right so heres chapter one. its pretty short. only about 7 pages long. but i think each chapter will be a maximum of 10 pages. that way i can update faster.
enjoy
Chapter 1 – Distention in the ranks
Hermione was alone...
Her family...gone. Her friends...oblivious. Her sanity? Questionable at best.
She knew she had been cursed. With what she did not know...but from what she gathered...she was trapped within her own mind, while her body did as instructed.
She remembered that horrible night three months ago...when that retched Slytherin boy had cornered her.
He had seemed so kind...so different from the rest of them. Meeting her in the library for civilized conversation, writing her letters between classes, even taking her out for a gelato in Hogsmead.
How could she have been such a fool! Letting herself become infatuated with his charming smile and roguish personality...it was downright shameful!
Then when he had taken her into the broomcloset for a snog... and after that...here she was. In this endless mass of white mist that was her mind-scape.
He had attempted to imperious her. She had heard the incantation clear as day. But this was not how she remembered when Professor "moody" had put her under. This was not the mindless bliss and apathetic desire to obey she recalled.
But she could see...oh yes she could see what her body was doing. She watched it as if watching the Telly in her old bedroom. Her parents had been none the wiser when she had pulled her wand out. Nor when she pointed it at them. But their screams of betrayal rang in her ears as she was forced to cast an
Inanibus Venis.
It had been sickening. The blood of her family seeping out from their very pores, spilling from their eyes and mouth and nostrils as they shrieked in agony. She had to watch as their bodies slowly shriveled, hot steaming liquid oozing from their ears, beneath their fingernails and lower orfaces that she knew had to be brain matter and fat...melted by the curse.
Tears spilled from her eyes and fell into the oblivion of white as she curled up into a ball, hugging her legs. She had no way out of this hell...and she was beginning to loose hope.
She couldnt save herself this time...and nobody even knew she needed saving...
all she could do was wait...
"Harry...just...just calm down a moment." stuttered the redhead as he raised his hands in surrender. "You know I didn't mean anything by it." Ron cowered back into his bed as Harry glowered at him, his needle sharp fangs glinting as he advanced, his featherlike mane of burnt green hair rearing up intimidatingly.
"I look scary do I?" he hissed, forked tongue slithering from his lips, smelling his fear. His slit eyes glowed with the intensity of his magic and with every movement Ron made backwards, the razor-like scales at his wrist twitched, as if itching to slice off a limb. "Is that it?"
"No!" ron sputtered, laughing nervously as he backed behind a desk. Sheka sat on the bed, an insanely amused grin on his face as he watched his husband lay him out. "heh! Heh! I just meant that you look uh..." his eyes darted about as he searched for the right thing to say. "Well off...um...healthy...stout-uh! Oh shit!" he shreiked when harry reared up on his serpentine tail, and cracked his knuckles, clearly angered even more. "I didnt mean it!"
"SO YOU THINK IM FAT?" harry roared at him. Ron was in tears now, lip protruding as sputum dripped from his left nostril. He closed his eyes ready for a fatal blow.
"no?" he whimpered as his life flashed before his eyes for the third time that day. Except this time he really was going to di-
"oh!" ron hear harry gasp out and opened his eyes to see Sheka rushing over to his husband as he doubled over in pain.
"Carus are you alright?" sheka placed a hand to Harrys scailed cheek and gazed concernedly into his eyes. "is there anything you need?" harry only smiled and pushed him away, his furry with ron forgotten.
"heh im fine...they just..." he grunted. "ugh...shifted a little." he bit his lip and slithered over to the bed where he sat, cupping his slightly protruding belly with his hands. "Happens when I move around too much."
Ron stood up and watched as sheka knelt in front of harry and placed his lips to the slowly growing bump and he slowly walked out of the room to give them their privacy, the door clicking shut behind him.
::I can hear them.:: sheka hummed as he kissed harrys belly and looked up at him. Oh, how his beautiful harry glowed. He was gorgeous.
::They recognize your voice.:: harry's eyes crinkled with happines as they relished in their unborn childrens premature hissing. ::So smart already.:: he sighed and leaned back against the bedpost. ::Have you come up with any names?::
Sheka chuckled,
::heh, have you?::
::yes.:: harry flicked his wand at the desk and a short scrap of parchment floated into his hand. He handed it to sheka, who read down the extensive list of names.
::i think these would work for some of them...but I want our firstborn to be named Davi:: sheka nodded.
::Beloved:: he purred and stood up kissing harry lightly on the lips. ::And he will be:: he leaned in again, kissing him deeper than before and slowly lowered harry to the bed as two arms wrapped around his neck, welcoming him into a passionate embrace.
The kiss was slow, steady and gentile, neither fighting the other for the position of dominance. Only a silken dance of mutual love as their tongues rubbed together, entwining, merging together as their moans slowly grew louder.
This would be the last time...until their nest was born.
Ron's head fell on the table again, as he went limp with exasperation. He HATED being bored...and with harry unapproachable, sheka busy with said unapproachable best mate, Neville, Luna, Seamus and Dean all in their after-hour study group (which he refused to be a part of because he had much better things to do with his free time than study) and Hermione not coming back for another day or so...
what to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to d-
"Ron! I'm so glad I ran into you!" ron lifted his head from the table, revealing a red spot where it had made contact with the wooden surface one too many times, and looked to his left to see Anwen jogging over to where he sat.
"oh...hey Awen..." he murmured, not too interested in spending time with the girl. He didn't necessarily not like her...she just irritated him slightly...simple age barrier really. "What's going on?" She sat down beside him, her lips upturned as she pulled out her wand and summoned a steaming pot of tea. Ron stared, amazed still that she could summon things with such ease, despite the fact he knew she was much older than she appeared.
"I just received a notice from Dumbledore. Turns out that Bill is ready to have Harry and Sheka moved in as soon as they're ready." ron nodded.
"yeah I heard." he sighed. "lucky bastards...wish I could skive out the rest of my year." Anwen looked at him sternly, giving herself a hermione like appearance. Merlin, he missed her...he hoped she was alright.
"Ron. Harry's not skiving out of his studies. If anything he has to work harder now that he wont have the professors to help him." ron merely grunted in response. He felt so left out by this. Harry rarely took interest in spending time with him anymore. He knew he was pregnant, but did that mean he had to ignore his best mate completely? ….well...unless he pissed Harry off...which seemed to happen whenever he opened his mouth.
"hmmm..." Anwen peered at him as his head sunk to the table yet again. "you know what I think?"
"what?" came the muffled reply. Anwen beamed.
"I'm going to take you herb picking." ron turned his head to look at her in dumbfoundment.
"...herb...picking...?" she said it as if it were the most fun thing in the world. What could possibly be entertaining about herb picking? "what's so great about herb picking?" anwen huffed.
"well if you dont come you'll never find out." she smiled again and took his arm in her hands. "Trust me, its way more fun than it sounds." when ron didnt move she rolled her eyes and growled. Honestly...what a lump! Potter was friends with this bumbling buffoon? "its not like you have anything better to do."
ron grunted and blew a strand of hair from his eyes and stood up
"fine, why not..." she was right...anything was better than just sitting down doing nothing.
It was about thirty minutes later when they reached the edge of the forbidden forest. Anwen continued on as if nothing was wrong, right into the trees and Ron stared in disbelief.
"I have permission from Professor Snape to go in. He needs the plants that I collect for his potions." she said as if knowing his reason for hesitating. "come on."
Hesitantly, Ron continued after her and followed her deeper and deeper into the forrest.
Their walk seemed to stretch on for miles. But they went in silence, ron not dairing to break it for fear of attracting the less pleasant of the forests inhabitants.
Slowly, the trees began to grow further and further apart. The ground, less leafy and more grassy. Here and there he would see movement. But he convinced himself to ignore it. Best not to know whats out there...right?
Finally they came to a small circular area, rimmed with a line of mushrooms, and Anwen held out her arm.
"be still..." she whispered. ron nodded and stood silently and watched as anwen pulled out a sprig of holly from her pocket and laid it just within the circle. And after another full minute of silence, ron wondered what she was waiting for.
And then he spotted it. A swarm of insects streaming from the mushrooms and encasing the holly in a sea of silver and black. He watched as they seemed to eat the branch, and disperse away, the holly now nowhere to be seen.
"a peace offering to the Wrackspurts, so they will not invade our minds." anwen explained. "its safe to cross now." she turned to him and smiled, and ron suddenly had a small, newfound sense of awe for her.
"how did you know to do that?" he asked. She took on a dreamy expression and gazed at nothing in particular.
"I often bring Luna along with me. Turns out she knew more of wrackspurt nests than even me." she giggled. "but thats to be expected. After all she is an Elven Seer."
"she is?" ron asked dumbly, stepping over the ring of mushrooms and into the circle.
"cant you tell?"
"no. I never really thought about it before." he watched as anwen sat down and began to finger through the grass, gleaning for the plants she needed.
"start looking for some jimsonweed and monkshood." she instructed. "you know what they look like?" ron nodded. "yeah. Just dont know what they do." at this ron could have sworn he had seen a glint of triumph in Anwens eyes. Though he passed it off as a trick of the light.
"Well, monkshood is generally used in potions of mind altering and habit changing purposes." she looked at him teasingly. "remember felix felicis?"
"how could I not?" ron chuckled as he fingered the spikey leaves of a jimsonweed. He remembered all too well the effect it had taken on his brothers one day a few years back. Fred and George had used it while watching the Quiddich Cup in order to make that winning bet of thiers.
"well, monkshood is one of the key ingredients." ron nodded and began to pocket the jimsonweed when anwen took his hand and shook her head with a smile. Now was the time to strike if ever.
" you cant take the jimsonweed from the circle." she lied. "The wrackspurts will swarm you. I meant for you to eat it." ron tilted his head like a confused puppy.
"what for?"
"it increases your ability to understand things. I thought I would tell you since you hate homework so much. It might help you get done faster."
Ron hesitated for a moment and she wondered if she had pushed too far. It would take a true idiot to even consider putting jimsonweed anywhere near their mouths. Just the look of it screamed "poisonous".
If the boy ate it, he would at first begin to feel increasingly thirsty, to the point where no amount of water could quench it. Then after a short while, he would begin to loose sense of reality, and he would effectively believe anything told to him. If luck was with her, he would not die from the last stage of the poisons manifestation. But that was neither a problem nor a benefit. Either way, it was one more person harry trusted in their grasp.
She was triumphantly surprised when she looked back over to him and he was chewing the plant with a sour expression on his face, and swallowed.
"awful stuff that." "Anwen" smirked internally and fingered the inside of her left arm in a fond caress. Now all she had to do was keep him here, and wait.
"heh. Yes...it is rather foul isn't it?"
tonks was not in a panic...she was not. She had been trained too well to go into a panic. But this was not going at all according to plan. It had been an hour since eating the jimsonweed and Ron appeared to be completely fine. Had she somehow mistaken a harmless plant for the poison? Had she miscalculated the time it took for the plant to take effect? She would not be able to keep him here much longer. The prat was growing bored of his task and both had collected far more than she had needed to gather for the potions master.
As if on cue, ron stood up and stretched lazily, his joints popping.
"well im about ready to head off." he said picking up his pouch of herbs and pocketing it. "you reckon we have enough?" tonks looked up at him. He gave off no sign of having been poisoned and she doubted now that he had even truly eaten the weed.
This left her with a few options of action. One; ron knew that it was poisonous and had fooled her while she was not looking. In this case, he will now be suspecting her...was it safe to let him go without being obliviated? Two, it had been her own mistake and he had indeed eaten the wrong plant. In which case she would only need to bide her time and wait for another opportunity to sabotage him into the Dark Services, like that little bint Hermione.
So which was it?
"yes I suppose we've gathered enough." she said allowing herself to begin thinking like Anwen again. She would need to keep a close eye on him, but this oaf didnt have the intelligence to deceiver poisonous plants from the benign.
Ron grinned and helped her up from the ground and they slowly made their way back to Hogwarts, ron once more letting anwen lead the way. But this time, rather than focused on the forest around him, his eyes were glued to the Cayne's back.
'what should I do?' he thought to himself. He truly hadn't known about the monkshood or the jimsonweed. In fact herbology was one of his worst subjects. But just as he was about to eat the plant, something had screamed at him to stop. He knew he was not the smartest wizard in the world, but he knew that when your instincts tell you not do do something, you dont do it. So he quickly took a few blades of lemon grass and chewed on that. It had been disgusting, but he figured it was better knowing what you were eating was something you mother used as a soup ingredient.
He planned on asking Neville about this jimsonweed. What did it really do? What would have happened if he had eaten it. Was it truly an enhancer? Or did it do something else?
One thing was certain, he wasn't so sure he trusted Anwen anymore.
One week previous.
Voldemort stood at the edge of the podeum that held his own personal pensive and a smirk split his face. Iua had truly blessed him this night. In a way non but him could comprehend, he now knew the secret to Harry Potters demise. It was all too simple.
His goddess given him a vision of that accursed prophesy that had led to his ghostly prison within himself, a full and complete account of it. That had made everything much more easy to decipher. But the true blessing? Oh, the most glorious moment was the final vision. The vision of a prophesy, that nobody would hear.
Luna was alone, and happy to be so, she enjoyed her time to herself on occasion. It gave her time to think and ponder on things that not too many others would ever care about. Yes, the room of requirements was her sanctuary. She had long ago thanked harry for showing the DA its location, for now she could go whenever she pleased.
Her chosen environment for the room tonight was a non gravitational span of sky, where she could just float amongst the stars without having to worry about being distracted by the sense of touch or the burden of weight. This was how you truly stargazed. Everywhere around her were the actual locations of the stars, as if she were in the circling sky itself. She needed no charts, she needed no graphs or papers to record her findings. She had it all in her head, memorized with room for more information, which she thirsted for.
She went on like this for several hours, never once getting bored. Once she was done deciphering one section she would move on to the next.
She was just about to memorize the position of Beelzebub and R4F62 when her vision became blurry, and a small waving sound of voices and wind began to fill her ears. She worried not, she was quite used to the pre-meditative symptoms. She suspected there would be a prophesy...that was unfortunate. She never remembered them. But this time there was no one left to hear...she wondered if-
her eyes clouded over completely, and her consciousness was no longer her own.
The day is coming, the night befalls us, when the truest of the true will fall apart. The blackest knight of the light will be their downfall and only the withered remains of what once was, shall be. The Lecher forgoes on his mission, and the sixth card shall be torn in two. The Lord of darkness now knows what he once knew not and he will destroy the children of his own forefathers. The Black of Light shall not be brought down, not until all but one that has wronged him, has been destroyed.
A silver thread of memory was drawn out of the Dark Lord's temple, as he let it slither into the pensive. This was indeeed good news.
The truest of the true represented Harry Potter and his merry band of followers. And the Blackest Knight of the Light was his newest Death Eater, Tonks. He had already begun the process of tearing them apart. Anwen had been disposed of, and Hermione had been imperioused . Ron was soon to be seduced to the dark and he already had plans to separate this Slang character and bring him to his side. One by one, he would pick out the strongest bonds he had, and guide them to betray him, or die...until the Brat had nothing left.
He had a fair idea of what to do with the information of the "lecher". The sixth card was a refference to the sixth card in the tarot deck, the lovers. This was Potter and his lover, Slang. The so-called "lecher" would convince Slang to betray the boy, and he knew the man for the job. It was unorthadox...and very sketchy, but he had faith in the man. If he could not make Slang betray Potter, he knew of ways to make it seem so...or simply destroy him. Either way, Slang was now another pawn on his chessboard.
The prophesy was the knowledge he knew not, and now that he had seen both, he was well on his way to finally succeeding in this endless battle of wills. But what of...destroying the children of his forefathers? He had no idea what that meant...perhaps there was more information to be had. Of course there was. There always was. But whatever knowledge he lacked, he would soon know.
And finally, the Black of Light was Potter, once again. Though the description puzzled him, he wondered if it implied that the boy would perhaps abandon the light. Would he indeed break as he hoped, with the loss of all that was precious to him? Would he follow his friends in darkness?
He would not doubt it. Potter may be the golden beacon of the Light. But he was an insicure child who craved for affection. He knew of his upbringing, the abuse, the neglect. The boy was starved for love and freinship, and would go to any lengths to acquire it.
Of course, if the boy did come to the dark, there would be no questioning that he would be killed. That of course was the entire point. But as this prophesy implied, until all but one of potters enemys died, he would never die himself.
Voldemort was willing to sacrifice...he was willing to compromise. But if he was the only one left in his army...would his triumph be hollow?
No, he decided. He would always have followers. This only suggested that those who had directly wronged potter would have to die. Bellatrix, lucius, crouch, wormtail...perhaps a few others, they would all have to die. But such were casualties of war, and it hardly phased him, the thought of loosing a few of his inner circle. Bellatrix was one of his most loyal, and so were crouch and lucius...but all were extrememly powerful and intelegent, and that could pose as a threat in the future. Yes, their death would be for the best.
And now it was time to put his next plan into motion.
Voldemort waved over the ratty buffoon that had stood in the corner of the office as he had pondered. Wormtail held out his arm automatically, as this was all the dark lord really used him for anymore.
He winced in pain as the yew wand was pressed against his dark mark, causing it to burn and shuddered when his lord specified who he wished to be summoned.
::Luciussssss::
sooo whaddaya think? LEAVE A COMMENT! xD i love your revews. and to those who complaied about me asking for reviews in part 1, bugger off. i like knowing what people think. gives me ideas for the rest of the story. keeps me motivated. review review review!