Summary: A formless individual enters Harry Potter's life. As he grows up, with no other guiding figure present in his life, the voice constantly influences him, eventually shaping the saviour of the wizarding world into someone he wasn't supposed to be. Fate changes its course as the green-eyed wonder takes his destiny into his own hands. SLASH | LVHP
Note: Title is subject to change. Feel free to suggest.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. If there is anything in this piece of fiction that might offend the sensibilities of any reader, kindly send me a message and I will gladly put up an appropriate warning if warranted.
Just amusing myself in warping the original Potterverse. Harry Potter © J.K. Rowling
Warnings: Implied emotional and physical abuse, but in my latest edit I tried to lay off it (because abuse is a very heavy and serious theme to work with, and I don't want to handle it with the same offhandness most fanfic writers seemed to think right to deal it with), crude language, future sexual situations (censored, but I'll cross-post over at AO3 anything I will have edited out). I'll add anything that will warrant a warning in future chapters, but for now, these are it.
Edited | 02.16.15
Misguided Ghosts
Prologue
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A dark, tumultuous storm had taken over the night, open windows banging soundly on square houses that lined each side of the road. Trees swayed dangerously, leaning threateningly towards the ground, looking ready to fall and collapse on the pavement.
The street was dark. The street lamps were turned off in the black of the wee hours. The usual luminous ruddiness of the moon was covered by the growling grey clouds. Wet pelts continued raining down the houses in Privet Drive, cool moist drafting inside the homes through cracks and openings.
A small boy, no older than seven, stared up into darkness, green eyes glowing eerily up at the ceiling of the stifling interior of the cupboard. His chest was rising and falling in even breaths, although slight tremors accompanied the movement, as if the child was afraid of moving too abruptly. His arms were crossed behind his head, cushioning crudely, serving as a better pillow than the thin, musty sack his aunt had given him.
A shiver racked his frail body, toes curling under the bare thread, hole-ridden blanket that covered him. Yet he did not move to curl up. He knows better than to put pressure on his torso, given that bruises along his front would sting much too painfully if he bends forward.
Deft ears picked up the howling weather outside. The forecaster had announced alike; he heard when Uncle Vernon turned the channel to the evening news. It was then that he knew he would not be able to get a nice rest in, with clammy drafts sifting through the openings of his meagre cupboard.
The little boy tried anyway.
Apathy coiled around his heart, as the silence and lack of anything to do forced his mind to recount the memories of his young life. For as long as the child can remember, his relatives had harboured ill feelings towards their nephew, seemingly making it their very mundane life's mission to make his own more than a little miserable, yet feigning ignorance to his presence the times they didn't need him to do anything.
They dole out chores and reprimands as if they'd get thin and uglier with every second wasted not filling the boy's ears with screeches and wails. They give him enough food to supplement his body for the tiring days, when they deemed his work passable and his presence innocuous—which was, the boy admitted to himself, less than half the time he has ever spent in the Dursley household. Clothes thrice his size make him look skinnier than he is; all hand-me-downs from his whale of a cousin. Bottle cap-shaped glasses that bore a lot of tape perch on his small nose, the prescription too weak to completely remedy the child's difficulty to see; his surroundings a constant picture of a clear blur.
The green glow suddenly flickered out, as the child shut his eyes gently, a deep calm flowing from his chest, to his head, and to his limbs. A tiny, harmless black spider had dropped onto his cheek, several feet pattering lightly across the pale expanse of skin as the creature crawled, finally jumping off to the thin mattress after many seconds. The boy showed no indication of any fear or upset, only pure detachment.
It was nearing dawn when the storm finally left, the wet and slippery streets only waiting for the bright morning sun to dry off. It was then that the boy's consciousness, which has remained awake the whole night, began to slip, the serenity of the quiet tugging drowsy sleep into his weary body. Lashes fluttered against pale, hollow cheeks as the child finally slept, giving in to the lull of well-needed rest.
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The heavy footfalls descending the staircase above the small cupboard were the only warning the child had, before insistent knocking came down on the door, rousing him from his light sleep.
"Up! Get up!" came the screeching voice of Aunt Petunia, the sharp raps against his cupboard's door increasing. "Get the bacon! I'm going to wake up Duddykins."
The green-eyed child answered with a soft, "Yes, ma'am, I'm coming," rising and stretching his arms up and immediately letting them down to his lap as he winced, the slowly numbing pain on his black and blue torso flaring up again in sharp stings. He rummaged under his thin mattress for socks, his hands making quick work to pull them on as he knocked his shoulder on the door, pushing it open.
He shuffled fast into the kitchen, body moving with habit as he cooked the bacon to a good crisp, just as the Dursleys liked it. Cracking some eggs into the sizzling pan, he left it to cook in favour of setting up the table, placing plates, glasses and silver utensils and grabbing the orange juice from the fridge. The boy returned to his station over the stove, struggling a bit to put the eggs into a plate as his short legs strained to give him more height. He let out a successful hum as he walked over to the table, placing the plate loaded with fattening food into the center. Quickly, he grabbed a slice of toast from the stack Aunt Petunia made beforehand, and two strips of bacon, shoving them down his mouth before his relatives can see. He munched furiously and snatched a small glass from the cupboard to his left, pouring some orange juice and gulping the glass down to help his breakfast down his throat. He washed the glass to avoid being scolded for drinking some of the juice, efficiently hiding the evidence.
Thankfully, he was able to do as much before his fat cousin came running down the stairs, followed by his fatter uncle and horse-like aunt. They sat down at the table, ignoring the boy as he stood obediently to the wall, not unlike the pasty, horrid, but quiet wallpaper his aunt had covered the dining room's walls with.
"Here." His aunt thrust a list of chores into his hands, walking away to do the dishes. The boy didn't bother to look; he set out to the garden to pull out the weeds he'd missed during yesterday's round of chores, hoping to finish before the sun's rays became unbearably hot.
He started out at the back, small hands tugging persistently on stray weeds. Gardening had always been his peaceful respite from his relative's stifling personalities. Here, in the plots of fresh green, no one came to insist he become normal—in whatever way his relatives reckoned what normal was. He was left alone, unnoticed; feeling that momentary freedom that he only felt in the dead of the night.
He was blindly reaching to his side, where he knew the steel gardening scissors laid. However, instead of the rubbery handle of the scissors, his hand touched a cool, smooth surface. His hand immediately curled around the object, bringing the object up to his curious green eyes for close inspection.
A necklace greeted his eyes. The boy perked up, hands prodding inquiringly at the white gold piece. His finger pressed at a knob on its side. The necklace swung wide open with a crisp click. A locket! Delighted, the child turned it over, looking at the intricate carvings on the beautiful jewellery.
At its front, a big crystal protected the inlay of glimmering, clear emeralds, arranged to form an elegant 'S'. The figure could have been easily mistaken as a snake, embedded seamlessly on a smooth, golden surface. A fixed, fine oval circled the 'S'. When he peered closer, his eyes caught the odd, flowing engravings around the oval. Differently sized characters scattered outside the ring, appearing to have no specific arrangement.
Vivid green eyes were alight with relish, a rare spark entering the bright orbs in delight. The small child snapped his head up and looked around, suddenly aware of the fact that he had just found a locket carelessly lying on the garden soil, with no knowledge of the original owner. He knew it couldn't have been his aunt's; as much as the Dursleys get comfortably on their own, and more, they can't possibly have enough money to have bought the very expensive looking locket, decorated with so many stones and the precious jewellery being gold in itself, as he judged by its hefty weight. It must have been someone else's.
When he finished inspecting his surroundings, and found no one around, the green-eyed child sighed in relief and joy, small hand clutching the locket tightly, resolutely claiming it as his own. Finally, he has something that he can surely call as his. Not his cousin's old anything, a tasteless hand-me-down that will forever be Dudley's old anything and not Harry's (relatively) new anything. His own. And what an object it was! He brought the trinket up to his eyes again, his lips tugging up into a smile as the sun's rays hit and made the object gleam and shine. He delicately placed it around his slender neck, fastening the necklace securely. He clutched at it, hoping against all odds that no one will take it away. He took one last look at the locket, smiling much more widely now, and hid it under his big shirt, wanting to make sure no one saw the locket and pilfer it from him. Warmth spread across him the instant the locket hit his chest, in spite of the cool octagonally cut gold it was made of.
A pleased gasp left his lips, before he eventually grew accustomed to the feeling. The bruises on his torso had even stopped pestering him with the occasional stings, his mind afloat with the warm energy the trinket seemed to give off. The small boy went reluctantly back to his work, although his indifference had given way to an enjoyable mood as he went about in his tasks.
When the small boy collapsed on his makeshift bed inside his cupboard, he refused to take off the trinket he had found, finding comfort at the weight of the locket on his chest. Exhaustion tugged on his consciousness. A little while later, the green-eyed child fell asleep.
Moments upon the closing of the child's eyes, the locket on his chest pulsed. The inlay of the locket glowed, the emeralds shining brighter and brighter as the markings moved and rearranged, the strange symbols changing and slowly merging. The odd engravings swirled, tips and ends meeting side by side as they formed another ring, spinning fast, before once again melting into separate characters, although new and different from the marks beforehand. Numerals formed and stilled, as with the other carvings, and the emeralds slowly weakened their glow, before finally flickering out, returning darkness to the silent cupboard.
