There Is Only Power
The mutt was staring at him again. Their eyes met across the room, one pair blue, filled with longing and worry; the other cold and green, with dark and sunken bags framing them.
The blue eyes were quickly averted, as Sirius Black tore his eyes away from where Harry sat alone at the far end of the dinner table. The green eyes narrowed slightly as they flicked to another area of the room. How pathetic. Even the day before he was to return to Hogwarts Sirius could not pluck up the courage to speak to him. Not that he cared.
It was rare that any of them spoke to him in fact, though that had not always been the case. Sirius had once been warm and eager when he interacted with Harry, frequently sending him letters throughout the previous year. But truth be told Sirius had never really known Harry. He had merely acted toward him based upon his expectations of what James Potter's son would be like, as their meeting in Harry's third year had been far too short to impart any meaningful impressions of his personality upon Sirius. When the two had met here at Grimmauld Place earlier this summer, suffice to say that Sirius had quickly withdrawn from regular interaction from his godson. It had rapidly reached the current state of no communication between the two, and Harry had no real desire to change that.
His relationship with the Weasleys told a similar story he thought, as his eyes settled upon the group of loud redheads at the other end of the table. He had been close to them back in his first year and a half of Hogwarts – back when he had been so naïve. As Harry's eyes had opened and his circumstances had changed during his second year he had drifted away from the Weasleys and Granger. Nowadays Harry did not interact with either of them, and the two were barely civil to each other. Naturally, that left an all but non-existent relationship between him and the rest of the Weasley clan – despite the mother's vehemently rejected attempts at mothering him this summer.
His eyes continued around the table, taking a moment to rest on each of its other three occupants. He had never bothered interacting with Fletcher, so he knew little about the man beyond his thieving lifestyle. The man was beneath him, and he had no intention of debasing himself by conversing with people like him. Tonks was wary of him, so she kept her distance, which suited him fine. Lupin…now he was a threat.
Lupin was repulsed by him, he knew - something about his scent being utterly abhorrent to his enhanced senses. Whilst he had never had a private conversation with the man due to the utter revulsion that flared up in the man's eyes when he got too close to him, he often wondered how much Lupin knew. Thankfully, Harry had long since deduced that Lupin's sense of smell was not specific enough to allow him to deduce the cause of Harry's…stench. Either that or Lupin had written it off as corruption emitted by his scar, which he had once overheard Dumbledore mention carried the lasting imprint of dark magic.
Still, he had to be careful around the man. It would not do the get careless and provoke the man's suspicion, lest he start to investigate or, even worse, take the matter up with Dumbledore. Whilst he had never really had a relationship with Dumbledore to speak of, the old man was watching him enough after the events of the Triwizard Tournament to make Harry uncomfortable. It would not do at all for him to be given a reason to watch him any closer, or start to look a little closer than he did at present.
He was abruptly torn from his thoughts by a clatter as his fork fell from his hand onto his plate. His hand had twitched violently, and he cursed himself for allowing his attention to slip onto the fools surrounding him, who had turned to look at him in response to the noise. Slowly, he rose to his feet and placed his hands within the pockets of his robes.
"I am full. If you will excuse me, I have an essay to finish." He stated coolly, as he pushed his chair back and began to make for the door with his hands clenched within his pockets in case another…incident should occur.
The majority of them turned back to their food, but he saw Sirius begin to rise to his feet, his mouth opening. Before he had a chance to say anything, Harry stepped through the threshold of the door and quickly swung it closed behind him. He knew Sirius would not follow – his chance had gone and his courage would fail him, as it always seemed to.
Calmly through the hall and up the stairs, into the room that was allocated to him he went. He closed the door and leaned against it for a moment as a cold sensation washed over his body, deadening his sense of touch as it went. As always it was an unnerving sensation, but one that he had grown used to over time. Just because he was used to it did not mean that he enjoyed it, however. He had been careless today by waiting too long – a quick glance at his watch told him he should have done this a quarter of an hour ago.
He twisted the key in the lock just above where his right hand rested upon the door, before slowly pushing himself away from the door and almost falling to his knees next to his bedside cabinet, not feeling the pain of the impact due to his deadened nerves. His hand was thrust underneath the cabinet and began groping; trying to find something it could not feel. After a moment, his hand closed around a silky invisibility cloak, which he grabbed and pulled into the open before unwrapping it carefully to reveal a relatively small wooden box.
He climbed to his feet, and carefully carried the box that held his most prized possession over to his bed. When he was seated, he laid the box upon the sheets and opened it revealing a dull grey water skin and a dull red stone resting in a glass charmed to be unbreakable. A stone thought to have been the casualty of an accident in the bowels of Hogwarts Castle a little over three years ago – a Philosopher's Stone.
Just as he had so many times before, Harry Potter raised his wand and brought it into contact with the Philosopher's Stone before him. His cold gaze did not change as he watched a red glow slowly surround the stone, and a pale pink liquid slowly begin to ooze out of it to be collected in the glass He remained in that position for almost five minutes with a satisfied look slowly growing upon his face until the cup was just over half full, at which point he removed his wand and allowed the glow to fade away.
Reaching down, he plucked the stone from the glass and placed it on the box lid, noting with satisfaction that its removal had settled down the glass' contents to almost exactly the halfway mark. Turning to the water skin, he picked it up and immediately frowned. It was all but empty, despite the enchantments upon it that allowed it to hold much more than would appear possible. He knew this could be problematic, and had been hoping for days that the remaining contents would stretch until tomorrow in order to allow him a bit more time within which to replenish the supply.
That this would likely be the last dosage it could supply was…unfortunate, but whilst it would be difficult slipping away after the Hogwarts Welcoming Feast it was still wholly preferable to the skin running out during the holidays. He shuddered as the potential consequences of that flashed through his mind.
Banishing such thoughts for now, he removed the stopper and tipped the skin over the glass. A greedy look bled into his eyes as he poured the last of the silvery Unicorn Blood that the skin held into the glass half full of Elixir of Life. When the two mixed an angry hiss erupted from the glass, and the mixture quickly turned black. The colour represented taint, he knew, as if the Elixir of Life itself was aware of what was being done to it – aware that blood taken from a slaughtered Unicorn was being mixed with it to create something unthinkable. But Harry had long since moved past the point of caring about such things – he had made his choice long ago.
When the last of the liquid had been poured, he capped the flask and replaced it in the box. Empty now, but it would not remain that way for long. At last, he carefully lifted the glass of black mixture and raised it to his lips. He gulped it down greedily, and put the glass down. Through much experience he knew that the effect was not instantaneous, and took a good two minutes to take effect. The time needed, he assumed, for the mixture to work itself into his system in a sufficient quantity.
This time he spent quickly packing the box, wrapping it once more in his invisibility cloak, and sliding it back under the dresser away from those who may wish to pry. He then returned to his bed, lying on top of the covers as he felt the mixture begin to take effect. Slowly but surely, liquid fire began to creep through his body, and a quiet moan escaped his lips as the euphoric feeling began to overcome him. His arms and legs twitched sporadically, and his mind retreated into a pleasant haze. This, this was what he longed for.
When the feeling finally retreated, he pushed himself off the bed and to his feet with a groan. His sense of touch had returned, as it always did, and he revelled at how heightened it seemed to be as he made his way over to the mirror above his dresser. As he reached it, he gazed into it greedily.
His own face looked back at him, same as ever. The dark and sunken bags surrounding his eyes looked slightly darker, but he had come to expect this. And his eyes…
Gone was the dark look that had dominated his eyes earlier, replaced instead by a raging fire that just radiated power and strength. A malicious grin slowly spread across his face as his right hand twitched, itching to hold his wand and release that power as he so often had before. But he could not indulge the urge, he knew. Not here in this house, surrounded by Order members.
The grin slowly slipped from his face as he accepted this, and he turned away from the mirror to head back to the bed. He would have to kill another Unicorn tomorrow night, and that would be difficult. Animals would not come near him since he started drinking the blood, almost as if they could sense the taint upon him, and the Unicorns in the Forbidden Forest bolted at the sight of him. They knew that he had been butchering their brothers and sisters for their blood, then disposing of the corpses.
Last year's kills had proved…difficult, but he knew that he would succeed no matter how difficult accomplishing the task proved to be. How could he not, when the reward was so great? The power that it gave him made him a predator in a world full of weak prey.
Voldemort had been right, years ago in front of the now shattered Mirror of Erised when he spoke to Harry of power. There is only power and those too weak to seek it. But both he and Dumbledore wrongly believed that power could only be obtained by siding with either of them, and it being granted by them. Harry knew better.
He had sunk to depths lower than any had before – corrupting the pure and powerful Elixir of Life with something so tainted. He had given up his humanity and willingly taken a cursed path in life, but he did not regret it. As he lay there on the bed, staring at the ceiling, the malicious smile slowly returned to his face. Harry had found his own route to power, and despite what he had given up, despite what people would say and do to him if the truth ever emerged, despite the horrified and disgusted looks of his parents when they had emerged from Voldemort's wand just a few short weeks ago…he was proud of it.
He would never give it up, because ultimately, it made him unique and capable of standing on his own. It reduced their hopes and expectations of him to nothing. It freed him from them all…and that was ultimately all he'd ever wanted.