Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, not me. Pah. I wish.
A/N: I wrote this in a brief, dark moment, in which I had consumed far too much chocolate and was slightly high on all the Dark!Harry fics I had read. Flames are welcome, I know I'm a worse writer than Hagrid on a bad day, and any critisicms are welcomed. Rated T, just 'coz it's a little gruesome. Not too much so, just enough from keeping it from being a K+. Oh, and this is a one-shot, by the way.
"Tick, tock…" mocked the cold voice, echoing easily within the dark expanse of the small room. A creature, more blood than man, crouched in a corner, as if wishing to meld itself with the wall. It closed its eyes and whimpered, taking several haggard breaths.
"Tick, tock…" came that voice again. The creature seemed to bend in on itself, trying to cease its existence completely. It glanced with pale, unfocused eyes around the room, looking for a way to escape. But, of course, there was none.
"Tick, tock…" the voice was young, and childish, and slightly maniacal. He - for the voice's owner was male - was repeating the words like they were part of a song; a long forgotten song of which one can only remember a word or two, but hums nonetheless.
"Tick, tock…" it would be tedious, those words, if they did not harbour a certain unprecedented danger about them. No, they were far from dull. They were terrifying. Suddenly the boy giggled loudly.
"Oh, no. I don't think you know the answer, do you? Well, time's up!" The giggle sounded again, insane and chilling. "Say bye-bye now, time to go to sleep! Say hello to your mother for me!" The boy advanced on the shivering, bloodstained mass in the corner, his face hidden, but his intentions clear. One satisfying, blood-curdling scream later, all that remained of the nameless figure was a carcass, slowly bleeding itself dry. The boy giggled again and skipped up happily, leaving the room without a backwards glance. Once outside, however, he paused, apparently to think. He cocked his head to the side.
"That was fun." he finally concluded, childish, innocent voice not betraying at all the fact that he had just happily and sadistically murdered someone - quite the opposite. It sounded like he had just finished playing a game that a child would start with themselves; overcomplicated and nonsensical, but one which amused said child to no end. The boy shrugged, seemingly to himself, and walked down the corridor and into another room. This bedroom - it was, apparently, a bedroom, for a bed resided in it - was considerably tidier. Yes, blood still spattered the once cream carpets and pale blue walls, and the bed sheets were ripped into little shreds, but it was not a blackened hovel. An improvement, then. The boy's eyes became transfixed on the man tied to the four-poster with nothing more than a simple sheet - dirty and bloodstained as it was. Once more, the small boy cocked his head to the side, wide eyes looking at the man with what seemed like surprise.
"Not going to say hello?" he asked in a lost voice. He got nothing more than a faint flickering of the man's eyes. He seemed catatonic. The boy's eyes filled with tears, and he whispered,
"You never did love me…" before running over and bringing the man into a small hug. The imprisoned man awoke with a start and flinched violently when he saw the being forcing itself to the man's attention. The boy looked up and tutted.
"I don't like flinches." The man looked horrified and fixed his eyes downward. The boy seemed to stare off into space for a while. The man shuffled slightly. Thirty seconds later the boy clapped and bounced up and down in sheer delight.
"I know! I know!" He drew out a knife from… well… nowhere, apparently, and proceeded to cut deeply into the man's back, tongue poking out of his mouth slightly from the effort. The man writhed on the floor wordlessly; it looked as if the man's throat was severely damaged, probably beyond repair. A minute later the boy stepped back to admire his work. Splayed in messy carving over the man's back dripped the word FREAK. The delusional giggle bubbled up again and the boy whispered conspiratorially, as if the whole affair was one big secret,
"I'm going to let you bleed to death, and the last thing on your mind, as your very being slowly drips away from this world and you see the gates of hell, will be one word." He paused and glanced around furtively.
"Freak." He whispered, looking surprised at himself for uttering such a word. He subconsciously wiped the blood on his hands onto the already filthy bed sheets attaching the man to the bed and skipped out the room, humming merrily.
Six year old Harry Potter grabbed his backpack and wandered out of number four, Privet Drive quite contentedly for a little boy who had just murdered his three only living relatives.
He wondered if he was insane. He accepted that yes, he was.
He wondered why he didn't consider becoming insane before.