Parseltongue/non human speech
Spells/Foreign languages/ Dreams/Text
Story
As predicted, Diagon alley was almost completely deserted, this time occupied only by shopkeepers preparing for the slow day ahead. Few look twice as Remus and a young man, who looked oddly similar to the werewolf considering no one had heard news of him marrying, exited an alley between shops.
After a moment of speculation, most came to the conclusion that the two were not father and son, since the school year had already begun and instead uncle and a tragically orphaned nephew; many families had been torn apart by the Dark Lord's barely restrained rampage. In front of Gringotts, the two started a hushed, but energetic, conversation.
"I don't need to pick out my own books; anything I need should be in the Black library. I want my wand." While that would have been a normal statement a few weeks ago, most European schools were already in session. Added to that, the child was easily fifteen, bringing up more questions on his late preparation.
Remus quietly argued with him a few minutes, before the two seemed to come to an understanding. With the two finally in agreement, the boy reached into his dark robe and withdrew a small bag.
"How much will you need?" Remus refused for a short while, claiming the price should come from his own vaults, something that dissuaded most shopkeepers from listening in. Nearly all of them knew the brilliant, but poor lad that once accompanied James Potter on his destructive adventures and none of them wished to bring shame to the poor cursed boy. He deserved a little privacy.
"I don't need any money. Sirius probably left me a decent amount in his will and I should still have a bit from old odd jobs."
"The books are for me, so if you have to buy them for me, you should at least let me pay for them." Remus declined one last time, before carefully nudging Harry in the direction of Ollivander's shop.
"Don't worry about it. Just go get your new wand and look for a pet." Pausing to gauge Harrys' reaction, he gave Harry another playful push, before walking off to complete his own shopping.
Harry hesitated for a moment, before walking down the street, directly into his destination. For once, Ollivander was actually seated behind the counter, carefully working on his craft.
"Hello…Harry. Just a moment." Not at all surprised the extremely old man saw through the slight facial transfiguration and hair color change, Harry closed the door behind him and took a seat in the nearest chair. For minutes, the old man continued working on a wand, smoothing it and scratching out slithers with a silver instrument, before he abruptly stopped. "I suppose that will be good enough for now. How may I help you?"
Though he sounded normal, Ollivander was apprehensively tapping his desk, eyes occasionally darting from Harry to the unfinished project he had been working on. A few times, he even started to grab it, before stopping himself and refocusing on Harry.
"I'm here for a wand. Could you help me find another one, or make me a new one?" The old wizard slowly pushed his project further across the desk, against a stack of wood and metal tools, and stood.
"I'm sorry, but I may only issue one wand per civilian mage. Your wand was snapped, following a ministry sanctioned trial, so there is nothing I can do." A thin wave of sadness washed over Harry, trailed by anger, which steadily built as he sat in his seat and staring at the man. Reining in his emotions, Harry stood and waited for Ollivander to say something to break the silence. "As you can see, I was in the middle of a project, before you entered. If you could leave, peacefully, that would be wonderful." That explained why Ollivander stood; he was expecting a fight.
As Ollivander's left hand drifted to the opposite sleeve, Harry took his turn to speak. "Could you sell me instruction on how to make a wand then? Or refer me to someone else?" Ollivander's hand tucked itself into his sleeve, his eyes twinkling merrily all the while. "Or maybe tell me how to make some other kind of magic focus?"
"The ministry has strict laws about this, you know. I would consider ignoring them, if you could make it worth my time." Slowly, as to not provoke an attack, Harry withdrew his Gringotts bag. "Not quite. While I can always use more money, I would much rather have a few samples of your cloak. In fact, for a large strip and ten thousand galleons, I'll give you the items you want and pretend that this never happened."
"Why my cloak?" Ollivander's wand made its first appearance, as he moved around the counter.
"That isn't a common material; I've only seen it on the market twice in my long life and both times, it disappeared before I could purchase it. I would love to examine it." It seemed to be a slight understatement, as he was staring with chilling interest. "Now then, do we have a deal? Or, do I have to restrain you, contact the ministry and take what I want? If I say you stole it, I could probably get your whole cloak." He was only a few feet away, his eyes locked onto Harrys', daring him to put up a fight.
"Fine." As if he would have done so no matter how Harry answered, Ollivander's wand slashed through the air, the tip fading silver as it came to a stop. Though it was an impressive display of speed for someone obviously ancient, it did nothing.
"Interesting." With a slightly more complex movement, he launched another spell. This time, Harry got to actually see a purple sickle slide through the air, before it dissipated against the cloak.
His curiosity piqued, Ollivander reached out and grasped the spell resistant material. "What's wrong?" The old man froze, his fingers enclosing a fist-sized piece of the cloak. "Well?"
"This is their material…Yes, I can feel the magic in it...It's being abused! How dare you use it like this?" His eyes, already a faded hazel glowed brighter. Sufficiently confused and annoyed, Harry tried, in vain, to rip the piece of clothing from his grasp. With each tug, he could feel himself becoming stronger, as Ollivander started shivering violently. "No…No! NO!" Withered and breaking into a cold sweat, Ollivander continued protesting something. Still, he refused to release the cloth.
As Harry pulled, the world around him slowly dissolved into mist. "What the bloody hell is happening?" A child was running towards a house with another smaller child in tow. They were barely defined against the flowing haze, but Harry could tell that they weren't real immediately. It was peculiar, but this intensely reminded him of a pensieve.
"I made a better one than you did! I get to show them first!" He pushed his sibling out of the way and rushed through the door, locking it as he entered.
"No fair!" The child faded from the scene as the door closed.
"Mom! Dad! Look what I made!" The child presented a wand that, while not a masterpiece was better than what any other seven year old could possibly create. An adult experienced in woodcraft would love this child.
The father struck the wand from the child's hands, mocking him in another language before stomping it to pieces. For a second, the language was undecipherable, but snatches seemed to translate themselves to English after he growled them. "Worthless. Should have been killed. Little bastard." The mother cooed simpler phrases in a blend of the two languages.
"We love you. Always know that. Father is just angry at himself. He isn't gifted like you are." But the child was barely listening. His attention was focused on the snapped wand on the floor.
The mist became blindingly thick, before thinning once again. Now, a slightly older boy appeared being held back by his father; a single glance at the pair making it obvious that it was the same father and son from earlier. "Let go of me! I have to save mother and Mary! Please dad! Please!"
"NO!" The mist suddenly cleared, as Harry was launched into the door by a magical explosion. Trying to figure out what was happening; Harry looked across the room towards where he had been standing earlier. Ollivander was hunched over on the ground, weeping freely. In his hand, clenched into a tight ball, was a small piece of black cloth. A piece of Harrys' cloak. "No…"
Wands fell freely from their shelves, scattering across the floor. The desk behind him had been flung into the wall and embedded itself there, but true to the magical properties undoubtedly imbued in it, the wand and instruments on it showed no signs of being disturbed.
"Ollivander?" The man gave no heed that he had heard him, or even that he cared Harry was there. Standing and brushing himself off, Harry cautiously approached him. "What the hell just happened?"
Ollivander's wand rose, his hand shakily pointing it at Harry. "Stay away!" His aim was off by a mile, but the threat still stopped Harry for a few seconds. "Just leave us alone. We never did anything to you! Leave my mother alone!"
Harry took another step, before yanking the wand out of Ollivander's hand. "Stop that!" The old man continued to embarrass himself blubbering, so Harry directed the stolen wand at its owner. "Stupefy."
Ollivander slumped over onto the ground, thankfully not needing to fall far. After a few seconds, Harry pointed the wand at him again. "Ennervate." Ollivander seized up, before pushing himself to his feet. As Harry stared incredulously at him, he failed to meet the younger man's eyes.
"Yes…L-let's get you your foci, shall we?" Looking a thousand years old, he shuffled to the back of the shop and opened a door. Harry followed wordlessly, unnerved by the sudden change of demeanor. The back of the shop was nothing like the front, lengths of wood lying everywhere and tables stacked with ingredients in glass jars. Ollivander walked through and on the woods carelessly, breaking several pieces of wood, until he found a table that was reasonably clear. "My wand."
Harry handed the wand over, taking care not to drop it onto the littered floor. They might never find it if he did. Ollivander twirled the instrument for a second, before jabbing it towards the cluttered floor. As he did, samples of woods rose and following his conductions, floated towards them.
"Grab ones that feel right." The woods started to cycle in front of Harry and attentively, he reached out to be ready to snatch one away. It took a few minutes, but eventually Harry found every sample of wood that he liked and stacked them on the table.
"Ok. I'm done." Ollivander barely looked at Harrys' wood choices, before summoning larger pieces of the same varieties.
"Alright. Now for your core." Floating the woods in front of them, Ollivander lead Harry through the room, passing dozens of shelves of wand cores until they had found every single one that made Harrys' hand 'tingle'.
"You'll want to read my book later. You can improve this wand. Your hand please." Harry reached out, and the ingredients floated around it. Looking to Ollivander, Harry realized that there was more to the instructions, as there was a small vial of potion and a dagger floating between them. "Cut your hand. Mix a few drops of your blood with this potion." Jabbing his pinky with the knife, a small trickle of blood worked its way out of him and into the vial.
"Now what?" A cauldron appeared on the desk, pushing books and samples out of its way. The woods went in first, then the vial and finally the opaque sealed containers of ingredients as a dozen small silver rods stirred the liquid at varied speeds and directions.
"This will produce a basic wand for you. We'll come back once it's done, so I can fine tune it. Visit again in a year for me modify it to perfectly fit your magic. The foci are next." Harry nodded and followed Ollivander deeper into the workshop. On a large rack, sat dozens of unique looking objects, which Harry could only assume were magical foci. Some looked similar to children's toys, others the skulls of animals and two looked like scepters from what he had seen in the muggle school's history classes. "Take three. It doesn't matter which."
Avoiding the scepter that looked suspiciously like a used prophylactic he had once seen floating in a toilet, Harry picked up the other scepter, a glass eye and a silvery blue ring. Ollivander was barely paying attention as he banished the items towards the cauldron. "The wand is ready." He walked off without Harry and disappeared amongst the shelves.
Looking around for the wandering crafter, a small open case caught Harrys' eye. Navigating closer to it, he glanced in before looking away somewhat ashamed. It was the snapped wand from the vision.
It took five minutes to find Ollivander again after they parted and by then, the crafter was already finished drawing precise runes onto the wand and sanding it down to a perfect size. Looking exhausted, he dropped the wand onto the table he was working on, on top of several small worn notebooks and journals.
"Your wand, copies of my families findings and three magical foci." Another book was summoned from behind Harry, this one looking much newer than any of the others. "This is a copy of my life's work. The use of magical foci, how to improve wands, the magical properties of wands, wand-less magic… everything I've ever researched is in here." He pushed the pile towards Harry. "Your payment."
Harry looked over the small pile, before creating a new vault and storing them all away in it. It took another few seconds to concentrate firmly on the Potter vault, but in a few more seconds there was a large stack of uniformly bound galleons on the desk, each five centimeters in height; according the small numbers printed on the tops of each case, a hundred galleons were in each column. "Will you be ok?" It didn't sound like a normal question after such a transaction, but the ancient man wasn't exactly normal either.
"Yes." Ollivander whispered. He still couldn't meet Harrys' eyes.
"Who is Mary?" Harry thought he saw twin tears seeping down the old man's face, but poor lighting in the shop made it impossible to tell.
"She was my sister. Spanish Jacobite supporters were moving their men to the main army. They amused themselves with my mother and sister's bodies, just outside our house, before moving on. Father didn't let me stop them. I know could have…" There wasn't anything to say to that. Even counting his parent's deaths, which happened to early for him to remember unaided, his family was never abused like that. Hell, even his parent's deaths were intended by the enemy. Troops raping them…
"Goodbye." The wand didn't give Harry a surge of joy like his first had. Its shower of sparks was instead a foggy mutant creature, a twisted human torso connected to a large snake's body. Yes, every move of the wand came with a small rush of strength, but it was an oddly abnormal feeling. "Not holly and phoenix feather, but you'll do."
Harry didn't realize he was in front of Magical Menagerie, until he walked straight into the store's wall, the door a foot to his left. He quickly tucked his new wand into his pants as he opened the shop's door, eyes already exploring the selection.
"How can I help you today?" The proprietor was a remarkably owlish looking middle-aged woman, who had to be an animagus. If Hedwig had been a human, it would be easy to imagine that she would have looked like this woman, but considering her lack of noteworthy attractive features, that may be an insult.
"I'm browsing for a new pet. My owl died not too long ago." She offered his an apologetic but cliché utterance, before leading him to her selection of birds.
"What kind are you looking for? One that can make North-Western European deliveries overnight? We have a few hawk and falcon imports that have never failed a delivery yet. Oh and there is a new macaw breed that is just amazing; they can actually dictate your messages for you!" She smiled endearingly at him.
"I'll take the five best birds for fast, far, long, reliable, and large deliveries. One macaw too. Now then, could I see your other animals?" She stared at him, not believing that he would shell out the money for the high priced birds, so Harry continued perusing her animal selection. He was deeply disappointed.
"This isn't quite what I expected." From the way everyone always carried on about magical creatures, it seemed natural that they would be readily available if you had money. The most magical beasts the shop carried were krups and kneazles and most of them were neutered according to the signs posted outside their cages. "Listen, I've got more than enough money for any purchases I make here. Where are all of your good animals?" She seemed confused for a second, before a sunny smile possessed her face. It was bright enough to burn a plant; vampires would think more than twice about attacking her when she was in a good mood.
"Oh…I've got just the thing!" She grabbed his arm over his cloak, before recoiling away, as if she had been struck. "Yes…anyway, right this way." Her hurt look lasted only a second, as she bounced ahead of him passing iridescent rabbits, pocket sized bears and a frog that was quietly singing a somewhat catchy tune to itself. Finally, they hit a solid wall of tiny puffskins and she stopped. "Aren't the little things amazing?"
One of the ones closest to the glass quivered, before violently launching itself at them. In a few seconds, all of the miniature creatures were hissing and bashing their little fluffy bodies against the glass tank.
The shopkeeper didn't notice. "They're receptive to every kind of magic there is! Older ones are usually attuned to general light magic, but some have been known to absorb parts of wards and even spells that hit them! Why, back…" She continued, babbling on about something Harry had no interest at all in, as he though over the values and uses of the little creatures.
"So, they absorb magic, right?" She stopped and nodded. "All of their body can do it, right? Including their fur or…whatever else they have?" She beamed at him. Thinking back to the Krups he passed, he carefully added in another question. "Can they breed?" A gasp of horror alerted to a mistake in his questioning.
"Oh, please don't let them try! The magic they absorb is forced into their children and it kills most of them within days. So long as you don't let them stay wet for more than, say, an hour, they won't try though. Besides, a child could see it." Knowing he should probably feel bad about his plans for the creatures, he nodded, accepting her response. It wasn't a griffon, phoenix or wyvern, but it would do.
"Give me fifty and a lot of food."
"You bought fifty baby puffskins." Remus dropped several large bags of books, each one filled with shrunken bags off more items, onto the floor in Harrys' temporary room. Setting his priorities, Harry reached into the goblin bag he had received only a day earlier and started to unload his purchases.
"Pygmy-puffs, actually. It's not a big deal. They can absorb magic better than any other animals there, so I figure they might be useful. Besides, the bird-toys were never very entertaining to Hedwig."
Harry could feel Remus' stare, as he examined a rather small falcon. Although it was perched inches away, it ignored its new master, preening itself carefully.
"So you are going to kill FREAKING PUFFSKINS?" A strange hunger grew within Harry, as he thought about murdering the fluffy little bags of uselessness, breeding more up and killing any who didn't manifest the abilities he wanted. The idea of killing them was making him hungry. Weird.
"I'm not seeing the problem." Remus grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shook him somewhat violently.
"They're puffskins! You don't do that to puffskins! You! Just! Don't!" Releasing Harry, he went back to checking through his purchases to make sure he had everything, regret for his previous actions already showing. "I know you were raised by muggles, but you can't kill puffskin. It's like killing a puppy, or kitten while a little kid watches." Harry thought about that for a second, before moving to look over his other birds. That suggestion also brought up a strange feeling of hunger. "Azkaban has changed you."
'Azkaban?' "That reminds me! Every time someone touches my cloak, they act like they just got bit on the ass by a dementor." Remus shivered, from the analogy or something else, Harry could only guess.
"I haven't noticed, but I'm not a very good person to ask. Dementors don't have as strong an effect on werewolves as they do on normal people. You sure it's your cloak that's doing it?" A massive eagle, a Harpy eagle if Harry remembered the shopkeepers descriptions, screeched, defending its territory of a dilapidated dresser from the same small falcon from earlier. The falcon launched itself away, snatched up a puffskin that had escaped from an overturned box, and brought it back to the eagle. It didn't completely appease the larger bird, but at least they quieted down.
"I'm pretty sure. Ollivander did something strange when he tried to cut a piece off; we shared a vision about him getting his wand broken and his sister getting raped." Remus stopped, dropping his list of items, checks scattered across it randomly.
"I guess I could understand that making you want to kill puffskin…you're still messed up though." Although Harry couldn't see it, Remus smiled at his own attempt to lighten the mood.
"How messed up I am isn't important. I saw his worst memories, until he blasted me across the room. That isn't normal, is it?" Another puffskin hopped out of the box, displaying its limited intelligence. It lasted half as long as its predecessor, before the same falcon snatched it up and brought it back to the Harpy-eagle. Pleased with the smaller bird's catch, the eagle started ripping apart, as the falcon preened its large master's back. "I haven't really been feeling normal for a while now."
"How so?" Worry crept its way into Remus' voice.
"It's mostly this odd hunger…the food you brought in earlier didn't help much. It's hard to explain." He could almost see Remus thinking the information over, trying to piece it together.
"Don't worry. Anyone would be a bit disoriented after time in Azkaban. You just need some rest, while your body gets used to moving and such." Remus sniffed at him, completely over exaggerating both the action and then his reaction. "Maybe a shower too. Have you even changed clothes yet?" Harry shook his head, still pondering over the strange happenings that followed him. "Want me to go and pick up some clothes? I could run out and be back in a few minutes. You can get out of that hot cloak, either way." Take off the cloak?
The suggestion made no sense. The cloak was just so comfortable. He didn't notice its weight, or the fraying edges, or the way it seemed to catch a nonexistent breeze, flowing under the force of an intangible wind. 'Now that I think about it, I don't remember ever having a cloak this well made.'
"I think that's part of it. I don't know how, but this cloak is definitely not normal. I never had one like it, before I woke up." He could faintly remember seeing a similar cloak somewhere, but just couldn't place where.
"You look like you're imitating Padfoot." Another puffskin wandered out, though this time it was snatched up by a medium sized hawk. Distracted by its loud cry, Harry tried to get back to the previous subject.
"Sirius." The name brought up a large snake, poised and ready to strike. Squashing down the miss associated memory, Harry forced a massive, black dog merrily chasing a stick across a yard into his mind.
"He used to dress up as a grim reaper to scare people." Flipping open 'Magic in You' Harry could practically see his godfather stalking someone for days in his various forms, just for the hell of it.
"I could see that." Remus let out a small sound, somewhere between hum and a snicker. "But about the…" Remus visibly tensed, as the room filled the room with an angry rumbling sound. Eyes darting everywhere, the ex-professor drew his wand and slowly moved Harry behind him.
"Something is here." A deeper rumbling sounded, this one slowly becoming louder. For a few seconds, Harry tried to place the sound, before a part of his mind tossed an answer to him. It was a growl. Looking to Remus, the next question followed naturally. Was Remus growling?
For a moment, he considered asking, but that would just plain be idiotic. If Remus, the level headed Marauder, was growling in his human form then shit was about to go down.
"Stay behind me and be quiet. I smell…a lot of things down there. I can't believe I wasn't more careful…" Still growling, he managed the impressive feat of whispering, as he stalked towards the door. As Remus moved out, Harry took aim at Remus' back with his new wand, spells flying through his mind. Once Remus was out of the door, Harry grudgingly followed, duty and curiosity winning out over intellect.
"How do you know something is here?" They reached the stairs without incident, the growl stopping occasionally for another inhuman sound to be produced.
"The growl…don't you hear it? Nothing should get through the walls, so it has to be coming from in here." Remus, completely focused on the intruders, missed Harry lowering his wand slightly. "It's two beings…I can't tell what they are, but I know there are two of them."
Harry said nothing as Remus swept his wand towards the stairs, dispersing a light grey mist over them. Without hesitation, he hopped down them, the normal sounds of the aged wood muffled by his unnamed spell. In a few seconds, a much shorter time than he expected, they were before the kitchen, crouched next to the door.
"I'll go first." Harry considered arguing, before nodding. The situation simply wasn't fit for that right now. "Be right back." As Remus sprang through the door, curses immediately started to fly. The battle lasted all of ten seconds, before Remus released a pained yelp. Then everything fell quiet. Maneuvering himself closer to the door, Harry peeked in.
The kitchen was gone. The room, already in disrepair, barely looked like a kitchen anymore. In a battle that seemed more like a small explosion, the counters had been pulverized, the ceiling scarred and small furniture positively splintered. Remus, mutilated and bloody, hung from the wall opposite the door, probably unconscious, though from blood loss or the pain caused by the glinting metal spikes suspending him by his hands, Harry couldn't tell. Before the fallen mage, a strange creature paced, both hissing and growling musically. And, in the center of the room stood…
"Hello little Potter. You seem well. I suppose you enjoyed Azkaban more than I expected. Was it such a bore that you escaped simply to entertain yourself training this mutt, or are you out to chase mudblood skirts? Either way, I suppose your vacation wasn't as good as I expected it to be. If I had anything to do with it, you wouldn't have needed to escape for a long time…" Voldemort hadn't yet turned to face him; instead he stared at his downed opponent as he talked, continuously casting torture spells that brought tired whimpers to the already defeated man, much to the Thing's amusement.
Harry didn't hear a word of it though. As he took in the scene, something flooded his senses, ringing loudly in his ears, overwhelming his brain with the desire to attack. The emotion was stronger than anything he had ever experienced…rage? Anger? It didn't need a label.
With a roar that didn't belong to his body, Harry sprang forward, spitting two words that no one would have expected to come from his lips only a short time ago. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The curse jumped from his wand, slightly pale compared to other killing curses he had seen, but that didn't matter as it never even got close to Voldemort.
Without a twitch, Voldemort let the curse fly over his head, bypassing the creature he brought with him and, with a spray of green sparks, it hit inches above Remus' left arm. Instead of the wall being destroyed, the curse merely left a scorch mark, which Harry didn't see as he took aim and tried again.
"AVAD…" An invisible force lifted Harry, slamming first into the ceiling and then into a wall. Struggling only to keep his wand, Harry tried to complete the curse, only to find that he couldn't speak.
"That wasn't very nice. Didn't any of your mudblood pets teach you manners? Well, no. I suppose your mother couldn't, so what about the disgraceful blood-traitors?" Harry now physically struggled against the curse, wand forgotten, as he tried to attack Voldemort. "No? Well, I suppose the curse makes up for it. If only you were more powerful and maybe a better duelist. If you had better aim, you could have at least distracted me from your pet." Remus howled in pain, as a silvery spike appear, and then slowly punched its way into his stomach. "You could be so powerful, if you would just join me; I would even spare your werewolf pet. The world would be yours."
Another invisible force dragged away Harrys' wand as the rage which had controlled him before faded. His first thought almost didn't come as he struggled to wrap his mind around being completely at Voldemorts' mercy. 'I'm going to die.'
"I suppose I'm a hypocrite, aren't I? Speaking of manners, without introducing you to this creature. I just caught him a few hours ago." The horrific creature at Voldemorts' feet turned, rising to its full standing height. It couldn't have been a natural being. Its whole body shone silver, furthering it from any hope of being mistaken for an animal. Its torso was disturbingly human, possibly matching a werewolf, excluding a misplaced patch of scales covering the center of its chest.
Pure werewolf features dominated it's arms and legs, but it's tail…it was like a bunch of artist and craftsmen got drunk and grafted a whole snake and fleshy ribbons to the creature, simply to see how it would look. The worst of it all was its head, which was not only furry and scaly, but also featured an extended canine jaw with several massive fangs and ovular skull, a set of long fangs wrapped around it to the point that they imitated a set of tusks.
But its eyes…those eyes burned themselves into Harrys' mind. The large silvery-blue orbs glinted with gentle curiosity, hunger and savage fury, a mixture Harry had never encountered to any extent before.
"I named him Loki. Loki, please go and greet Harry." It stalked towards him clumsily, possibly hesitant to approach him or unable to move its twisted body fast. "Harry, won't you introduce yourself to the creature that led me here?"
Harry responded by thrashing harder. 'I have to get out! I HAVE TO GET OUT!' The force holding him suddenly waivered and then fell, dropping the still thrashing Harry onto the floor. Before he had even started to realize he was free, another force pinned him to the floor. Loki wasn't so clumsy anymore. Seeing that Harry was once again pinned, Voldemort approached calmly.
"Nice save." He stroked the creatures head approvingly, before it pulled away to stare with unabridged hunger at its pinned prey. "You can have a bite if you want, but don't bother trying to kill him." The creature hissed approvingly, almost sounding serpentine. This distraction did not last very long, as it immediately bent its head down and, with as much curiosity as Harry had ever been the subject of, nipped him with its fangs. Its teeth slid through his shoulder like it was butter and there was a muffled clicking sound as the large fangs either reached each other or bone. With their length, either was possible.
Staring as this, it was almost as if Harry was watching from beyond his body. He knew it had to hurt. He knew the blood rushing merrily from the opening created as the creature removed its fangs wasn't at all pleasant. But he was more focused on the eyes of the creature.
As it inflicted this injury upon Harry, its slivery eyes widened in pain. Once its fangs were free from his shoulder, it pitifully licked the wound, nuzzling and whimpering against his shoulder. Slowly it shifted its weight off him and began treating an invisible injury on its own shoulder.
"Interesting." Voldemort levitated Harry, twisting the him so they would be face to mutated, inhuman face. An irritating itch began in the wound, slowly growing into an intense, burning pain. Just as the spikes embedded in Remus' hands steamed, a thin mist rose from the wound, bringing with it what may have been an equal pain. "I was right; the venom doesn't work on you." He stared deep into Harrys' eyes, the mind behind them completely at his mercy. "Or maybe, the little prophecy Dumbledore told you just before your little animagus conflict was actually true."
Harry would later admit it was pitiful to show weakness in front of Voldemort, but the pain was greater than anything that he had ever experienced. If his facial muscles weren't trying to severe their ties to the rest of his body and his vocal cords weren't shriveling away from their surroundings, he would have screamed. If his colon and bladder didn't tense in ways the organs had never needed before, he would have soiled himself. If his very eyes and blood were not mutinously writhing and foaming, he would have known what happened next.
"Such an interesting creature you are Loki." Harry dropped at Riddle's feet, unaware he had even needed to support himself. The beast, Loki as he was called, was in a slightly better condition, barely able to whimper, despite there being no signs of injury on its body. "At least mildly empathetic, but only after certain events trigger it. For now though, you are an important specimen."
A healing spell, followed by a numbing spell and a calming enchantment gave a moment's relief to the beast, but it continued to squirm. Delaying the inevitable, he moved his hand loosely in the Remus' direction, removing the silver spikes that had been burning through the man's battered hands. Seconds later, the injuries scattered across his body stopped bleeding.
Loki only seemed mildly relieved and continued whimpering, louder. With an unheard sigh, Voldemort cast a healing spell at the relatively small wound on Harrys' shoulder, but the cloak around it absorbed the spell. "It seems I can't heal Potter…He will die with what little dignity he deserved." Loki hissed encouragingly, unable to do much else.
"Avada kedavra." Preparing himself to escape an event similar to the incident years earlier, he was almost surprised as the spell sank into Harrys' flesh, stilling the boy's loud heart. The point of contact, the center of his chest roughly on his sternum, sizzled with magic and the cloak around it melted away into small knots exposing his chest.
For good measure, one more killing curse was launched at the same spot, this one actually bringing a disfiguring scar, magically radiating the intent of the spell. Loki rolled to its feet and crawled over to the gaping wound. Sniffing it, the creature licked at the blood rising up to fresh air until it was satisfied their foe was dead and purred.
"Come now. You have shown me your 'home', let me show you mine." Loki tilted its head, as if trying to understand the words, but Voldemort knew it could. The beast's intelligence was staggering. As Loki nestled its smooth, scaly head into his hand, Voldemort allowed his headquarters to take precedence in his mind. Whispering a secret in Parseltongue and forgetting to finish off the half dead lycanthrope, the two disappeared abruptly from the bloodied, disheveled room.
Hours passed, blood everywhere drying and congealing. The molten edges of Harrys' cloak fell away, dispersing into a solid mist around him.
More time passed. The mist became a film, a sludge consuming Harrys' body. After a full day, the cloak, now practically a robe, reformed around his body. Only then did his eyes open and, for the first time in more than a day, he spoke.
"Oww."