it is. It's haunted him since he was a young child. It's one of the many things that made him different, a freak even among wizards and witches. What stares back at him innocuously written into a dead girl's skin is a message. It is in parseltongue. It is for him.
Hello, Harry. Fancy a game?
His heart clenches in his chest and he feels ill.