AN: To all my reviewers, you guys ROCK! Also thanks for the favorites and follows, they always make me feel good about my writing.
And I know last chapter left some of you a bit nonplused, I mean cooking, right? Although I consider it more like potion making (that's why the recipe is so vague), I also tried to think why my muse has been so obsessed with that particular scene. And then I remembered Rick's line from Episode 4X16, which goes something like this "Have you noticed how it's (food is) all we ever talk about?", which made me think Food is a big deal in the Walking Dead world. So by making Harry the only one that could make something to satisfy them all when the resources are very scarce, I'm also making him pretty much indispensable. And no, I'm not discounting Daryl's role as the hunter for the group when I'm saying that, nor am I forgetting about the women who usually do the cooking. Besides, by establishing that Harry is good with herbs I'm slowly building him a niche into the group. After all, we all know Hershel isn't going to be around forever. So that was my reasoning.
But let's go back to more pleasant things, like action. Are you ready for it? If so, Enjoy!
Category: slight crossover with Harry Potter.
Rating: T ;
Pairing: none.
Warning: Violence, Swearing (there are a few F bombs in there) but nothing worse than what the show has given us so far. Also un-betaed, so if you see any glaring mistakes, don't hesitate to point them out to me. I promise to listen. :)
Spoilers: none. I'm exploring the Winter months between Season 2 and 3 because the writers didn't. :D
Ready? Set. Action!
"Dammit," Rick swore softly, resisting the urge to lean his head against the window.
They had been desperate. And desperation made them stupid. That's why they haven't stopped looting after the first two houses in this seemly untouched part of a small town, and now they were paying the price. As dusk was settling in, at least fifty walkers had come from nowhere and now they ambled across the roads and yards, cutting them from their van. On a normal day, they could have sprinted to the car in a minute, but swarmed with walkers, the van seemed farther than ever.
"How is it looking?" Glenn asked from where he was sitting near the table, his left foot elevated to relieve the pressure on his swollen ankle. One piece of rotten wood, bad luck, and lack of attention, and he was down for the count.
"Bad," Harry answered, peering on the street from his spot next to some heavy curtains."Really bad." The next moment Daryl came from the back of the house and when Rick turned to him expectantly, the hunter just shook his head. The backyard was also overrun.
"Guys," Glenn started, then stopped, pursed his lips and continued as if he had to get it all out before he changed his mind. "You could make a run for it…and…let me here."
"We're not leaving no one behind." Rick answered through clenched teeth, and after a quick look in Daryl's direction while the hunter half pretended to be interested in what was going outside, he said, "Not anymore. I've learned my lesson."
"Alright," Glenn seemed to deflate with that one word, shoulders relaxing their rigid stance. "But we still need to come up with a plan."
"You're usually the man with the plan." Daryl said from next to one of the windows, crossbow held ready. "So plan."
"Er…we could…I…then we…Dammit! " frustrated Glen seemed to jump from one idea to the other, Rick watching on silently while Harry was looking for something in his bag.
"Or I could go out there and set that yellow house on fire," Harry said calmly causing the others to turn to him in stunned silence.
"What?" Rick asked, wondering if he'd heard him right.
"The yellow house. Two numbers down from here? We've already cleared it, so there won't be any walkers inside. So we set it on fire, and while the walkers go for it, we run."
"Just like that?" Rick shared a confused look with Daryl before addressing Harry, "That only leaves who among us is crazy enough to run over there, make enough noise to attract the walkers and then set the fire himself."
"Ah, but I'm not crazy if I have this," Harry answered shaking a bottle filled with some kind of reddish sludge-like liquid.
"What's that?" Glenn asked, fascinated and repulsed at the same time.
"Walker-repellent juice. Just something I was trying to do in my spare time."
"That's why you kept asking for the weird stuff wheneve' I went huntin' in the woods?" Daryl asked, raising a disbelieving eyebrow at the Brit.
"And it works?" Rick asked the important question.
"It should, in theory. Well, no time to test it like the present," and without asking for permission, Harry opened the bottle and dumped it all over himself, then drank what was left. The smell made the others gag slightly, while Daryl started to sneeze uncontrollably. "Smells like camel piss. Tastes like it too," Harry said grinning with stained teeth, not bothered by the other's reaction. Then turning to Daryl he taunted, "Sirius had the same reaction, you know?"
"You callin' me a dog?" eyes watering, Daryl took a threatening step towards Harry, while Rick stepped between them and Glenn said, "Hey! Hey! Come on you guys."
"Stop it, both of you." Rick's quiet authority stilled them, and reminded them of the situation at hand. "Harry, you sure this is going to work?" and after Harry just nodded, Rick said to the others. "Okay. Glens is going to watch you with a rifle from over there, while Daryl and I watch the porch and get ready to run."
"And what about fire? Do you have somethin' in that bag of yours to make it?" anger forgotten, Daryl asked, watching Harry take deep breaths as he readied to go out of the door. "Don't worry about it," Harry waved a careless hand, and then he pointed at something in the yard. "See that big oak tree next to the house? Have the van under it when you're ready to leave. Just, don't leave me behind."
"Here, take this." Rick handed Harry a walkie-talkie. "We'll signal when we're ready to go."
"Right. Well, cheers lads, this will be a walk in the park," Harry said and then quickly left the house, the others closing the door behind him. In front of him the herd of walkers seemed to twitch, almost turning to him as if they could smell dinner but didn't knew where to look for it, but none outright attacked him when he took his last step off the porch.
Harry didn't run, despite every instinct in his body urging him to do just that, and wishing very very hard his magic didn't fail him, he started to cross the street, walking around the bigger walker crowds. He passed one walker close enough to touch it, but it just sniffed him disinterestedly, not moving from its post where it was leaning against a former white picket-fence.
I can do this, Harry thought, dread slowly easing inside him. It was perhaps because of that, that he never foresaw what happened next.
xxx
"He's stopping, why is he stopping?" Glenn muttered increasingly nervous while he tracked Harry's progress on the street. The younger man looked frozen while a child-walker, who looked like once it would have been someone's red-haired little princess, but now was only a disease ridden shell, was walking right at him. "Guys, we might have a problem," Glenn called the others who had been checking the windows next to the front door, and by the time Rick and Daryl crouched where next to him, the walker was almost too close to Harry for anyone to take a shot at it.
"That stupid bastard. I'm gonna beat the shit out of him," Daryl muttered furiously while he grabbed his crossbow and went to a different window that gave him a better perspective. There he wasted no time in reading his arrow, aiming and shooting just in time to kill the walker which had come so close to Harry, it had almost sunken its teeth into a motionless arm. The arrow that pierced its eye seemed to break the spell Harry was under, and the young man turned around jerkily, chest moving rapidly as if he'd been underwater, gaze wildly moving around in search for an attacker. When he realized he was relatively safe, Harry turned and walked over the corpse, not even touching the arrow, and with a small burst of speed he climbed the steps until he was on the porch. There he stood as he screamed at the walkers, "Hey, you wankers! Come over here!", while shooting those who got too close in the head. At once, all the walkers started to moan louder, and driven by their endless hunger, they congregated towards the screaming man, not even deterred by the ones he killed.
"Yes! Come at me!" Harry screamed, one hand firmly latched on the front door. Underneath his fingers the wood started to smoke lightly and change color, as he desperately wished for fire. When the walkers were almost on him he ran in the house, dropping things and tipping chairs behind him while he searched for the staircase.
"There!" he said aloud as he took the first three stairs and then turned to the wall and concentrated on willing it to burn. Around him the grumbling and the moaning was getting louder and louder and just as one walker almost gripped him by his coat, Harry ducked and run up the stairs, leaving behind the wall that was starting to smoke lightly. At the top of the staircase he stopped and started to shoot, all the while wishing that the others would call him to tell him they had made it to the van.
xxx
Rick and Daryl stood next to the door, Glenn draped over Rick's left side, while the hunter prepared his crossbow and knife.
"Ready?" Rick asked, just as soon as they heard Harry cursing the walkers and then shoot at them, Daryl just nodded and swung the door open. There were still walkers out there, stragglers that hadn't run to the yellow house, but between Daryl crossbow and Rick's shooting, they were making good time, despite Glenn hopping along on one foot and almost falling down more than once.
Daryl moved with ease, taking point and killing any walkers that got to close, but unfortunately Rick's gun was drawing more with its noise, and by the time they opened the van, Daryl got in and then dragged Glenn inside, some walkers were almost upon them.
Rick closed the door after Glenn, and then sprinted around the car, shooting one walker in the head when it tried to bite him, then braining another with his knife. He got inside just in time to see other walkers slap the glass ineffectively and then he grabbed his walkie-talkie, "Harry! Get out of there! Now!"
Just as he finished the message a second time white flames surged around the house, the fire seemly springing from nowhere, and for one stunned moment Rick, Glenn and Daryl could only watch helplessly the towering inferno that had been the house where Harry was supposed to be.
xxx
Harry was retreating slowly, using the shotgun to bludgeon any walkers who got to close, remembering from their earlier scouting that the corner room had the easiest access to the porch's roof, when the radio strapped to his belt crackled to life.
"Finally," he muttered and strapped his gun as he made his way to the window ready to get away. With his head out of the window, Harry just felt something grab him by the leg, drag him inside the house and then he fell, his chin meeting the floor with a painful smack. Stunned, he turned slowly only to see a walker sink his teeth into his boot, while more of them tried to squeeze in through the narrow door. Galvanized by terror, he crashed his other heel into the walker's face, smashing it into a pulp with two more hits, and just as another walker was almost upon him he raised his left hand and stupidly screamed, "Incendio!"
He had just one moment to think he was about to die, when something powerful and painful surged from his chest, traveled across his raised hand and out, making all the walkers in vicinity explode into flames. Stunned and more than a little dizzy, Harry just stood there for a moment, until he thought he heard someone call his name. With it, clarity came back, and ignoring everything that was burning, he made his way out of the window, took three hurried steps and then jumped at the oak tree which had been guarding the yard for decades.
Tired and dizzy, instead of the big branch he was aiming at, he broke several smaller ones with his body until he came to a rest unto the lowest of them, hanging just above the walkers' reach. With a strange lassitude taking over him until he had to fight to keep his eyes open, he dangled from the branch, hoping the others hadn't forgotten about him. He almost let it go when a familiar car rumble told him help was coming.
xxx
"Harry! Harry, answer me!" Rick shouted at the walkie-talkie he had in a death grip, while Glenn scanned the surroundings with trepidation.
"Watch the oak tree," Daryl said from inside the van, just when Glenn started to shout with enthusiasm "There! I see him! He's in there!"
That was all that Rick needed, as he turned on the engine with haste. Driving the van in the walkers crowding the tree felt good, and when he got the car under the right branch, he stopped only until he heard a muted thump on the ceiling, then he drove as if hell-hounds were on his tail. A few miles down the road, Rick stopped the car and Daryl stepped out to help a groggy Harry down, who had been holding on the car's roof for dear life. The ride to the camp was far more silent after that, each of them succumbing to an exhausted sleep, except for Rick.
Finally safe in the car, Harry fell asleep immediately, not waking not even when one of them put a blanket over him back at the camp.
They let him sleep like that until morning.
xxx
"So what happened?" Rick asked, as he sat down next to the fire while the man tending it sent him a half-glare.
"I would tell you to drop it, but we both know you'll ask until you get an answer," Harry answered moodily disturbing the burning wood. Rick didn't deny it, or acknowledge it, knowing from his sheriff days that silence was sometimes the best weapon.
Harry sighed, "She looked like someone I used to know. And I know she couldn't be there. I know. But, that walker looked just like her, and I…just…froze."
And then Rick got it. Because he'd heard the younger man talk about his children whenever Carl would get close enough and bored enough to ask personal questions and tales of Lily, the red haired mischief maker of the Potter household had brought a rare smile to many from the group.
"We all have our demons," Rick finally answered and thinking that was all, he got up to leave, only to have Harry stop him. "Rick, I know it's none of my business, but you should talk to Lori sometimes."
Feeling like he'd been punched in the gut, Rick just stood there for a moment, and then he nodded weakly and went to relieve T-Dog of his watch. Not looking back, he never saw Harry looking at him, and then at everyone else with a very pensive expression, then go about his chores in silence.
And Harry never told them that after the first time he had worked direct magic in this world, he'd woken the next morning with the ability to see everyone's second shadow - the one that didn't need the sun to cast it. And for some, namely Lori and T-Dog, it was far blacker than others. Except that Lori had one extra wispy shadow, besides her own.
The end.
AN: I am a bit running out of ideas, so if you want to see something, sent me a message and I'll try to make it into the next chapter. So yes, I guess I'm accepting prompts, but I make no promises about honoring all of them. Just the more interesting ones. :D
Also, last chapter I asked about how you felt about the new season coming in a TV near you, and some of you said that they were worried about their favorite character. To that I have only one thing to say, and I don't know if that's a SPOILER or not, and just take it with a grain of salt, but Glenn is credited in as many episodes as Rick on imdb. Then again, Rick shaved his beard for the premiere and then joked when asked about it, that maybe he was no longer in the show...So everything is still there to speculate upon. :)
Cheers,
Para