A/N: Plot bunny bit me, and this came out. It was going to be a Harry/Bellatrix fic, but I figured it deserved an OC. She's not the Dragon Age character or the mythological figure, though she was inspired by both...there are a number of alterations I made because I like to mess with things.
EDIT: Typos and minor corrections.
He saw her in person for the first time in the Department of Mysteries. He'd gotten separated from the others in their mad, unplanned dash from the Hall of Prophecy - his hindsight decided to smugly inform him what a terrible idea that had been - and he burst into what he thought was an empty room and locked the door behind him before realizing the presence of another person in the same room.
Her silently cast disarming spell hit him before he could even think to raise a shield, and when he noticed just how dangerous-looking the woman was, he wondered if he might just be about to die. It was her eyes, he decided, that gave her such a threatening air. No pair of eyes were meant to be so black, or so empty of emotion. Not even Snape could match her for such glacier-like impassiveness.
"They sent a boy?" the woman asked, sneering. "Pathetic."
He suddenly realized, in his appraisal of her, that she had no wand. She wore a form-fitting black dress, cut to expose her arms from the shoulders down, and there was neither wand holster nor - his heart lifted slightly - Dark Mark on her forearm. Nor, his gaze drifting downwards, was there any holster on her thigh, which was exposed by the rather generous cut of the dress.
"Well?" she spat, when he didn't respond to her. "What do you have to say for yourself, boy?"
He'd never liked anyone who'd called him that. The trend began with his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, and had only continued with Snape and Filch. For all her faults, he couldn't remember Umbridge ever using the word. But something was different with this woman. She didn't use it as an insult; it was a description, nothing more and nothing less.
"Nobody sent me," he said, managing to mask the fear he still felt. "And my name is Harry."
The woman looked at him for a moment. "I am called Morrigan," she said, and stepped close enough to him that she could touch him if she reached out. "And as for your masters...we shall see."
She pressed the index and middle fingers of her right hand to his temple, and he felt the signs of Legilimancy. He tried to clear his mind the way Snape had, well, taught wasn't the right word, but it would have to do.
Despite his efforts, the woman - Morrigan, he corrected himself - began pulling up seemingly random memories - wandering Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione, his trial the summer before school began, his encounter with Voldemort in front of the Mirror of Erised, getting called to Dumbledore's office his second year - and then she released him. He staggered backwards, feeling faintly irritated with the violation of his privacy.
"Hmph," Morrigan said. "You were telling the truth. Innocent. Naive, and innocent. A dangerous combination."
"I'm not dangerous," Harry protested immediately.
"You have stopped this Voldemort in his tracks how many times now?" Morrigan asked. "Foiled his plots, his lackeys, and even his own greatest power?"
His hand went to his scar, but she shook her head. "No, fool, not that. Anyone can kill, Voldemort is nothing special in that regard. No, I speak of your first year at Hogwarts, when he offered you your heart's desire in front of that Mirror and you, an eleven-year-old boy, turned him down. That is what I speak of."
Harry said nothing, and after a moment, Morrigan continued.
"But no matter. You have freed me, and for that I owe you a debt."
Harry noticed the room for the first time. The walls were rough stone, with two thick metal chains dangling from one of them. Two shackles had been partially melted, and lay on the floor. Other than that, the room was bare.
A prison.
"You owe me nothing," Harry said quickly.
"You value freedom so little, boy?" Morrigan asked, turning angry. "Or do you think to deny it to me?"
"No!" he denied. "But I didn't help you for a reward - I didn't even know I was helping you until just now!"
"I know that, boy," Morrigan said. "You are an ignorant fool, and once you learn more of what you have unleashed, you may regret freeing me. But you did help me."
She took his hand and pressed something hard and metallic into it. When she removed her hand, a small medallion with an embossed letter "M" on its face was clutched in his fist.
"Call my name while holding the medallion, and I will come to aid you. But be warned: it shall only work thrice. After you have called me the third time, my debt will be repaid, and you shall not be able to call upon me again. Do you understand?"
He nodded, staring at the medallion. It was an odd shade of copper-green, with swirls of amber running through it. When he looked up, she was gone. He walked to his wand, picked it up, and unlocked the door, intent on joining his friends in the battle.
It was only after he closed the door that he saw the sign on it.
QUEEN OF CROWS
CLASS V MONSTER
LETHAL
DO NOT ENTER
He looked at the medallion again. It seemed somehow unsettling, unnatural: almost frightening. He tucked it into a pocket and walked down the corridor towards the sounds of fighting. Whatever Morrigan might be, she had offered her help, and in the fight against Voldemort, he was in no position to turn down aid.
As he hurried off, Morrigan faded into view behind him, unnoticed.
"Trusting idiot," she said, but there was something almost warm in her tone, and she wasn't sneering. Instead, her lips were quirked in a wry smile. With a soft popping sound, she disappeared from the Department of Mysteries, intent on exploring a world she had not seen through her own eyes for nearly a thousand years of imprisonment.
The Queen of Crows had returned.
A/N: Dun dun dunnnnnnn!
There are going to be a total of five chapters in this fic. Yes, it'll be short. And yes, going back into the HP fandom after a bit of a hiatus feels damn good. Next chapter of Connections should be out in a week or so. (All you people I told I wasn't going to update it for a while? I lied to you. I do that kind of thing. Deal with it.)
In more personal news, I went on vacation in Europe for 2 weeks and just got back. Turns out I was in Zurich only two weeks before a Lindsey Stirling concert there, which made me want to cry. Not only that, but the trip made me unable to go to a They Might Be Giants concert in my hometown (seeing as I was a continent away). Double the tears.