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Framed & Fractured
- Antediluvian Poet -


Chapter One


III

Harry remembered the first time he touched fire.

A storm had cut the Dursley's power, resulting in a frustrated Dudley who was in the middle of a video game, and a frazzled Petunia who attempted to soothe him. In the cupboard under the stairs, Harry sat in the dark and wished for a light to chase away the loneliness. Then, as if someone had heard his wish, a candle lit up. Drawn in by its presence, he moved through the cramped space towards it. Harry imagined the small light to be a friend, brightening the darkness and warming the cold. He couldn't recall moving his hand to the flame, nor bringing his fingers to touch it. All he remembered was the sensation of a pain so sharp and distinct, he never wished to feel it again.

However, this thing in front of him was not the candle from his room, but a beast composed of wildfire and destruction. Its heat was not a small warmth, but a volcano of magma, spewing a blaze incomparable to anything he'd felt in his life.

Harry couldn't move.

He'd come to the Room of Requirements to find Voldemort's horcrux, and he had found it. Only throwing the diadem into the flames had enraged the Fiendfyre, the evil inside catapulting it into a new form, more vicious and beastly than before.

The terror alone would burn his soul if he let it, so he channelled the fear into a different compartment.

Survival.

So he ran.

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle dismissed their mission and followed in similar pursuit. Right now, all that mattered was surviving another day—another day to fight someone else's war, to cast obligated spells—simply because it was expected.

And expectations were something Harry understood with unforgiving clarity. He'd been handed the crucial task of destroying horcruxes by Dumbledore on a heavy platter—etched with the names of all who had died—and the weight grew with every radio broadcast, every news clipping and broken family.

Crabbe stopped running and turned to cast a spell at the fire behind them, but the Fiendfyre lashed out, devouring him in a storm of outrage.

Harry's breath faltered and his eyes widened behind flashing spectacles.

Crabbe was gone.

Malfoy and Goyle's eyes reflected the same shock and fear. Nothing could be done for Crabbe now. They were in a war, and war collected causalities like badges, but to see it so intimately, so violently—enough to smell scorched flesh—was a brutality that should not have been witnessed.

The beast paused after ingesting its latest victim, then swelled. It could have looked beautiful, like witnessing the beginning of something extraordinary, had it not split and ruptured.

Harry hurtled across the room from sheer heat and unadulterated power. His limbs were useless as he flew through a sky on fire—a rag doll at the mercy of the elements—until he hit a wall.

His body spasmed and coiled in distress. His breath hitched, exerting itself, trying to regain an act close to breathing—but all it did was fill his lungs with smoke.

He needed to get out. He needed to find Ron and Hermione, needed to know if they were able to destroy Hufflepuff's Cup down in the Chambers, needed to know if they were okay. He forced his eyes open and immediately regretted it.

The Fiendfyre was everywhere, surrounding him in a torrid embrace.

Harry swallowed the rising bile and panic. He directed his wand towards the lowest flames and casted spells he hoped would stamp it out.

Nothing worked.

The inferno laughed and danced at Harry's encroaching hysteria, but it was amongst the laughter that Harry caught sight of aerial movement and blonde hair.

Draco swerved and dodged the flames with expertise on an old broom. He pulled out his wand and aimed at the fire which barricaded Harry. The hell-fire faltered, its temper abating, but it was short lived.

It re-ignited in double agitation. Hope turned to ash in Harry's mouth and a heaviness coiled in his gut.

Draco left, his one attempt at heroism unsuccessful and unwitnessed.

Harry was once again left alone with his fear.

Loneliness was a familiar friend, but this was a completely different state of isolation. He would burn with the room if he didn't find a way out, without completing his tasks, leaving the burden for Ron and Hermione to take up.

Harry stumbled away from the approaching heat till his back hit a wall.

Heaviness settled over him. Smoke polluted his body and his lungs drowned in need for untainted air. He wanted to move, but his limbs struggled to co-operate. His heart hammered at a furious pace, but there wasn't enough air to match its demand.

Memories of training an army of students went up in flames. The taste of his first kiss scorched and blistered. In a room of lost and hidden things, a new memory rose from the smoke and embers.

The Room of Requirements would become his tomb.

And it was as Harry slid down to the floor, panting and coughing, that he heard it.

"Come here."

A tall, life-sized frame now stood behind him, hung on the last stretch of unscathed wall. It hadn't been there before. However the strangest part was the painting within the frame.

It was a painting of nothing; a canvas stitched of black threads.

"Come with me."

Its whisper was ice-like and barely there, a chilling mist amongst the sea of fire. Harry narrowed his eyes and peered beyond the canvas, and that's when he saw it.

In the black, swirled an even darker black, twisting and morphing into a beckoning hand.

The painting emitted a subtle energy. Not evil the way a horcrux did, but its energy was unlike anything Harry had ever come across—and this unsettled him.

Under any other circumstance, he would never listen to chilled whispers, or take the hand of a faceless entity, but uncertainty was a risk he'd willingly face than fiery death.

So when the shadowy hand emerged through the canvas, beckoning, Harry took it and followed.

Immediately upon stepping through the threshold, it felt like being swallowed whole, sinking and breaking into soft membrane. Behind him, the blaze conquered the room and moved toward the painting. Heat stabbed his back as he pushed further in, but before the fire reached him, the void stitched itself up and sealed.

He now stood in a dark chasm, only he wasn't truly standing.

There was no floor, walls or ceiling. All that existed was an energy which hummed and pulled him in one direction.

So Harry did all he could do.

He fell.


lll


1943

The corridors of Hogwarts were quiet with slumber and dreams, save for one.

One corridor echoed with confident footsteps, controlled and perfectly paced. Despite Tom Riddle's calm demeanor, a dangerous excitement stirred within him.

Horcrux.

The word alone sent volts through his body, searing his nerves with anticipation. The book from the restricted section may not have been forthcoming, but Slughorn had certainly been.

He needed a place of solace where he could absorb his newly acquired knowledge, somewhere fitted for his extracurricular studies because this school of 'enlightenment' didn't permit unconventional thought.

The Room of Requirements.

So on the seventh floor, Tom walked past a wall and requested his needs.

The room which materialised was tasteful enough to suggest a cultured occupant but spartan enough to support functionality.

He walked towards the grand mahogany desk, sat down and pulled out his diary. And as he placed his inkwell and quill in front of him, an object in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

A painting hung on top of the fireplace.

It shouldn't be here.

He had not requested artworks to be part of his academic sanctuary. However, the painting itself was inconspicuous and unassuming, so the Slytherin dismissed the anomaly. He had better things to focus on, like his ambition and new found excitement for the future.

Death held ultimate power by dictating its fate upon every living being, with no regard for the good or wicked, old or young. Tom found it archaic and repetitive, a series of tomes with the same ending. No matter how great the story, grand the deed, the characters were always delivered the same fate—both heroes and villains.

Well, he did not wish to be another forgotten story in ink, destined to follow the same path of fatality; he wished to be the scribe who wrote his own destiny.

His story will be different.

He will conquer immortality till his greatness eclipsed Death itself.

Casting his eyes back to his diary, Tom began to plot, his handwriting elegant and ink black.

Behind him, away from sight, the painting on the wall tremored and shook.


A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to hearing your opinions :)

Antediluvian Poet