Figure in Gray
Erebus1999
Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and whomever else she has sold the rights to, and I make no claim to it.
Author's Note: For those of you who hate author's notes, let it be known that this will likely be the longest of the story, and also the only one at the start of a chapter. All of the other notes I will ensure are at the end of their respective chapters, to keep them safely out of the way. They will all also be bolded, as this one is to differentiate them from regular story text. There will be a short farewell note at the end of this chapter to get myself in the habit.
So, this story's publish date indicates it was initially posted sometime in October of 2018. It is now April of 2019 and it still has one chapter, despite this author's note clearly indicating it has been updated. Repeatedly in fact. As it happens, that is because this is probably the fourth or fifth version of the Prologue I am posting. Each time I post it it seems like I find a bunch of problems and go back to rewrite it. As I am a college student with remarkable time demands and a slow writer to boot, rewriting takes a significant amount of time, although in the future I hope to cut that time down some.
Anyways, this particular story is the culmination of months of world-building (you all didn't think those months of me rewriting the Prologue endlessly were just that, did you?), a number of tropes I think I can do better, a few I created for the hell of it, and a rabid plot bunny that just won't leave my head. The plotting of this story is already a mess, and I have yet to really get started. Should be fun!
I will also be using this as an exercise to improve my ability to write (and possibly even speed it up some, God knows it needs it). I am generally quite a verbose person, and my writing generally matches that so expect a lot of description, especially since one of my main characters goes out of his way not to speak. Regardless, I write what I want to see. I happen to want to see this.
I'll stop typing this note now. Enjoy! Or don't. That's your prerogative.
oo0ooOoo0oo
Prologue
1 July 1995
Evening
For several decades now, the residents of the town of Little Hangleton had done their very best to ignore the once-gorgeous, now decaying carcass of the Riddle House where it squatted on the hill outside of town. In fact, recently all of them seemed to have forgotten about it entirely. If they looked up at the hilltop for any reason at all, their eyes merely skated sightlessly over the rotting wooden shutters, the boarded-up windows, the sagging lead roof, and especially over the men in black cloaks and silver masks standing guard at the mildewed doors.
Within the formerly-grand ballroom of the formerly-grand Riddle House there was an enormous, finely carved black chair, so large and ornate as to be almost a throne.
And on this throne, red eyes closed and snakelike visage relaxed, sat the Dark Lord Voldemort reborn. He had stated he was not to be disturbed hours earlier.
As a result of his order, the two cloaked and masked Death Eaters stationed inside of the closed doors of the ballroom stood very still, hardly moving. If they somehow drew their lord's attention at the wrong moment, they could very well experience the Cruciatus curse, and neither wished for that. The Dark Lord's curses left one trembling for days afterwards, were he in the mood.
Fortunately for them, Lord Voldemort's attention was firmly focused inwards, to the exclusion of the outside world. The Dark Lord was meditating to find his center. After the destruction of his body fourteen years prior, all of the defenses he had painstakingly erected around his mind had crumbled, lost without the anchor of flesh and blood.
Now, only days after his resurrection, Voldemort was still rebuilding the defenses protecting his mind. Occlumency, the art of defending one's mind, was a complex, many-leveled ability that he had done his utmost to master.
The simplest form of Occlumency, the clearing of one's mind in such a way that intruders could find nothing, Voldemort had surpassed decades before whilst he had still attended Hogwarts. The more advanced version, the superior version, consisted of barriers of magic anchored to the body, sustained without constant concentration and nearly impossible to break. These, however, required not-insignificant skill in magic, wandless, wanded and otherwise, to construct and were therefore rarely seen. The only other person Voldemort had ever seen with similar barriers was Severus Snape, and his were not nearly so impressive, even if they were near-impenetrable.
Such barriers of magic around the mind took time to erect, and as a result Voldemort had been meditating for the last four days. The days before that were occupied with organizing his remaining Death Eaters and warding the Riddle House so that it could not be found, ensuring his safety whilst he rebuilt his strength.
His resurrection, disastrous though the end may have been, was ultimately successful, if tiring. He, Lord Voldemort, once more walked the Earth in all his glory!
Those not in his service did not see his greatness though. They thought (futile though it may be) that they could oppose, could stop his return and rightful takeover of Britain. He would prove them wrong!
They could, however, delay him Voldemort admitted. At least for a time. He could not truly move, could not execute his grand plan, until the prophecy that had lead to his downfall so long ago was found. He refused to allow Fate to interfere again. His first order of business had to be to discover the rest of the wording of that prophecy, then kill the Potter boy to show that none who stand in Lord Voldemort's way live to speak of it.
With a loud, mental snap, the last barrier of magic around his mind anchored into place. He was done! Voldemort played tendrils of his magic over the incorporeal walls protecting him, searching for gaps and openings that may not have been closed.
He found an opening, but only one as he expected. This link, this crack, lead to the piece of soul he had left within Nagini. Most would consider placing a part of one's soul within a living creature to be unsafe. After all, should the host die the soul-piece would be lost.
This was, of course, true, but the control he had over Nagini was incredible! He could use the link to possess her, to guide her to complete tasks that could not be completed by any other living being. He carefully analyzed the opening in his mind, ensuring that despite there being a lack of defenses there it could not be utilized against him, before moving on.
Voldemort continued playing his tendrils of magic over the walls of his mind, caressing the link to Nagini again before moving on, running along smooth wall, a joint here, and another crack leading to another living Horcr—
Wait! He had not gifted a second creature with the glorious task of holding part of his soul. What was this? He had not done this, and none of his inanimate Horcruxes had had any opportunity to possess a person. At least, he thought not. Voldemort thought briefly over the protections of each, searching for a way they could become active. Which one could it be?
Slytherin's Locket was safely ensconced in the cave where his army of Inferi was stored. The Inferi were not suitable hosts for the soul-piece within the Locket however, so that could not be. It must still be safe.
The Gaunt Ring was not more than a few kilometers away, in the ruins of the Gaunt Shack. He would know if something came across it, and whatever did would die anyways. That Withering curse he had found on his travels in the Caribbean would ensure that.
The Diadem of Ravenclaw was securely in the Room of Lost Things. He had looked in the records of Hogwarts, and found no mention of the room. He was the only person to find it and understand its secrets in hundreds of years. Even if someone did find the Diadem by some twist of destiny, the compulsion on it would force whoever did find it into wearing it and dying to the desiccation curse cast upon it.
The Cup of Hufflepuff was locked into Bellatrix's Gringotts vault. While it had no protections apart from those Bellatrix had surely placed upon it, the defenses of Gringotts were formidable and would guarantee its safety. No goblin would touch the cup while it was within a vault, so it must still be inactive.
His Diary, his first Horcrux, was regrettably lost. Lucius was still bedridden as a result of his displeasure on hearing of its destruction, even if it was in an ill-fated effort to return him to life. So what could this link to yet another soul-piece be? All of the ones he was aware of were accounted for.
Voldemort rather disliked just charging ahead, but in this case there was no other real solution. This crack in his mind's defenses could not be left open, and unless he knew what was on the other side of the link he could not even begin to close it.
He would just have to shove some magic at the link and see what it showed him. Surely his mind's defenses were sufficient to block any attack through the gap that may come.
Lord Voldemort gathered his magic, forged it into a narrow tendril. He did not want to possess the being holding part of his soul. He merely wished to identify it, locate it, and then find some way of removing his piece of soul into something else. One living Horcrux that could be relatively easily killed was truly enough.
He pushed his little tendril of magic, of thought, into the bridge between his two soul parts, looking for identity, for location. He expected to see a forest, trees. Perhaps during his time as a wraith part of his soul was left behind in an animal he possessed only for a time and thus left alive?
A white owl in a cage. A tiny room full of trash. Bars on a window, a rickety desk next to a bed. An enormously fat walrus of a man next to a whale of a son. What was this? Had one of his Horcruxes activated somehow? Impossible! Their protections were too great. There must be something else. He would have to check again, better. His touch was too light to pick up memories that would allow him to identify the host.
Voldemort pushed a bit more magic into his probe and gently touched the bridge again, but a tiny bit more forcefully this time. He made contact and began to see images through his host's eyes. The white owl, once more. The bars on the window.
This would be very delicate. He needed to push for a recent memory to identify the person, but if they knew even the basics of Occlumency they would know someone was in their head. He pressed a compulsion through the link, a wish to find the most important recent memory. That would doubtlessly contain information on this host's identity.
Horrible, splitting pain. A graveyard. Kill the spare. Green light, rushing. A handsome, dark-haired boy dead on the muddy ground. A giant cauldron billowing thick white smoke.
Lord Voldemort would have smiled maliciously had he not been so deep into his meditative trance. As it was, he pulled his probe back and cackled madly in the silence of his mind.
Harry Potter held a piece of his soul! This was both incredibly unfortunate and hysterical at the same time. Unfortunate for Harry Potter, because Lord Voldemort could now find out where he lived and come pay him a pleasant (for Voldemort, at least) summer visit. Hysterical because Lord Voldemort had to execute his greatest feat yet, removing a soul-piece from a living Horcrux without destroying it so that it could be placed within a new vessel.
Harry Potter was not a permissible host for a part of Lord Voldemort's soul. He, Lord Voldemort, was going to kill the Potter boy. That was a foregone conclusion, it was going to happen. But he refused to do so whilst a part of his soul was at stake.
At least now his course of action for the immediate future was certain. First, he had to discover Potter's location and any defenses.
Then he had to capture him.
Finally, he had to rip his soul fragment from his body and end his miserable life.
The prophecy could wait. It had for fourteen years, after all.
oo0ooOoo0oo
2 July 1995
Early Morning
A tall, handsome young man with dark hair spun his head left and right, trying to pierce the murk of the old graveyard they seemed to have landed within. He turned back around to the younger, smaller teenager who had come with him who had thumped to the ground, unable to stand on his injured leg. The man offered a hand, which the teenager took.
"Harry, did you know the Cup was a Portkey?" asked Cedric Diggory.
Harry swallowed and looked around nervously as he teetered and tried to balance. "No. No I didn't."
Cedric nodded and a grim expression crossed his face as he looked about at the misty, overgrown graves. "Wands out, d'you reckon?" His own wand suddenly appeared in his hand.
Harry merely pulled his wand from his tattered Tri-Wizard Champion robes with a grimy, bloody hand. He looked around again. Still nothing. Shouldn't there be something by now?
The chipped tombstones throughout the graveyard began to fade to white as a sudden, unnaturally thick fog condensed from nothing. Soon, Harry and Cedric stood in a small circle in which they could see only each other and a few nearby graves. A thin, cloaked figure suddenly appeared in the mist.
Harry and Cedric both held their wands towards the approaching silhouette, ready to defend if need be. Harry felt a horrible feeling of foreboding building in his chest, and heard a small voice in his head chanting, "Not Cedric, not Cedric..."
"Kill the spare," came the high, cruel voice from the fog. A sickly green bolt of light abruptly burned to his right, through the haze!
"NO!" Harry shouted desperately, spinning to track the Killing Curse and falling as his injured leg twisted and buckled again. "NOT CEDRIC!" the voice in his head thundered!
When Harry finished his falling turn, however, Cedric Diggory was not behind him. The tombstones dissolved, and he fell not to long grass and mud, but to hard asphalt, a road. The Killing Curse left a clear trail through the haze and plowed into the front door of a perfectly normal house, the wood splintering and cracking as it was blasted violently from its hinges. High, echoing laughter began to emanate cruelly from behind Harry, from within the fog.
The fog cleared slightly, dissipating, but the laughter merely became deafening. On the front of the home, polished and shining in the silvery half-light that penetrated the mist, held up by two perfectly ordinary metal nails hammered into the wall over a rosebush, hung a large metal number four.
Harry suddenly felt a jerk behind his navel, yanking him through the shattered front door of Number Four, Privet Drive. The force continued dragging him, his legs bouncing and thudding loudly on each step of the stairs, and he flew at his door, locks locked and bolts bolted, cat flap in the bottom ready for another meal. He bounced off of his door, then was pulled violently again into the door, shattering it with his own body as—
The sheets, damp and sticky with sweat, slid down to Harry's waist as he shot upright in his bed, breathing hard. His hands jumped up of their own accord to grasp his forehead, trying to ease the splitting, pounding pain that felt like it was splitting his skull.
He sat there, hands trembling slightly from remembered pain as he attempted to make sense of his dream through the foreign emotions he could feel in his head. Voldemort had been feeling extremely happy in the days since his resurrection, and Harry's headache had been more or less constant as a result. Even now, in the middle of the night, the murderous madman seemed to be absolutely ecstatic.
Slowly, the tremors in his hands faded and his headache abated slightly, from splitting to pounding to merely uncomfortable, letting him finally focus on the dream. For some reason, he had dreamed of Privet Drive. In fact, he had dreamed of some kind of attack on Number Four. Why would I dream about an attack here? There's no chance of that happening.
After a few more minutes pondering his strange nightmares, he finally flopped back on his damp sheets to try and get a few more hours of sleep. It did not come easily, and he tossed and turned restlessly for the rest of the night.
oo0oo
High, cruel laughter echoed within the Riddle House. Within the village, early risers looked about nervously as they darted through the streets. Not one could identify the source of the coldly hair-raising cackle that echoed through the air.
oo0oo
Across the street from Number Four, unknown to all of the inhabitants, was a small circular area of grass. Much like the Riddle House, nobody could look directly at it and any wizards who saw it would not remember it. And inside of this circle, standing unnaturally still in the darkness, stood a rather short figure in layers of tattered, ripped gray robes and an equally battered gray cloak.
This man's hood was pulled up, his face obscured carefully with more than just shadows. Even his hands were gloved, carefully hiding all sight of him apart from his robes from the world. It would not do for his identity to be found out should someone find and break his wards.
Hours later dawn came, the sky pinking with the rising sun. The man had not yet shifted from his position facing Number Four, Privet Drive.
There was a sudden rustle of coarse cloth as the man moved, resting one hand on an oddly-shaped sword hilt sticking out of the left side of his cloak. When he turned to the right suddenly it became clear the hilt was modeled after a lily, flattened carefully to be usable as a grip. The man walked off, shimmering into nothing before he left his warded circle of grass.
The wards remained, awaiting another night's vigil.
oo0ooOoo0oo
2 July 1995
Midnight
Privet Drive was quiet at night. The only sound that normally broke the heavy silence was the contented buzzing of the sodium vapor streetlamps, and perhaps the odd passing car.
Tonight that was not the case.
Crack! Crack!
The close-spaced echoes of the two sounds, like whips snapping in the air, broke the stillness before dissipating quickly in the oppressive heat.
From behind a tall bush close to a fence appeared two men in heavy black robes and cloaks. Their hoods were up, faces hidden carefully in their depths.
Both men began to strut arrogantly down the street. Coming to such a filthy muggle neighborhood as this was below them, and they knew it. They had even considered, briefly, denying their Lord.
That would have been an incredibly poor decision, had they taken it. Fortunately for them they had not.
The two men made no effort to avoid the hazy yellow discs of light around the streetlamps as they walked. They strolled through without pause, and in so doing revealed their faces within their hoods.
Except there were no faces there. Polished, grinning silver masks in the likenesses of human skulls shined eerily in the dim light, and empty eye sockets glared out at the world with hate in their invisible gaze. The two men stepped back out of the light, and the insides of their hoods regained the deep shadows. The angry stares of the masks disappeared into darkness.
Both men continued down the street for a short period, in and out of the pools thrown off by the streetlamps. They detested having to walk so far, but the Dark Lord had informed them that there were supposedly Blood Wards on the house. Such wards reacted poorly to being breached by most magical forms of transport. In fact, earlier that day they each had been forced to dress as Muggles to view where they wished to Apparate to without being discovered! They both still felt unclean after walking among those unwashed animals for even a short time. They could not, however, come in too close to the home and those wards.
Finally the two cloaked men stopped in front of a totally normal two-story house with a meticulously clean station wagon parked in the drive. They walked closer, and when they were off the road one of them produced a wand and lit the tip with a faint silvery light.
On the front of the home a shiny number four reflected the wandlight.
One man turned to the other, wand still out and lit. "Stand guard Two," he said quietly, voice turned raspy and unrecognizable by spells on the mask. "We don't know if Dumbledore has some of his Order here guarding the boy or not."
Two nodded his head. "Understood. Make sure that the boy does actually live at this filthy place for Master. He would be most wroth should we err in our judgment here." One grunted shortly in agreement, then walked off out of view of the road.
Two melted into the shadows in front of the house, nearly invisible in his black cloak.
One stalked to the back of the home and doused the light of his wand with a quick flick of the tip. He raised it, and swished it smoothly through the air.
"Homenum Revelio."
Four ghostly white outlines of people, visible only to One, appeared faintly through the walls of the house, all on the second floor. Two were clustered together in a corner of the floor, a third in the center of the back wall. The fourth outline, the smallest, was in the opposite corner from the third person. The white outlines faded, and One nodded to himself.
He raised his wand to cast again, a much longer incantation this time. Finding human presences was quite easy. Specifying that you only wanted to see a specific presence was far more difficult, but One managed.
The spell came back positive and confirmed that Harry Potter was in the front right corner of Number Four, Privet Drive. One walked to look for a window to the room. While spells were well and good, the Dark Lord had demanded that he check with his own eyes. The spells were to save him time checking houses in case his Lord's information was wrong, not that it ever was.
One stopped on the side of house underneath the closest window to Potter. He cast sticking charms carefully on his hands and feet, then used them to begin to scale the wall so he could look in through the window. He would have much preferred just using a broom, but with so many muggle houses in the area something so obviously magical couldn't be risked, or so the Dark Lord said.
One jerked to an uncomfortable stop as his head thudded into something above him painfully. He froze, stuck to the wall like a bloody Acromantula. Hopefully nobody had heard that. One glanced up at what he had encountered with his head and glared at it, even as his jaw tightened with distaste.
Sticking out from where they were securely bolted to the bricks was a set of iron bars, blocking the window. Nasty muggles, to do this to even a halfblood was a disgrace. One stopped his mental grumbling before it could become too caustic. Blood Wards were said to be able to feel such emotions, and act against them.
One inched to the side of the bars and ascended just far enough to look into the room, scanning it closely.
There! On the rickety bed and tossing restlessly in his sleep. That was unmistakably Harry Potter. One nodded and descended back down the wall, then strolled casually back to the front of the home. He nodded at Two and both struck off back down the street.
Two faint cracks a minute later heralded their departure.
Across the way, once again within his warded circle of grass, stood the figure in gray robes and a cloak. He fingered the hilt of his sword, before disappearing again, fading into nothing totally silently.
And just within view of Number Four Privet Drive, in the home of one Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher shifted uneasily in his sleep, but otherwise remained undisturbed. Nobody but the gray man took notice of One or Two and their stroll down Privet Drive.
oo0oo
Maniacal laughter echoed once more through the streets of Little Hangleton. This was getting out of hand! The residents still could not figure out where exactly these strange noises were coming from. For that matter, why did everyone suddenly have out their heavy weather cloaks? There was no chance of rain. And why were they black?
oo0ooOoo0oo
3 July 1995
Early Morning, Before Dawn
Crack crack crack crack crack crack.
Crack!
The silence of Privet Drive on a hot summer night broke for the second time in two days. The half dozen black cloaked men—Death Eaters—followed obediently behind their tall, skeletally thin Master as he glided down the street, black robes billowing. Tonight was the night that Lord Voldemort would begin his victory!
Voldemort grinned maliciously to himself, red eyes gleaming in the light from the lamps. He had plundered the boy's mind over the last day, finding out everything he could about the protections on the house, not that he knew much. But what he did know was enough. Voldemort shared the boy's blood. Blood Wards would not hinder him.
In fact, the six loyal servants that had accompanied him had not done so to aid him. They had come to slow down any response in case that episode with his and Potter's wands connecting played out again. Should that happen, the brat would not escape this time! Lord Voldemort would take the brat, and he would take back his soul-piece before returning Potter's cold corpse to that fool of a headmaster!
At last, the Dark Lord reached Number 4 Privet Drive. He stood and looked at the house, reveling in the satisfaction he knew he would feel shortly. Then, slowly, savoring the moment so he would remember it as the beginning of his rise, he raised his wand, pointed it at the door.
His smile became unnaturally wide and he crooned a single word. After all, at the moment of victory one must enjoy oneself. Saying spells out loud, while unnecessary, was truly quite satisfying.
"Reducto."
oo0oo
SKREEEEEEEEEE!
A delicate little silver device on one of Albus Dumbledore's many bookshelves began to screech its existence to the world, despite it being the middle of the night.
Moments later, Dumbledore blearily rushed into the office from his personal chambers, shoving his half-moon glasses onto his nose. He still wore a bright orange sleeping gown and a pair of fluffy slippers.
Dumbledore searched the shelves for the shrieking monitoring device (as there were several that would make that particular noise). When he finally found it he cursed quietly using several words that would have had Minerva raising her eyebrow at him. He never cursed in her presence. She was very intimidating, even to him.
Dumbledore immediately scrambled back to his chambers, and came out barely thirty seconds later in an ordinary white robe that had only been worn once before and with his wand in his hand. As he sprinted for the door he shot Fawkes' perch (and the tiny baby phoenix sitting upon it in the pile of ash) a regretful look. His shoes clattered down the spiral staircase.
Not even the Headmaster of Hogwarts could Apparate out of the school through the wards, and a young phoenix could not fire travel. His only hope of reaching Harry in time to save him was to run for the gates of Hogwarts with everything he had.
The wards on Privet Drive were failing. There was no time to waste.
oo0oo
Harry Potter's sweat-dampened sheets bunched up at his waist as he shot upright in his bed, clutching his scar and gasping while his head tried to split open.
Why does it hurt like this now? He asked himself through the agony in his forehead. The last time it felt like this was in the graveyard!
Harry glanced at the cracked clock on his nightstand (Dudley had hurled it across the room when the alarm went off one morning) and sighed at the early time, resigning himself to not sleeping for the rest of the night. He could barely think through this headache! How could he sleep with it?
BOOOOM!
He jumped violently at the sudden explosion that shook the house and scrambled out of bed. What was that!
Harry rushed to his window, looking out at the street on an angle in an effort at finding out what was going on. What had made such a loud sound? He looked for a short moment before he suddenly grabbed his wand and glasses, fumbling in the dark. That was the source of the sound. Death Eaters!
Dumbledore said I was safe here! Why are there Death Eaters outside of the Dursley's house? For that matter, how did they even find this place?
No answer would be forthcoming though, he knew. He was on his own, like he always was. And this time, he had no way to escape. He hurriedly jammed his glasses onto his face.
Harry looked around before his eyes settled on Hedwig in her cage. He quickly opened it, leaving the door ajar. He locked his green gaze with her own yellow one.
"Hedwig, I need you to get out of here. I can use magic to save myself, but if the Death Eaters outside get into the house you cannot. Go to a safe place, I'll call you when this is over. Go!" He urged her, opening his window. Hedwig stared at him. Then she obediently took wing, squeezing through the bars over his window and flying into the night. For some reason no curses flew at her from the Death Eaters around the house.
Harry suddenly heard Uncle Vernon's heavy, thudding footsteps rush past his locked, chained and dead-bolted door. He ignored his Uncle's shouting at what he assumed were the ruins of the front door and readied his wand. If some Death Eater wanted to kill him, he would make them work for it, as hard as he could.
Cold, sickly green light flashed under his door and he heard something like a heavy weight falling to the floor. Bile rose in his throat as he remembered the exact same shade of green killing Cedric Diggory in an instant. His wand remained aimed at his door.
Suddenly a high, cold laugh echoed up the staircase and Harry's blood froze. He knew that laugh. He knew that laugh.
Voldemort was here! But Dumbledore had told him that the Blood Wards—oh. Voldemort used his blood to build his new body. Of course the Blood wards wouldn't stop him still, that would be entirely too much good luck for Harry sodding Potter! Clearly, Privet Drive had no true defenses, not after the Third Task.
Harry's only defense this summer had been obscurity, which he clearly no longer could claim considering the Dark Lord walking up the stairs and his dead uncle.
Well, if Voldemort was in the house he was going to die. He'd barely lived through the graveyard, and now here he was in his nightclothes in a room he couldn't get out of. Just then his scar reminded him of its presence with a fresh spike of pain trying to split his skull. He grunted and clutched his forehead again in a futile effort to relieve it. His wand remained pointed firmly at his locked door, despite the tremor in his hand.
The horrible laughing finally stopped—how long did he just laugh? That had to be thirty seconds—and Harry readied himself for a fight he would almost certainly lose horribly. His scar burned again.
Snap!
One of the locks snapped open loudly and Harry flinched. Of course Voldemort would want to play with him, he couldn't escape! He would probably open the locks and door as slowly as possible to draw this out for as long as he could. Harry remembered Voldemort doing the exact same thing in the graveyard. Torture him for a bit, then stop, laugh and repeat the torture.
Clack! Snap-clack! Snick!
The locks on Harry's door continued opening themselves loudly one by one, and Harry briefly considered trying to blast the bars off of his window to get out. That thought was promptly cut off by the sound of a duel from outside. The Death Eaters outside! They must be here to keep me in and any help out. I'm well and truly trapped.
Finally, the knob of his door started turning, excruciatingly slowly. It clicked, and the door started to creak open.
Before the barrier was even out of his way, before he could even see into the hall beyond, Harry cast in the hopes of catching Voldemort by surprise. It had worked in the graveyard, it might just work here too!
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, slashing his wand wand in the air. A bright, scarlet burst of light launched at the opening door. Lord Voldemort was not one to be surprised by the same thing twice however. His pale, thin hand shot from the shadows of the hall like lightning and casually just batted the Disarming charm into the wall without even using his wand.
Harry's scar split open and blood dripped into his eyes, and the pain grew even worse than it had been before. Befuddled by the pain, Harry cast again desperately. Lord Voldemort swatted it aside with his hand just as negligently as he had earlier. He started cackling, a mirthless, cruel sound and then he stepped through the open door.
Harry went to shout another spell, but a curse flew through the open window, somehow missing all of the bars, and exploded against the wall in a cloud of plaster dust. Voldemort took advantage of his moment as Harry shied away from the detonation. His brown yew wand struck faster than a viper.
"Crucio!"
The spell smashed into Harry before he could even think to dodge it, and his world dissolved into pain.
oo0oo
Albus Dumbledore appeared with an enormous crack (louder than he normally was in his haste) at the end of Privet Drive and began to sprint for Number Four. He took long strides, white robes flapping in the humid air, hair streaming behind him, and moved far, far faster than a man of one hundred and fourteen had any right to. The Elder Wand appeared in his hand.
Dumbledore did not slow down in the slightest when the half-dozen Death Eaters came into view. His wand shot up, and the earth itself rose up in a stony wall to block the curses the Death Eaters hurled at him. The wall broke as more curses impacted it, but Dumbledore just jumped through the cloud of rocky shrapnel, a glimmering silver shield around him, protecting him from the shards of stone. His wand kept moving, singing through space and calling anything and everything to his aid. The rubble behind him shook and rapidly pulled itself together into a wolf that launched itself at one Death Eater with the grinding sound of rock on rock. The rosebushes in front of Number Four lashed out, grabbing another Death Eater and pulling him into their thorny embrace, binding him securely so he couldn't move, couldn't cast to free himself.
Faster than the four remaining Death Eaters could even react to their losses Dumbledore was amongst them, wand still striking. The stone wolf finished knocking its first target unconscious and leapt at a second, only to be blasted to pieces. Those pieces turned to water in midair and became a serpent that struck at the Death Eater who had cast the curse, before suddenly shifting into heavy iron chains that dragged him to the ground. The black robes of one Death Eater animated, wrapping around his throat and choking him to unconsciousness.
The last two Death Eaters tried to step back, to get more space between them and the force of nature known as Albus Dumbledore, only to fall into a pit that appeared instantly in the ground behind them. The pit disappeared and suddenly the two Death Eaters were encased firmly in stone up to their necks, immobilized and trapped. Dumbledore just rushed past, robes torn by a few stray cutting curses and covered in gray stone dust but otherwise completely unharmed by the six-on-one duel. A scream cut through the air from the house.
Dumbledore dashed through the hole where the front door had been and took the stairs three at a time, breathing finally becoming labored. He reached the landing, jumped Vernon Dursley's incredibly overweight corpse, and barged into Harry's open room, only to stop cold.
Tom Riddle held Harry Potter in front of him with a vicious, unnaturally wide smile on his face, wand to Harry's neck. Before Dumbledore could even try to think of a way to save Harry, a way to save the chosen one, Tom twisted on his heel. The apparition wards on the house shattered with an enormous wet ripping sound and suddenly, both Harry and Tom were gone.
Outside somebody shouted "Morsmordre!" and Dumbledore glanced out the window to see that the Death Eater he had imprisoned in chains had somehow gotten out, freed his companions, and cast the Dark Mark over Number Four, Privet Drive. The six Death Eaters disappeared en masse, probably with blood-bound Portkeys. If Tom could enter this house the Blood wards almost certainly didn't do anything to stop him making such things.
Albus Dumbledore dropped his head in defeat, and saw Harry's glasses, cracked by some spell, laying on the floor at his feet. He knelt down and picked them up, pocketing them, before he glanced sadly at Vernon Dursley's corpse at the top of the stairs. If Vernon was dead, Petunia and Dudley were almost certainly gone to the next life too.
He turned and left the empty room, sadly trudging down the stairs and out of the house to wait in the front yard. Aurors and Obliviators would be needed, and the Dark Mark needed dispelling. He had many questions to answer.
oo0oo
Across the street, watching the Dark Mark glow ominously overhead, stood the man in gray robes in his warded circle of grass. At his feet, sleeping and totally lost to the world, lay Petunia and Dudley Dursley. He briefly ruminated on being unable to save Vernon, not that he had really wished to anyways, before shaking his hooded head. Death would take those he wished, and it was Vernon's time.
The man in gray gently knelt down and touched the two sleeping forms in front of him, and all three faded into nothing. The wards and charms on the warded circle of grass would decay over the next day, more than enough time for the Aurors now appearing to have departed. He had to tell Petunia and Dudley that Vernon was dead now. That would doubtlessly be loud and messy, and more than a little bit unfortunate. Maybe a calming draught would work on muggles.
oo0oo
The man in gray robes appeared outside of Gringotts without either Petunia or Dudley. He strode in casually and walked to an open teller. Even at this time of night, Gringotts remained open. Profit can be had at any time of day, after all.
The man stopped before the counter and looked up at the goblin, who glared down at him. Hoods were frowned upon in Gringotts, but not actually against any goblin law.
"Good morning, Master Teller," the man spoke, his voice metallic and ringing, clearly some kind of disguising artifact, "I have business to be done with Account Manager Snarlfang. Please inform him that Revenant has arrived."
The teller nodded and disappeared behind the high counter. A minute later, he reappeared. "Follow Ironclaw, Mister Revenant. He will bring you to Account Manager Snarlfang," the goblin growled. Another goblin appeared at the end of the counter and nodded at Revenant.
Revenant nodded his head at the Teller. "May your scales overflow, Master Teller." He strode up to Ironclaw, before both of them disappeared into the halls of Gringotts.
oo0ooOoo0oo
Authors Note the Second: I do hope you at least enjoyed the prologue. Anyways! More is coming, hopefully reasonably soonish, and things will begin to develop.
For those of you wondering at the two different kinds of section break I seem to use, the long one (oo0ooOoo0oo) is for scene breaks which generally involve sizable timeskips. They will usually be accompanied by a date. The short one (oo0oo) is for perspective changes and short time jumps within the same scene. They will generally be all on their lonesome.
This update was posted 4/7/2019. I will have a date at the bottom of each update to keep track of my general rate of update.
Cheers all. Erebus out.