Chaos Falls

Prologue

She feels it burn, the Dark Mark, and she sighs, knowing that at long last her vigil is at an end. For too long has she maintained this foolish facade, and she yearns to return to Master's alabaster embrace.

The baby squalls in the room above, perhaps sensing the encroaching peril, and she smirks. It is late, and she doubts the meddling Order will be able to mobilise in time, for even as the first ward trips it is already too late.

Peverell. The name of her foolish husband's ancestor, and it is for this blood connection that she has let herself be shackled to him. Blood is powerful, and her Lord knows its value.

"Merlin," her husband swears, hopping from the couch and yanking away his filthy, blood-traitor hands. "It's him, Lily, it's him."

"It is," she agrees, feigning fear. She can feel him in her Mark, slowly stepping up their footpath, and from the window she can see the Dark Mark etched across the sky.

It is a sign of death, but not hers. Today, the Potter fool will meet his demise, and she will finally be free. Her son, the last link to the triangle, will be free and ready to serve their Lord.

"Run, Lily. Take Harry, I'll hold him off," he declares, running for the door without even taking up his wand. Foolish man. She hopes her son will take after her more than his dunderhead father.

Simpering, she makes her way to the front room, and laughs at the sight. He's brandishing a fire poker at her Lord, and it's almost pitiful. She ignores him, her heart instead leaping with joy as she catches sight of him for the first time in years. He's aged, but is still as handsome as ever, ivory skinned and red-eyed.

Just like her true form, he lacks hair, and his body is reptilian.

"Lily, what are you doing?" roars James, but she only giggles in response.

"She is returning home," chuckles her Lord, and just like that, she decides to take on her true form. She wonders if any before her have been able to take such a step, to become human, but she doubts it. Her Lord is the brightest wizard to have ever lived, and it took him decades to reverse engineer the Animagus spell.

Her skin grows scaly, her blood growing cool, and she shrugs out of her clothes as her body elongates. Growing, watching the horror across James' face, her forked tongue darts out to taste the air.

It tastes of fear... and disgust.

"Come, Nagini," her Lord laughs, and she slithers across the floor, leaving behind the guise of Lily Evans once and for all. She rises, draping herself like a scarf upon her Lord's shoulders, and James lets out a roar as he leaps forward.

"Avada Kedavra," says her Lord, as if speaking about the weather, and James falls in a flash of green light. "My, my," he comments, nudging Potter with a single bare foot. "That was anticlimactic."

"You overestimated him, Lord," she hisses in the tongue of serpents, and as is his gift, he understands. "He is weak, and hardly worth the effort."

The Dark Lord chuckles again. Turning towards the stairs, he follows the screams of the wailing child, and she hisses her delight. It is quite lovely to be back in her body, free of the irritating hair and nails of humans, and it is absolutely liberating to have her serpentine senses back.

"The final piece of the triangle," says her Lord in Parseltongue, running a slender finger across the infant's brow.

"Antioch and Cadmus?" she asks in surprise.

"Yes, Nagini," replies her Lord, "As you know, I am the descendant of Cadmus, and so I have bred as well. My daughter is of an age with your son, and after a lot of digging, we have found the heir of Antioch."

"Who?"

"It was right under our noses, Nagini," he continues, "The Blacks! The boy, Draco, is but a month older than yours."

She delights in that the triangle is finally complete, and that at last, her Lord will be able to defeat his greatest enemy. He will be Death's Master, as he was born to be, and time will never have a way of ending him.

It is quite a common misunderstanding that the Hallows are objects. The objects are but representations of their power, and it is the bloodlines themselves that are the Hallows. Now that her son is able to join this Draco, and the Lord's daughter, they will be three.

Finally, her Lord will have his immortality.

Her Lord suddenly tenses, and whispers, "Take the boy, Nagini. Severus awaits us at the end of the lane. Go to him." He speaks in the human tongue, a sign that all is not well, but she has spent more than enough years as a human to understand him.

"Yes, My Lord," she hisses, slipping from him and coiling herself around the child. Just like that, she retakes her human form, clinging to the babe and rushing for the window.

Just as she leaps off the edge, using her magic to slow her fall, she sees Dumbledore enter the room. Hesitant to leave, she turns to see her Lord duelling the foul, old wizard.

"It is too late for you, Tom," bellows Dumbledore, "The Aurors are on their way."

"But the Potters are already dead, and soon, so shall you," cackles her Lord, and then, just as he slashes his wand through the air to cast the most lethal of curses, Dumbledore's curse hits him in the chest.

The entire house is blown asunder, and she blacks out as she's hit in the head by a piece of flying wood.

-/o\-

"Nagini!"

She wakes, feeling someone prod at her, and realises that she's instinctively returned to her true form when she was hit. Turning back to her human form, she realises that Harry is gone.

"Where is he?" she screams, shaking at the man who woke her. "Where is he, Severus?"

"Dumbledore took him," replies Severus with a pained look on his face. "He intends to leave the boy with the Dursley family. We'll be able to get him from there. Petunia won't want to care for him anymore than Pandora Lovegood would admit to still being alive."

"And our Lord?"

"His body has been destroyed, but his soul remains. Bellatrix and the others are trying to heal him as we speak. You should return to his side, Nagini, he will need you."

"And what will you do?"

"I will go to Dumbledore, and ensure that my position as a spy remains intact. Besides, somebody has to break the news to Minerva that our Lord is without a body. If I cannot get Harry, then I am sure that she will be able to."

"I understand," she says. "Before I go, our Lord told me that Minerva has given him a daughter. What is her name?"

"Hermione. Hermione Riddle."

-/o\-

A word from the author, who is me.

As you can all see, this is an AU with a Dark!Harry and a Dark!Hermione. This is going to be a Drarry.

The next chapter will take place in the Philosopher's Stone timeline, though there will be a lot of changes from canon.

~Athena~