The New Life
2
Hey people!
Here's chapter two ^^ I kinda got stock while writing chapter 5, so I ended up correcting this one instead.
Read and enjoy! XD
Harry slowly cracked his swollen eyes open, his breath hitching and sobs still wrecking his body, the slight movement enough to make the pain tenfold. But the kicks and the curses had stopped, the room was silent except for his own ragged breathing. He slowly moved his arms from around his head where they had served as futile protection, flinching as he felt the searing pain of one of them being broken, and let emerald eyes dulled by pain sweep across the room.
He was supposed to be dead. Vernon was supposed to have killed him. So why hadn't he? Emerald eyes locked on the still form of the giant man and he stared at his uncle in confusion, his pain ridden mind unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Why was he just laying there? Why wasn't he kicking and screaming anymore? Why was he so still, so pale, so utterly… lifeless?
Through a great effort Harry managed to push himself up on this elbows and look around the small, sparsely furnished room, the world darkening outside the window. There was no one there aside from himself and Vernon. No one who could have killed his uncle. No one…
-but him.
Realization dawned on him, making his eyes go wide and his face pale with shock. The shock, however, was quickly replaced by fear that coursed through his body, making him freeze in place as the thoughts swirled though his head.
He'd killed Vernon. He'd killed another human being. He was a murderer, no better then Voldemort himself. And he'd used magic even though he was an unauthorized wizard. The Ministry would come for him, they would snap his wand and surely put him in Azkaban to rot among the Dementors, the last minutes of his mother's life screaming in his head until he went mad or died. There was no saving him now, not when he'd turned into a monster like this.
Panic reigned over his mind, a choked sob breaking over his lips as the dark future hovered over him, pressing down like a great weight. He didn't want that, and he knew it as surely as he'd known he didn't want to die when Vernon was beating him. He had to get away before they came, had to escape to save himself. The thought manifested itself in his mind, clear and strong in the chaos his world had turned into, and he somehow managed to pick himself up from the floor by leaning his weight against the wall. His legs shook under him as he limped along the wall to the door, the broken ankle ablaze with pain when he put his weight on it.
He left the room without looking back, not wanting to see the eyes staring at the ceiling, emptied by death. His breathing came out harshly as he made his way down the stairs, leaning heavily against the wall and gritting his teeth against the pain. The knowledge that the Ministry could be there any moment spurred him on, making him continue when he should have collapsed long ago.
"Vernon?" Petunia shouted from the kitchen, sticking her horse like face out though the door and into the hallway. She paled and froze in place when she spotted her nephew coming down the stairs instead of her husband, bloodied and pale as death with haunted green eyes that stared at her. The plate she'd been drying went crashing to the floor, shattering in thousands of pieces at the impact.
"Open the cupboard", Harry wheezed, clinging to the railing with week fingers. If his aunt was shocked enough to drop one of her treasured plates she'd surely be shocked enough to do as he said. It seemed as if his reasoning had failed though, as she fled further into the kitchen, and he felt hopelessness filter though his fatigued mind. He had no chance of breaking the cupboard open in his weakened state, and he would be totally defenceless against Voldemort and his Death Eaters if he didn't get his wand. So then what was he to do?
Then Petunia came back out, her hands shaking as she unlocked the cupboard and her eyes continuously flickering between him where he leaned against the wall and the lock she was working on. She stepped back as soon as the lock clicked and stood there fidgeting with her hand to her long throat, looking as if she wanted to run away but didn't dare to.
Harry ignored her as he made his way down the last steps and went to the now opened cupboard, where he managed to find his wand in a dark and dusty corner filled with spider nets. As soon as his hand closed around the slender wood he felt safer and a bit calmer, assured that he would at least not be completely defenceless if someone attacked him.
He stared at his trunk, broom and the empty bird cage – he'd set Hedwig free as soon as they'd gotten off the Hogwart's Express so that Vernon wouldn't be able to do anything to her during the summer – realizing he wouldn't be able to bring it all with him and quickly settling for rummaging though his trunk until he found his Invisibly cloak. Next he took his broom before straightening, reasoning he wouldn't need schoolbooks and robes with the Gryffindor mark, and turned on his heel after a last look on his frightened aunt. He'd surely affirmed all her fears of what wizards were only by doing this, and yet she didn't know that her husband lay dead on the second floor, killed though accidental magic caused by a minor.
He threw his Invisibly cloak over his shoulders as soon as he'd gotten out of the door and onto the now darkened street, and he mounted his broom with his wand inside the weistband of Dudley's hand-me-down jeans that were much to big for him. His body screamed in protest against the torture as he rose from the ground, hovering barely a metre from the asphalt before he leaned slightly forward and urged the broom on, flying slowly and unseen towards an unknown destination.
Even thought the pace he was forced to keep due to his condition was slow, he knew it was much faster than he could ever have managed to walk, and he clung to that though almost as desperately as he clung to the broom with his broken arm hurting, as the ground slipped by underneath him, sometimes not more then centimetres from his toes. His head was soon swimming with exhaustion, all strength drained from his broken and still bleeding body. When he'd almost fallen off his broom for the forth time he gave in to the fatigue and landed in a small park, abandoned for the night and sparsely lit with lamps placed along the paths of pebbles.
Said lamps threw dim circles of light over the ground, leaving the neatly kept lawns and flower beds in darkness. Trees and blooming bushes threw long shadows where they lined the paths that were here and there sided by benches and waste bins, cigarettes and emptied cans littering the ground around them.
Harry took refuge in the deep shadows under the threes, hiding himself and the broom under a bush that grew right next to the trunk of an oak. There, on the dry and dusty dirt, he curled up under his fathers Invisibly cloak and let unconsciousness bring him into disturbed and insecure sleep.
XXX
A sharp crack resounded in the silence of the park, the sound enough to wake Harry from his troubled slumber, emerald eyes cracking open, dull with exhaustion. The pain had subsided to an aching throb that pulsed through his whole being, body and mind, and it effectively kept him from finding peace. He listened intently for a moment, the rustle in the leaves turning into a rumble in the silence, the noise thundering against his strained senses.
Then the soft crunching of pebbles under feet reached him along with the rustle of cloth, and he tensed as he heard the noise coming closer as someone out there walked down the path that led towards his hiding place.
The crack of another apparition tore through the calm, another set of feet soon walking along the path after the first. There was no doubt about it now, these people were wizards, but he didn't know who had sent them. The Ministry, Dumbledore, Voldemort? As it was, Voldemort's men were to prefer before the Ministry, since they would deliver a relatively quick death instead of the out drawn torture of the Dementors.
Dumbledore though… what would Dumbledore do in this situation? What would his friends think? Sirius? Lupin? The Weaslys? Would they all look at him with new eyes, see him as a monster and a murderer, or would they still think of him as Harry?
One thing was for certain – he could no longer be their saviour. Not when he'd been turned into a creature of the dark. Not when he'd killed. Would there still be a place for him in the world if not as the saviour? He somewhat doubted it.
Hushed whispers were heard from the wizards approaching, and Harry could see their feet when peering out between the branches of the bush. The two men muttered something under their breaths and the end of their wands started shining with the lumos charm. The sharp light pierced his eyes and made him flinch back, the sudden movement sending a bolt of pain though his body and he had to hold back the scream that wanted to break out of him.
As it was, only a muffled whimper escaped him, but it was enough to make the two men stop dead in their tracks and look around, letting the light from their wands enlighten their surroundings. Harry curled up into a tight ball under his Invisibly cloak, his wounded body tense and hurting, his tired muscled quivering. What was he to do? He couldn't possibly move from his place, not when his body could barely take the smallest of movements, but he couldn't just stay there and wait for the men to find him. Should he hex them from his place under the bush, and hope that there wouldn't show up any reinforcement? And what if he only managed to hex one of them, then the other would know exactly where he was and could take his time calling for help since Harry couldn't flee anyway. Did he even have enough energy to throw a simple hex without passing out?
The crunching of steps on pebbles returned as the men started searching the bushes lining the path, and Harry intently watched their feet slowly moving closer. The light fell directly over the bush he was hiding under and he kept absolutely still and held his breath so that he wouldn't make any sound to give him away. A pair of feet came closer to stop directly before the bush and Harry peered upwards to keep an eye on the man through the leaves. A moment of complete stillness followed as the man moved leaves out of the way and leaned slightly forward, unable to see Harry under his cloak. The face of an unknown man with dark eyes and light brown hair could be seen clearly in the light of the lumos as the man frowned and stared directly at Harry, as if he could actually see him.
"Avery, you see something?" the other man asked from the other side of the path, rising from his inspection of some other bushes.
Harry's heart seemed to stop at the mention of the mans name as he remembered it from that night… the man had thrown himself at Voldemort's feet, begging for forgiveness, and he'd been tortured under the cruciatus, his screams piercing the night… and Voldemort had called the man Avery.
Death eaters, Harry realized as fear clamped down on his heart.
Avery frowned, his eyes drifting off to the side and then suddenly widening a bit before snapping back at Harry. Worried of what the death eater had seen, Harry carefully turned his head to the side and saw the end of his broom stick out from under the cloak, a bit of it exposed from when Harry flinched as it had caused the cloak to move a little. The panic made his breaths come in short wheezing gasps, and however he tried he couldn't make himself calm down enough to breathe silently.
"Come over here", Avery said and the other death eater moved over. "See that? The shadows are… strange."
Harry's eyes widened in realization as he understood what they were talking about – even if they couldn't see him, the cloak didn't make his shadow disappear and he was sure it could clearly be seen in the light of the wands. The unknown man reached down and Harry tried to edge away, but stopped as his body protested violently, and gripped his wand tighter. Suddenly, as if the man had changed his mind, he withdrew his hand and instead stabbed down with his wand, hitting Harry in the back, straight on one of the quite serious gashes that Vernon had left him.
A tortured shriek tore itself from Harry's lips and he collapsed to the ground, his fingers scraping in the dry dirt. He remotely felt his Invisibly cloak being removed but barely registered it, just as he didn't think of the single apparition crack that soon followed. When the pain had dulled to being bearable his scream ebbed out in the night and he lay there, gasping with tears streaming down his face, his eyes clamped shut against the pain. He was vaguely aware that there was a death eater standing over him, wand pointing at him, but he couldn't seem to care as his mind seemed scattered by the overload it had been subjected to the last 24 hours. Too much had happened for it to be able to keep up any longer.
Just as he'd managed to calm down enough for his breathing to return to something close to normal, two loud cracks tore through the silence and Harry gasped in pain as his scar burned as if on fire. Why couldn't the pain just end? What had he done to deserve this? He somehow knew that he had done something that made him deserve this, but he couldn't think clearly anymore. All he wanted was for it to end.
He distantly heard voices but couldn't make out what they were saying even though they were barely a metre away. Wanting to know what had caused this new pain and expecting the answer, he turned his head and stared at the three black clad men on the path. The two death eaters were kneeling with their heads bent, none other then Voldemort himself standing over them with eyes red as blood fixed onto Harry. Their eyes met, emerald and ruby gazing into each other, before Harry closed his eyes in acceptance.
"Kill me", he whispered, his voice so hoarse from screaming it was just barely audible. That was it. Voldemort would kill him, and it would be all over. His pain would finally come to an end and he wouldn't have to worry about Dementors.
A stunned silence followed his words, and then he heard someone stepping up to him, coming to a halt just before him.
"And why would I do that, Potter?" Voldemort asked coldly, emerald eyes snapping open as Harry realized how close they were. The shock of suddenly seeing the reptile face of his sworn enemy up close made Harry hiss instinctively and recoil, the pain of the movement enough to make him lose grip of his consciousness, and the world disappeared into darkness.
XXX
Snape had reported that the Boy-Who-Lived had disappeared from his home and that both the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix were searching for him. The dark lord had immediately sent death eaters to search the surrounding areas, but it had taken much longer then he'd though before Avery had shown up, claiming to have found the boy.
Now Voldemort stared at the Boy-Who-Lived laying before him, dirtied and bloodied, tears having left streaks in the grease of his face. Avery had told him that the Potter-brat was heavily wounded and seemed to be in a lot of pain, but he hadn't though it would be this bad. He'd been shocked when the boy had asked to be killed, seemingly resigned to his destiny as if he actually welcomed it, but what had shocked him the most was the boy's reaction when he'd recoiled – he'd hissed and shown his teeth, the canines having grown into fangs.
To confirm his suspicions, the Dark Lord reached out and placed a long fingered hand to the boy's pale cheek. The skin was cool to his touch, not directly cold but not the usual warmth either. Next he lifted the boy's upper lip to display his canines. They had withdrawn back to their normal length, but were slightly sharper than should be, and Voldemort's suspicion was confirmed.
Dumbledore's Golden Boy, the supposed saviour, had been turned into a vampire, a creature of the dark, and was now lying unconscious before him.
Thoughts of how this had come to happen swirled through his mind, but one thing was clear – he would not kill Potter. If he did kill the brat now when he was so weakened he couldn't even keep himself conscious in the presence of his worst enemy, it certainly wouldn't bring any credit and there could still remain doubts of who of them would be the stronger in a fight on equal terms. The whole point of killing Potter was to prove that no one was stronger then he, especially not some teenage Gryffindor, and that could not be achieved in this situation.
But fact remained that he wanted more than to prove his own capability and power to ensure his followers loyalty – he wanted to know what had happened to the boy, what circumstances had made him a vampire and what had caused him such injures. Who had managed what he himself, as the feared Dark Lord, had yet to succeed?
He rose in one fluid motion and turned to his two followers, both of them still bowing deeply as they should. "Avery, I want Snape to be present in the mansion in the next couple of minutes", he ordered sharply and the man immediately disappeared with a crack. "Dolohov, take Potter's belongings and come with me to the mansion."
He didn't wait for the other to follow the order, knowing that he would obey without question, and turned back to Potter. A quick cleaning charm later to prevent his black robes from being dirtied he lifted the boy up, not trusting Dolohov to take him now that he finally had Potter in his grasp.
With a secure grip of the Boy-Who-Lived he apparated from the muggle park to the front steps of a grand, elegant manor of pale bricks with white stones in the corners and framing the big windows and the double door. Two elegant, thin pillars in white held up the small roof that protected guests from the climate as they waited to be let in. Behind them a thriving garden spread out, half of it encircled by the manor with its two wings, a fountain of white stone in the middle. Beyond the garden an expanse of green grass spread out until it reached the tree line of a forest with giant, old trees. It was all very peaceful and welcoming, making it impossible for the viewer to suspect that the Dark Lord himself lived there.
Voldemort didn't look at the familiar view as he strode through the door, opened by a bowing house elf, and through the entrance hall to the wide stairs that led from each side of the room up to the gallery of the second floor before joining together and continuing to the third and last floor. He went up the stairs, the green carpet dampening the sound of his steps. Potter's head leaned against his shoulder, the raspy breathing washing over his skin, each breath followed by a slight wheeze as if a lung had been punctured.
The corridors of the third floor were narrower than the wide hallways of the two lower floors, with dark wooden panels halfway up the walls and small shining glass globes hanging from the balk in the ceiling that showed where the ridge of the roof went. Doors lined the walls, made of the same dark wood as the panels, intricate door panels decorating the wood.
He stopped outside of one of those doors and opened it with magic to enter a bedroom of comfortable size with a wide double bed sided by a nightstand, a desk, drawer, mirror and an armchair with a side table by the dormer window that gave a good view of the garden down below and let the sun in to illuminate the room.
The mattress gave away softly as Voldemort put the unconscious boy down, watching his enemy silently as the sound of his soft wheezing filled the room. The boy looked so young and innocent in his sleep, reminding Voldemort that it was just a fifteen year old kid lying before him, even though he had the burden of the wizarding world's future on his shoulders.
Dolohov came in behind him, bowing deeply before leaving Potter's wand on the nightstand, the broom in a corner leaning against the wall and the Invisibly cloak draped over the back of the desk's chair. Just as he was about to leave Snape swiped in through the door, his hair as stripy as ever and the black robes fluttering slightly behind him. The two death eaters nodded curtly to one another as a greeting before Dolohov left, and Snape bowed deeply to his Lord.
"You summoned me, my Lord", he mumbled and straightened, his black eyes immediately locking on the form of the sleeping Harry Potter. His black brow twitched slightly, the only give away that proved the man was greatly shocked by the sight.
"Unexpected events have changed certain aspects of this war, Severus", Voldemort said, red eyes meeting black ones for a moment of silence as the worlds slowly settled in the stillness of the room. "You are to bring Potter back to full health, as he is to be a follower now that he have joined our side, physically if not yet mentally."
Snape's eyes threw a quick glance at the unconscious, broken boy before returning to his lord, eyes slightly narrowed but his face set in a blank mask. "I am afraid I do not quite understand, my Lord."
"Potter has been turned into a creature of the dark, Severus. Namely a vampire."
The dark eyes actually widened a fraction, the already pale face paling a bit more. The potions master immediately whirled around and went up to the bed with long strides, leaning over the Boy-Who-Lived and placed a hand on his forehead, much like Voldemort previously had done. After doing a quick check of the boy's teeth the man straightened and pinched the bridge of his crooked noose and took a deep breath.
"May I inquire of how this happened, my Lord?" Snape asked, quickly pulling himself together and putting his mask back in place after the slip.
"Not even I know that, unfortunately, being one of the reasons to why Potter is to be kept alive. He was already in this state, though conscious, when we found him."
Snape slowly nodded, accepting the answer, and turned back to Potter to treat his injuries. Voldemort watched quietly for a moment as the potions master got himself an overlook of the boy's condition, wand moving and words muttered under his breath. Then Snape straightened and turned to his lord, black eyes unreadable.
"Most of these injuries are resent, but he also has a lot of old fractures and wounds. Some of which could be several years old."
Voldemort gave a slight nod and inwardly debated that the injuries may not have been caused by the vampire that turned Potter. If that was the case, then who was responsible?
Ok, so that's it. I'm gonna study to my test now, and you're going to tell me what you though of this chapter, aren't you? ;P
