Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in any shape or form.
Hey guys. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I also hope you review. I have gotten 4 reviews so far and, not to sound totally awful, but I would really love lots more! So please, please, please…. If you are reading this now, review. It would make my day. I don't care how long the review is or what it says, I'm just desperate for some feedback! I value all my readers' opinions so highly, I would love to have a better idea of what to include! So please review! Sorry for this nagging rant! xxx
Bellatrix left Harry in a small, dusty guest room empty of furniture. There, he would wait while she attended a Death Eater meeting with the Dark Lord.
Voldermort, he was just downstairs, in the same house as Harry. That fact kept Harry pacing nervously and documenting the window as a possible escape route.
Later that night, Bellatrix walked in.
"The Dark Lord appreciated the workings of our little plan Nick, I will train you and you might be able to go to the next face off with those filthy aurors." She talked in such a sugary sweet voice it gave Harry a chill down his spine.
"Training will start tomorrw." She cooed, transfiguring a bed out of the dust between the curtains. "Get some sleep, your going to need it." She snarled at the end, a drastic and unpredicted change from her earlier sweet tone.
She cackled and slammed the door on the hinges, leaving Harry bewildered at her violent mood swings.
Harry fell back on the bed in the room, staring up at the dusty ceiling. He felt hope bubble inside him. He was going to meet his father!
Harry had been told the story of how he came to the Wealthlock's dozens of times. A man, with shaggy black hair, brought him to their house in the middle of the night. He told the Wealthlock's that the name of the baby in his arms was Harry Black.
The Wealthlock's used to tell him how grateful he should be that they took him in. They had told him that the person who had left him at their house told them he would be killed if the Wealthlock's didn't take him in.
Harry lay in bed picturing his father. Would he have bright green eyes like himself? Unruly black hair and glasses? Or would he look completely different. Harry didn't really care in the end, he just decided that if his dad loved him, regardless of anything, Harry would probably love him back. That was all that mattered in the end.
James woke up the next day in bed with Lily beside him. He rolled over and checked the clock.
And jumped.
It was nearing lunchtime, he was at least 2 hours late for work.
He was about to get out of bed when Lily grabbed his arm. "Take a sick day" How could James resisit that adorable sleepy voice? "Darling I've got Auror work to do."
He looked over at her, snuggled in a tangle of white sheets that were stark in comparison to her fiery hair.
James had a moment when he realized how much he loved her.
He loved her red hair splayed on the pillow, her hands clutching sheets to her chin, her peaceful eyes staring up at him sleepily. He was having one of those 'Lily' moments, where he was completely mesmerized. She was beautiful and he was just a scruffy and immature most of the time. She was like a mermaid (Arianne or Ariel or whatever that muggle movie was) and he was like a clown fish.
He almost snorted at his own comparison.
James leaned over and kissed Lily's neck. "Your late for work too, dear." Lily just grumbled. James rolled onto his back and stretched out, feeling his back crack. Maybe today they didn't need to go to work.
James crept out of bed, planning a deluxe breakfast in bed for his red hair beauty. Then, a spell hit him squarely in his back. It made him freeze, turn around and face and angry Lily.
"Your creeping off to work!" She said accusingly.
"I was not! I was getting you breakfast!"
Lilly narrowed her eyes like she didn't really believe the story, but finally smiled and released the curse, changing her mind.
"Actually, Lils, I don't think I will make you breakfast in bed now."
James crawled back into bed.
Lily instantly put on puppy dog eyes and crawled over to him. "Please darling?" James rolled his eyes, determined to stay strong. "Nope." Lily gave him her best helpless, downtrodden look. "Oh… I see…"
Now, How could he possibly resist that?
"Fine!" He burst out and Lily grinned and kissed him quickly. James turned his head towards her and cupped her face.
He could kiss her all day. Her gentle, smooth skin...
She pulled away "Well go on, I'm getting hungry now" And she pushed him in the direction of the kitchen
Harry was up at 5 o'clock, before the sun, with someone who might just be his least favourite person in the world.
Bellatrix lestrange was pure evil, Harry decided. Not just insane, evil too, a lethal combination.
Harry started to panic. Why had he gotten himself in this situation? It suddenly felt like more than he could handle. Harry felt sure that the moment he tried to switch sides, he would die, painfully. This was more than he bargained for. This seemed too risky, too much. Harry felt the need to excape this situation rise up inside him like a tidal wave he couldn't repress it. He had to constantly remind himself of the reason he was here to keep from rushing to the nearest door. He would find his dad, and he would find a family.
A family, it had been Harry's secret wish for as long as he could remember. He would find one now.
Harry repeated all these things to himself as he wiped his sweaty forehead again and grit his teeth.
Training with Bellatrix was more like mild torture. She seemed satisfied with his knowledge of common spells, curses and counter-curses, (he had learned all these while he was home-schooled by Emilia and Dean) so the day was devoted to learning dark magic. Harry hated every spell he cast successfully at the dummy at the other side of the room, but Bellatrix would cast them repeatedly on him if he didn't. When he got a spell wrong, he was either shouted at, and used nasty curses upon, or taunted at his failure.
Harry attempted the current curse he was learning one more time.
"Incinerato."
The dummy seemed to be unaffected, but after a few minutes, it crumbled and toppled over, and caught on fire. Harry watched in horror, picturing a real person in the position of the dummy.
He knew he could never forget that spell, and right now he never wanted anything more than the wish he had never learnt it.
The curse burned someone from the inside out, burning the organs but not enough to kill completely, then consumes the whole body in fire. A slow, torturous death.
Harry had to repress a shudder in front of Bellatrix.
She snarled at him with a twisted smile. "Did baby Nick learn a new trick?" She sang, laughing maniacally.
Harry, getting aggravated, retorted as he so commonly did at the Wealthlock's.
"Bella, your singing is affecting my nervous system, so I can't appreciate your ability to rhyme."
Bellatrix's eyes widened and Nick could have sworn smoke came from her flared nostrils. She was a wild, angry bull, minus the horns. Harry decided to point that out. "Bella! You look exactly like a…" Harry was cut off but the door behind Harry swinging open with a bang.
"M-M-Master, wanted t-to see you Bellatrix."
The person at the door was a short, hunched over man with a face almost like a ferret, or a rat. He spoke clumsily and Harry saw a sheen of sweat on his forehead, both his hands (one of which looked like pure silver) were shaking. Bellatrix gave one last murderous look at Harry before she swept from the room.
Harry was left alone in the dungeon-like room they had been training in all day, not knowing where to go. The short rat guy and Bellatrix had both left, so Harry assumed he was supposed to go to his room. But Harry didn't remember the way. There was no way he was going to ask one of the scary hooded Death Eaters that crossed the halls on occasion. This left Harry with one conclusion.
Harry was going exploring.
Harry wandered for ages, mainly walking up stairs to get away from the stench of the dungeons. He walked down the plush carpets in the hallways and put his ear to a couple of the many closed doors. He finally found his bedroom, but walked past it, sitting in his room was too boring.
He paced the corridors around his room, memorizing the twist and turns of the hallways and the rooms branching off them.
He found perfectly normal uses for some of the rooms, a library, a sitting room and a study. Other rooms made him take a few steps back after he walked through the door. A jungle, (behind a door exactly uniform to all the others) A huge swimming pool and spa, A room completely devoted to a huge fireplace, and there was one room with a large stone basin inside.
When Harry peered over the stone basin, he saw a swirling mess inside, not exactly liquid not exactly gas. Harry instantly guessed it was a torture mechanism the Death Eaters used and quickly shuffled from the room.
Harry was staring at a huge plaque in a trophy room, when he heard a scream of pain faintly reach his ear. Harry suddenly whipped his wand from his pocket, and threw open the door to reach the hall.
He had drawn a mental map of the left side of the top floor (Where his room was) and currently he was not too far away.
He could sneak back to his room and no one would even know he left. But Harry couldn't quite forget that scream. It had really jolted him. He couldn't quite make himself believe that someone wasn't being tortured. He couldn't quite make himself just hide under his bed while that happened.
Harry walked further to the left, uncharted territory, and found a suspicious set of extravagant double doors.
All the rooms Harry had explored had the same doors except this one.
This had to be an important room.
Harry was about to twist the handle, when he heard a voice.
"Pettigrew, you disgust me, you say you are faithful but you can't do me the smallest favor."
The voice was coming from behind the door and Harry put his ear up to the wood. The voice, Harry had no doubt, was Voldermort, and the verbal punishment he was giving this 'Pettigrew' guy was making Harry feel nervous, no wonder Harry could hear half muffled sobs through the door.
"I am so sorry, my Lord"
Harry recognized the voice as the rat-like man who had summoned Bellatrix to the meeting.
Pettigrew stuttered and Harry winced at how pathetic his voice sounded.
"I am willing to h-h-help you w-whenever you w-wish." There was snorting and mocking laughter at the man called Pettigrew, but Voldermort was silent. "I wish you to capture the prophecy for me, rat! And you will!" Pettigrew whimpered. "Tomorrow at sunset the task will be completed. Do you understand? Do you have any problems with this arrangement?"
Harry briefly heard Pettigrew mutter something he couldn't hear properly, and then there was the sound of wood against stone. Chair legs grating back on the floor, people standing up.
Harry realized with a jolt that the meeting was over, everyone inside were leaving and Harry was just outside the door.
Harry scrambled away and shut himself in the closest room just as a black cloud of Death Eaters walked out the door.
Harry, heart beating wildly, lay flat on his stomach and could just see through the crack at the bottom of the door.
When Harry was sure all the pairs of feet had passed, Harry slumped and sighed in relief. Harry sat against the door, finally taking in the room he had hid in. It was just another library with dusty carpet and olive walls. Harry was about to cast the room off as ordinary, when an object in the corner of the room caught his eye.
It was another stone basin like he had seen before, but more extravagant.
Overcome by curiosity, Harry walked towards it hesitantly, still picturing it as a torture device. Carved in the side of the basin was the word Pensive. The longer Harry looked at the pensive the more certain he was that its use was not for torture. The liquid looked harmless, almost peaceful, and the structure looked unthreatening and old. Harry looked over into the pool of whirling blue. And suddenly a shelf appeared on the wall in front of him. It had vials of more wispy white mixture and labels and books, seeming to belong to a complicated system.
Harry picked up one of the books in his hands and looked at the cover. Harry read the title.
"Augustus Rookwood"
Harry put the book down and read the others.
"Igor Karkaroff, Antonin Dolohov"
Harry nearly dropped the next book in the shock at the name of it.
"Bellatrix Lestrange"
Harry realized that these books were about people, Death Eaters.
Glancing over his shoulder, Harry eagerly flipped through Bellatrix's book. Most of it Harry couldn't understand, numerals and symbols. Other pages were very valuable. The date of registration as a Death eater, when her dark mark was burned into her skin and even how many people she has killed. Harry skipped past that page quickly, not wanting to read the number and feeling sick.
Harry smirked at some of the mundane personal information, age, height, weight and favourite colour.
Harry was pretty sure he was one a few that new Bellatrix's favourite colour was orange.
Then, Harry saw a family tree. He was about to skip past (He was almost sure he wouldn't know any of the people anyway) When a word caught his eye. Black. His last name.
Harry traced the lines and discovered Bellatrix's cousins were Sirius and Regulus Black. Was one of those people his father? Harry felt his heart pound in anticipation, he was a step closer to cracking some sort of code.
Harry wondered if either or both of them became Death Eaters. Harry was thinking so hard that he didn't even notice Bellatrix calling his name from the other hallway, annoyed that he wasn't in his room.
Harry needed to get back inside his room. Fast.
When the footsteps receded Harry stuffed Bellatrix's book under his baggy shirt and darted across the hall.
It was lucky he knew his way back.
He stuffed the book under the mattress of his bed just in time for Bellatrix to come back up the stairs calling his name. She sounded furious.
"HARRY!" Harry lounged back on his bed and called back lazily.
"In here Bella." At Harry's indifference Bellatrix stormed into his room, wand emitting wild red sparks, nostrils flared.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOU WORTHLESS PEICE OF FILTH?"
"Here and there." Harry sounded perfectly nonchalant, knowing it would anger her more.
"WHILE YOU HAVE BEEN MESSING AROUND I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR YOU! I COULD BE DOING MUCH BETTER THINGS!" She raised her wand and a bright blue spell sped towards him, looking lethal. Harry hopped off his bed just in time, dodging with ease. "LIKE TORTURING YOU!" She said maniacally.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Or working on your aim." He replied as another speeding spell missed him by a foot.
Bellatrix narrowed her eyes dangerously and Harry quickly regretted that last remark.
He was in for it now.
To Harry's surprise, Bella just turned around and slammed the door on it's hinges, and his bed turned back to dust with a pop. Harry cursed, it seemed like Bellatrix was forcing Harry to sleep on the floor as her revenge.
Harry dragged his tangle of grey sheets over to him and fished out the book. It was too dark in the room to read (his wand didn't work on the upper floor, only Death Eaters could use magic)
Harry lay on the floor staring at the black ceiling with Bellatrix's book on his chest.
He thought about Sirius and Regulus Black. Were they Death Eaters? Was one of them the Auror Bellatrix wanted to kill? Was one of them his relative? Or his dad? Harry planned to go back to that Library tomorrow. He could check the rest of the books to see if either Regulus or Sirius were Death Eaters. Maybe they had information on Aurors too. Harry also wanted to read about Pettigrew, something about him seemed strange, he wanted to read about him more. For some reason, he couldn't stop thinking about him.
After many hours, Harry finally fell asleep.
He dreamt of Sirius being a werewolf, Pettigrew morphing into a rat and a stag watching him with eyes filled with disgust.
But when Harry woke, he couldn't remember a thing.
Soo… for the people who are super confused…
This might clear things up…
The aurors are planning on attacking Riddle Manor on Wednesday
Voldermort is asking Pettigrew to capture the prophecy Wednesday, so when the aurors attack, he will be in the department of mysteries taking the copy of the prophecy for Voldermort.
Voldermort needs the prophecy to find and kill Harry.
Harry still believes that his father's last name is Black, although he doesn't know where or who he is.
Harry doesn't know that the aurors will attack
Harry ran away and met Nick about 2 years from the start of this story (while he was 11, and Nick was 15)
Does that help? The next chappie will be on Wednesday, the day the aurors (James, Sirius, Remus and others) attack the Manor and when Pettigrew captures the prophecy… Sooo, when James invades the manor, will he find Harry? What will his reaction be? I'm writing it now! Sooo super excited! OK… your job now is to review! I promise to update within 24 hours (I know crazy, right?) If I receive reviews!
Please tell me what you think. Xxx thanks for reading
Xx
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