"Kill him, Quirrell!" Voldemort's voice rang out.
Harry froze as Quirrell lunged for him with his hands outstretched, grasping for Harry's throat. Harry felt like time had slowed to a crawl, Quirrell was getting closer and closer, and there was nothing he could do about it. His wand had been knocked from his hand earlier, and even if he had it in his hands, he didn't know any spells that would be useful in this situation.
As Quirrell's hands drew ever closer, Harry felt a pair of arms encircling his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a feminine pair of hands. A pair of hands he recognized.
The first time Harry look in the Mirror of Erised and saw the adult man and woman stand beside him, he didn't know what to think. The fact that they seemed happy to see him also threw him of balance. Then the pictures that Hagrid had given him reappeared in his mind. These people were his parents.
"Mom, Dad." He choked out. Oh how he wanted them to both be alive and with him in that very instant.
In the mirror, his mother wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he had seen other mothers do. The sensation of arms wrapping around his shoulders caused Harry to stiffen. He looked down and saw a feminine pair of arms wrapping around his shoulders, the fact they looked very familiar was the only reason he didn't scream and jump. In fact, the arms looked a lot like his mothers. Several glances between the arms and mirror confirmed that not only were they his mother's arms, but that they were slightly transparent. More solid than any ghost that Harry had ever seen, but still less solid then a living person's arm.
He looked up into his mother's eyes through the reflection of the mirror. "Mom?" he said, as he slowly began to turn towards the source of the ghostly arms. In the mirror, he saw his mother raise a hand towards his face, a move copied by one of the ghostly hands he felt, and cup his cheek, stopping him from looking behind him.
"Why, Mom?"
Her reflection just shook her head.
Later, when he brought Ron to see the mirror his mother shook her head at him and put a finger to her lips just as he began to explain to Ron that she had hugged him. Realizing that she wanted to keep it a secret, he didn't tell his friend. After that, Harry came alone every time he could so he could enjoy her ghostly hugs.
For some reason, Harry felt safer with his mother's arms around him. He returned his gaze towards Quirrell, and saw a look of surprise etched on the man's face. The man's expression became horrified as a monstrous hand grabbed both his hands in what looked to be a bone crushing grip, and lifted him into the air.
A growling roar echoed throughout the chamber, but Harry wasn't afraid. In his mother's arms, he felt safe. Like nothing could, or would ever hurt him because she was that powerful.
Before Harry could identify what Quirrell, or that parasite on the back of his head called Voldemort were screaming, they vanished in a blast of pure magic. A black cloud with a face swam out of the rippling energies, screaming in pain. A second monstrous hand interposed itself between Harry and the screaming spirit-cloud-thing, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. The other hand, the one that had formerly been holding Quirrell, lunged forward trying to seize the spirit but it fled before the hand could grab it.
Several moments after the screaming spirit-cloud-thing left, the monstrous hands faded away in prismatic lights. Though the hands faded away, his mother's arms did not.
"I love you Harry," a feminine voice whispered in his ear.
"Mom?" he tried to turn towards the voice, but he was stopped a kiss to his cheek and a glimpse of dark red hair out of the corner of his eye.
"I will always protect you, whenever I can," her arms began to remove themselves from around his shoulders.
"Mom, don't go!"
The arms seemed to vanish from around his shoulders, "I'll always be with you Harry. You'll never truly be alone." Though her arms were gone, he still felt her aura of love. He stood there, keeping that feeling with him for as long as he could.
Dumbledore's arrival broke Harry out of his trance. "Are you alright my boy?"
Harry nodded, not quite ready to speak just yet.
"What happened?" Dumbledore asked.
"Mom protected me," he answered dazedly.
Dumbledore tried to ask him some more questions, but Harry just ignored the old man. Harry closed his eyes and tried to recapture the feeling of his mother's love.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Speak to me, oh Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!" Tom Riddle called out in parseltongue.
Harry felt a spike of dread. Tom must be calling the basilisk and I have no idea if its gaze will affect Mom. He prayed that it wouldn't; especially not after his mother had figured out that she could speak to him almost whenever she wanted to.
"And why shouldst I answer thee, thou pathetic fool?" an aristocratic voice, that Harry had never heard before, asked.
Harry spun around so fast that he stumbled over his own feet. Righting himself, he got his first look at the green and silver clad man. The man's grey beard came only came down to his collar bone, while long grey hair reached his shoulders. He also seemed to be semi-transparent, Harry noted. A lot like his mother when she didn't want to be fully solid.
Tom finally seemed to compose himself and inclined his head in what could be called a gesture of respect. "I am your heir, oh great Slytherin, and will bring glory again to your name."
Salazar Slytherin's form seemed to solidify as he walked towards Tom, though he stopped next to Ginny's prone form. He bent down and picked up the diary, examining its pages. Harry felt a lead weight sink into the bottom of his stomach. I'd bet Dad's invisibility cloak that he is just like Mom. As if summoned by his thoughts, his mother appeared in front of him, shielding him from the wand in Tom's hand and from Slytherin.
Salazar closed the diary with a snap. "Thou are't no heir of mine. Thou doest practice the vilest of magics." He continued on, ignoring Tom's indigent sputtering, "and thou doest foolishly believe that though canst fight a summoner with naught but a basilisk. Thou are't a great fool." Slytherin suddenly tossed the diary far up into the air.
Harry's eyes automatically followed the slowly spinning diary until Tom's gasp dragged his gaze back down. A gasp of his own tore from his lips as his eyes widened. In Slytherin's place a massive serpent was forming. The pale scaled serpent's back was covered by what looked like feathers or fur that was interrupted golden plates that stood up like spines and a pair of massive wings that seemed to fill up half of the chamber. Four fangs stood out among its multitude of teeth as its maw opened. The serpent's golden yellow eyes focused on something in the air above it just before it lunged, flashing through the air like a pale-gold lightning bolt. With the sound of clicking teeth, but on a monstrous scale, its fangs shredded Tom's diary.
With a scream of pain and rage, Tom Riddle's phantom form vanished.
The giant, winged serpent also dissolved into prismatic lights before seeming to reform into Salazar Slytherin. "Peace summoner, I shall bring to harm to thee and thine aeon at this time."
"My aeon?" Harry asked allowed before he could stop himself.
"The woman who doth stand with thee, she is thine aeon."
Harry glanced at his mother but she was still focused on Salazar, watching him like a hawk.
"I know thou doth have questions, but we doth not have time. For," he gestured at Ginny, "this young one doth soon awake and thou doth need to leave when she doeth. Know this, thou are't a summoner and canst summon any aeon who doth agree to serve thee." He looked at Harry appraisingly, "though thou doeth hold potential to be a great summoner, I wilt not serve thee at this time. Now prepare to leave, and keep secret what has happened here."
"Wait!" Harry called out, but Salazar had already vanished. He sighed and turned to his mother, "How am I going to explain this one to Dumbledore?"
She reached over and ruffled his hair, "You'll do fine. Just like last time."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"And now we bow," Voldemort said mockingly in his superior tone of voice. His Death Eaters chuckling from their positions near the gravestones that surrounded them.
Harry couldn't resist a smirk as gave a duelist's bow, eyes never leaving his opponent. And so we end this little game Tom. Everything is happening just like Rowena predicted all those years ago. It had been a good thing that Salazar had remembered her prophecies as well, it made sure that Voldemort would die for good tonight.
"Now, we duel!" Voldemort lashed forward with his wand, "AVADA—!"
"MOM!" Harry sensed his mother's aeon form beginning to form behind him. As always, he felt her form's human arms hug his shoulders and hold him to her protectively.
"KEDAVRA!" A jet of green light left Voldemort's wand.
A massive, skeletal hand interposed itself between Harry and the killing curse. As his mother's aeon form finished rising out of the ground, Harry felt himself lifted the ground and held to the gaunt ribcage of his mother's aeon, or as she had begun calling it, Anima.
In front of him, Harry saw Voldemort and his Death Eaters stumble back in surprise. He would have done the same had he been in their place. Anima was a frightening being to behold with her tusk-like fangs, gaunt features and binding chains. Salazar and his mother had once theorized that Anima looked like that because it reflected the pain Harry and his mother had suffered since her death over thirteen years ago.
"Anima," Harry called out in a strong voice, "Oblivion!"
Before Voldemort and his assembled Death Eaters could even think of disapparating out of the graveyard, they begun to sink into another dimension that held the lower have of Anima. If the upper half of Anima was shaped the way it was because of Harry's and his mother's pain, then the lower half of Anima that was stored in that dimension was shaped by a his mother's rage.
Another added bonus of that pocket dimension was, according to the prophecies given to Salazar by Rowena, that Voldemort's Horcruxes would also be sucked into the pocket dimension because they are pieces of his soul, and thus, inseparably connected.
Harry smiled grimly as he sensed Anima unleashing her rage on the captives of her pocket dimension. In a few short moments, Harry felt confirm the deaths of Voldemort and all of his Horcruxes, as well as the deaths of his Death Eaters. Feeling his grim smile become stronger, while avoiding the thought of what Voldemort and his Death Eaters must look like at the moment, Harry motioned for Anima to grab the Tri-wizard cup that would hopefully take them back to Hogwarts.
Harry gave a small, put upon sigh. They still had to deal with the Death Eater responsible for him being in the tournament, as well as the fallout from killing Voldemort and all of his followers that showed up at his 'rebirth' ceremony. It was going to be a long night.
Author's Note:
So, this was an idea that was bouncing around in my head based on an image of Anima's human arms grabbing Harry while her monstrous arms killed Quirrell.
This will probably remain a one-shot, but one day it could become a full story. The problem lies in that I only had two or so more potential scenes that would need some serious fleshing out. So, if a lot of people want me to continue it (and those people are also welcome to send scene ideas, which will probably be used in some way, shape or form) I will being willing to work on it.
Harry was definitely acting out of Character, but do remember, he has been able to talk to his mom since the summer after first year.
The inspiration for Salazar Slytherin's Aeon form came from the picture called Quetzalcoatl K which can be found on Deviant Art. I fully recommend looking it up because it looks really cool.
Final note; if you can't tell, I did not have a beta read this story.