Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling, the wonderful lady who has inspired so many people to try their hand at writing too. Warhammer 40k belongs to Games Workshop who have a very scary legal team. Please don't sue me, I'm not very well off and could only pay you in pictures. I only mean to pay homage to the wonderful, funny, baroque, gruesomeness that is WH40k.
I should also say a big thank-you to my very patient Beta Jacobus-minoris who has read and reread my writing, pointed out my grammatical mistakes, questioned the suitability of some of my wilder ideas as well as putting up with my long winded rants about plot ideas.
Chapter 7
Fred and George Weasley looked at one another, their faces solemn and serious. This was going to be a major event in their young lives, life changing even. Their very first post-Carrow prank was about to begin.
They had always played pranks even before their debut at Hogwarts causing much hilarity and consternation among their nearest and dearest. But then, during their first year, back when they were young, naive, innocent, they had discovered the Marauders, pranksters supreme and had done their best to emulate their new heroes, surpass them even.
When Carrow had arrived at Hogwarts he had just seemed like a new target, particularly since they knew he was really ickle Harry returned to them. If only Mum hadn't caught them sneaking out of the house in the summer to rescue Harry, maybe Carrow wouldn't exist. It was a strange and mind bending thought.
So to make Carrow feel more at home they decided to prank him, a really good one too. To their utter amazement he'd managed to spot their set-up easily and completely avoid it; and then he'd pranked them back. A prank of such utter, breathtaking, spine chilling brilliance; they'd screamed, they'd cried, they'd had to change their underpants afterwards, and they still hadn't been able to conclusively prove that he'd done it.
Carrow had completely blown away their ideas of a quality prank, he'd expanded their minds, their very horizons to such a degree that they had had to put in a huge amount of study to get their game up to his standard. At least mum would be happy about their grades come the summer. Carrow had become their new gold standard, a veritable god of pranking. One they were sure was helping them, particularly when The Book mysteriously appeared in Fred's bag with just a torn piece of parchment marking a very interesting page.
And now here they were, on Christmas morning, about to enact their very first post-Carrow prank. They had worked very hard on this and had high hopes that it would be highly memorable. Their creation was in place as was test subject no.1 otherwise known as Ronald Bilius Weasley. What could possibly go wrong? With a flourish of their wands their new prank began.
OOOOOO
Ron Weasley was just rubbing shampoo in to his hair, singing slightly off key to himself and enjoying the hot water of the shower thudding down on to his back, when he heard a skittering sound in the room beyond. He paused and strained his ears. Silence. He went back to rinsing the suds out of his hair.
The sound came again. Ron frowned uneasily, it didn't sound like a person and frankly there were strange things going on in the castle, petrifications and Carrow aside there was all the strange noises, like invisible birds that had managed to get trapped in the castle. It made walking around the place on a dark evening a very creepy experience.
"Who's there?" he called out. The sound came again from even closer. Plucking up his courage Ron peered around the shower curtain straight into his absolute worst nightmare.
OOOOOO
Fred and George watched in utter delight as their little brother ran past their hiding place in to the common room as naked as the day he was born screaming fit to burst his lungs with their creation on his heels, its eight hairy legs working frantically.
They grinned at each other; their creation was holding together rather nicely and working exactly as they had planned.
Their attention was caught by the sound of the portrait hole clicking open. Leaping up from behind one of the sofas they were just in time to see Ron's naked bottom disappear down the corridor, his screams becoming ever fainter and their creation hot on his heels. They looked at one another in horror. It had now officially gone too far. As one they sprinted for the portrait hole.
OOOOOO
Snape was quietly poking at his scrambled eggs enjoying the peace and quiet that a vastly reduced school population produced. All seated around a single table the morning's diners were currently too interested in getting breakfast out of the way to engage in any idle chit-chat.
All was peaceful and quiet, until Carrow sat bolt upright, his head snapping round towards the doors. Snape paused in his torture of the scrambled eggs. Over the past month he'd come to see Carrow as a sort of trouble and chaos barometer. If the large man started paying exacting attention to something then it was probably a good idea to run away and hide.
Snape strained his hearing trying to sense anything unusual over the soft clatter of cutlery from the other diners. Hearing nothing, he cautiously went back to his food, and then just on the edge of hearing he caught it. A howling shrieking sound as if a cat was being tortured; and it was getting closer. Gradually more and more of the people present paused and looked up as the curious sound became increasingly audible.
With a crash the doors of the Great Hall burst open and a screaming naked figure sprinted in closely followed by a ...Snape wasn't quite sure what it was. It looked like a giant spider but it also appeared to have been built out of scavenged pieces of wood and upholstery. It also seemed very keen on getting as close to Ronald Weasley as it physically could.
The Great Hall quickly descended in to chaos as the arachnophobic tried running away, hiding, freezing in shock or a combination. Trelawney was a case in point as she leapt in fright with a gigantic whooping scream, knocking her glasses off, and then proceeding to run full tilt in to a wall knocking herself out cold. Dumbledore and some of the senior staff gave chase to the spider construct, while the others tried to round up the remaining students and usher them out of the hall.
Surrounded by abandoned meals and upturned chairs, only Snape and Carrow remained seated at the breakfast table, an oasis of clam in a tempestuous sea of mayhem. Glaring horribly, Snape jabbed his fork at Carrow, "I don't know how you did it," he hissed angrily, "but I know you had something to do with this."
Carrow merely smirked broadly, as behind him the panicking naked Weasley sprinted past, chased by a cavalcade of giant wooden spider and shouting, bellowing teaching staff.
There was only so much running that Ron was physically capable of before he ran out of steam. As he began to tire, the terrifying creature came ever closer, despite his best efforts to keep away from it. As he finally stumbled in exhaustion the thing finally made physical contact, and froze, crumbling into a pile of fire wood and shredded scraps of upholstery.
A crying, exhausted, and humiliated Ronald Weasley collapsed to the ground suddenly aware of his nudity, and wishing that he'd had the sense to go home like Percy and Ginny had. McGonagall rushed forward and wrapped her cloak around her charge while Madam Pomfrey began to usher the poor boy to the infirmary. Behind them, from the abandoned table, a deep and resonate voice rumbled. "Is this a traditional part of the seasonal festivities?"
OOOOOO
In a respectable area of a dormitory town just north of London was an area of garden-village era Edwardian suburban homes. With their architectural references to art nouveau and the arts and crafts movement, these were desirable and sort after dwellings.
On this bleak and drizzling morning many households were still fast asleep from the festivities of the previous day, but a few were early risers such as the Granger home. They had had the annual cavalcade of family visitors yesterday and were now waiting for the arrival of Hermione's first and best friend, a young man she had described in glowing terms on many occasions.
Dan Granger pottered sleepily around the kitchen tartan dressing gown flapping round his knees as he went through the important morning ritual of the first cup of coffee. He'd been looking forward to seeing what sort of young man Hermione had got so close to and whether he was a suitable companion for his beautiful little girl. If the little brat was too friendly with his frizzy little angel then he was definitely going to have to have stern words and put the fear of "girlfriend's dad" in to him.
Breakfast had been all but over and Hermione had begun bouncing off the walls with worry about her friend. Had he got the address all right? Had he remembered the right day? Had he changed his mind? What if he thought the present she'd got him was heretical?
Considering the present in question was a pile of science and maths text books Dan Granger did think that last one was a trifle odd and had started to worry that they were about to play host to a young member of a fundamentalist religious sect of some description. Hermione's garbled explanation really did not help matters either.
OOOOOO
A soft ding-dong echoed around the front hall just as Dan Granger was strolling across to his study to for a sneaky game of tetris on the old home computer. So this was probably it, Hermione's young boyfriend had finally arrived and from the look of it a parent had accompanied him; Dan took in the way the figure on the other side of the stained glass door panel was blocking out the light. Looking forward to having a good natter with a fellow Hogwarts parent Dan opened the door a welcoming smile on his face.
He found himself almost nose to lower chest with a wall of black leather covered in braid and skull decorated brass buttons. A look down revealed enormous boots with external steel toe caps beautifully engraved with skulls surrounded by florid acanthus leaves. His gaze travelled up, taking in the metal pauldrons which broadened the already wide shoulders of the figure, till further up he made contact with the greenest eyes he'd ever seen in his life as well as the most predatory smile.
"This is the Granger residence?" the giant boomed his voice gravelly and impossibly deep.
Dan nodded mutely, his mind working furiously; the B-movies were right all along, the bondage Nazis from Mars really were trying to invade.
The gigantic apparition smirked down at him and held out one massive appendage, "Ah, good. Allow me to introduce myself; I am Allesandor Carrow."
Dan winced as his own hand was completely enclosed by the massive appendage and firmly shook. So this was Hermione's friend. He was going to have stern words with his little girl about being flexible with the truth.
As he invited the gigantic man in he noticed a police car travelling at a crawl past the end of the drive, the occupants peering intensely towards the house. It looked like it was going to be one of those days.
OOOOOO
It turned out to be one of those weeks. A good measure of this was the level in the bottle of gin that was an annual gift from Great-Aunt Bettie. Normally it would last till next Christmas. In a bad year it might only last till August. This year there was maybe enough left for a single g and t at the beginning of January. Even She-who-must-be-obeyed had indulged a little so it wasn't as if he'd managed to drink the entire bottle on his own; and all because his little angel had invited her first and best friend to stay.
To say they were shocked to be suddenly playing host to a very large, very definitely adult man was a bit of an understatement. The fact that his personality and ego were so large that they could have been divvied up among the population of entire continents with some left over really did not help matters at all.
Mr Carrow on the other hand didn't appear to be troubled or even interested in any reservations that might have been expressed about him, happily inserting himself in to their daily routine in his very large and extremely disruptive way causing the entire household to revolve around him in order to avoid the road block.
Dan had introduced Carrow to the Missus expecting him to be tolerated for a few hours before being asked very politely to leave. Unfortunately this was not to be. Unfathomable female wisdom came in to play and She-who-must-be-obeyed had cautiously welcomed the very large man to their home and then carefully watched the way he and their little angel interacted.
Dan had watched with increasing unease as his wife started to warm up to the very large and very intimidating man. Maybe it was Hermione's enthusiastic hugging of the large man or the way he'd been utterly delighted by Hermione's gift or maybe the fact that he'd obviously gone to considerable trouble to pick out a suitable book for their little angel. She-who-must-be-obeyed had even started to smile at the odd pair as they discussed English politics and the structure of the UK Government though Dan did think it rather odd that Carrow didn't know especially as he was obviously quite knowledgeable about politics in general. It was when his better half started giving the man soppy looks while he assisted with the washing-up that evening, carefully and meticulously drying each plate handed to him that Dan realised that he was doomed. The lady of his life had obviously decided that Allesandor Carrow was "adorable", and would now, as long as Hermione continued to see him as a friend, invite the large man to every single family celebration, get-together and gathering that she possibly could till the end of time. In fact she started that very evening by inviting Carrow to join in the traditional family post-Christmas museum crawl.
Carrow had willingly accepted the invitation and had accompanied them each day in to London as they tried to pack in as many museums and art galleries as possible before the New Year. The man was quiet and well behaved in the Tate and the National Gallery. They had a few difficulties with him in the British Museum where he had been fascinated by the antiquities displays and had been rather reluctant to leave. The Science Museum had been definitely tricky. He'd got rather excited when he'd seen the dinosaur skeletons and it had taken several frustrating explanations about extinctions to burst Carrow's fantasy of big game hunting. The large man had become thoughtful and quiet once he'd finally got the idea. In a way this was even more worrying.
But the real problems had begun in the Imperial War Museum...in the Large Exhibits Gallery to be exact. Carrow wanted to look inside the armoured vehicles. He didn't understand why he couldn't. Security had got involved. In frustration they had dragged him off to the gift shop and bought him several books on the history and development of tanks. The very nice security people had escorted them out of the building.
Dan and She-who-must-be-obeyed had decided to discreetly cross the Royal Armouries off the itinerary.
By the end of the week they were all shattered, exhausted by the man's seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy and increasingly strange questions and behaviour. Dan and the Missus could cope with the five hour exercise routines beginning at three in the morning, but the impression he gave that he was gleefully breaking some sort of religious taboo on scientific knowledge every time he read his Christmas presents or asked how things worked around the house; that really gave them headaches.
Dan stared forlornly at the pathetic dribble in the bottom of the bottle that was all that was left of Great Aunt Bettie's gin. Would his better half notice if he discretely bought a replacement bottle he wondered, or should he just own up to having finished it more or less on his own?
OOOOOO
It was a quiet morning at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland as a certain Professor of Physics was drinking his first cup of coffee of the day. He was vaguely sorting his post in to piles of "urgent", "not so urgent", "loony bin" and "file in the bin" when a plain and bulging envelope slipped with a thud on to his desk from a pile of particularly obnoxious junk mail.
The plain and unadorned envelope appeared to be, anachronistically, made of parchment. Puzzled he turned it over...and there it was; the symbol of an organization that was to inspire hatred, fear and trembling in the strongest of constitutions as its members rooted out the most horrific corruption and contamination in the hearts and minds of the human race...some thirty eight thousand years in to the future.
He stared thoughtfully at the red wax seal embossed with the "I" and skull of the Imperial Inquisition. Something had obviously gone very wrong, or maybe that should be...strange.
OOOOOO
Carrow sighed and stretched his stiff limbs; space marines were not meant to sit still for long periods of time. Now he was back in the castle after visiting Miss Granger and her family he had gone back to his first project, compiling a list of unexplained deaths and disappearances from back issues of the Daily Prophet, which he had being doing since his arrival in this back-water of time and culture, and a distinct pattern was beginning to emerge.
He'd managed to get back to the 30's now and what he had discovered was rather illuminating.
Things towards the end of this particular decade were rather muddled due to the occurrence of a much larger conflict spanning both magical and non-magical worlds.
After this conflict had died down the deaths and disappearances had dropped to a low base later similar to before the war, i.e. hardly any. As the 50's and 60's had progressed they had gradually increased, reaching a peak in the 70's when the insurgent leader Lord Voldemort and his personal cult had revealed themselves. The 70's were a time of chaos for the British Wizarding World as it slowly descended in to anarchy as revealed by the newspapers, its law-enforcers and government completely unable to cope with the mayhem.
It had all come to an abrupt halt on the 31st October 1981 when he had apparently "vanquished" the cult leader. Personally Carrow didn't believe it; how could a vulnerable and virtually helpless 15 month old child do anything remotely dangerous to an adult wizard?
The unexplained deaths and disappearances had dropped radically after this event but they had never reached that very low base level seen in the early 30's and 50's. This could mean only one thing. The cult was still out there, biding its time, like some sort of malignant tumour on society.
Carrow had already started to compile a list of individuals suspected of being "Death Eaters". He sneered at the ridiculous name. Many of these people had escaped what passed for justice in the Wizarding World claiming they had been placed under the "Imperius" curse. Carrow had not been impressed. Instead of admitting to being murderers they were claiming to be weak-willed instead. He'd have executed them all, and their immediate families, and their friends, and probably their pets too. It was imperative that the rot was excised completely; you could never be too careful.
The Wizarding Justice system (or what passed for it) had let these people off with barely a rap on the knuckles. When the leader of the cult came back, and it was a when, the man would have his support base intact and that wouldn't do at all.
At the top of his list was Lucius Malfoy, a suspected Death Eater who had pleaded the Imperious curse, (Carrow suspected bribery), and a potential political rival and road block with large resources. The man had funded Fudge's last election campaign, and seemed to be very close to the Minister. The sooner he was able to send Malfoy on a one-way journey to the God-Emperor's mercy, the better for his plans.
But first he needed to build his own resources, though he did have a first possible acolyte. Young Miss Granger had real potential.
His musings were broken by the sound of an invisible bell ringing throughout the castle. Heaving himself up, grumbling, he set off to make his obligatory once-a-day appearance at a meal. The irritating medicae woman had hounded him about his small appetite. Nothing he said could persuade her that it was completely normal for a member of the Adeptus Astartes. She seemed to be convinced that he should eat like Hagrid, five hearty meals a day with seconds. They had, in the end, come to a compromise, she would leave him alone as long as he ate at least one meal a day and in return he wouldn't throw the irritating woman through a window.
As he walked along keeping a careful eye open for any potential traps courtesy of the possessed girl-child he became increasingly aware of an unpleasant odour. Following his nose led him to the main stair cases, one of his least favourite areas of the castle. He found their tendency to move unaided and apparently at random highly distressing particularly when he was on one.
But this time they were helpful. The large open space of the stair well gave him a clear and undivided view of the main entrance and even the doors to the Great Hall, where even now the school population were enjoying their dinner. The doors were slightly ajar allowing the scent of food and the distant chatter of the students to drift out.
A low animal grunt came from near the doors as something large and bestial moved, shuffling and dragging against the tiles; an intruder to the school, and one that sounded like a large predator as well. A manic smile spread across his face. It's been ages since he'd last had a decent fight; maybe this would be an interesting challenge.
Abandoning his potentially obstructive robe and clad only in a black leather body-glove he leapt to the next stairs down landing silently with cat-like grace. He still wasn't close enough for a good view of the creature, so again he launched himself into the void.
On the staircase that crossed directly across the top of the entrance hall he finally got a clear view as the creature finally shuffled in to the cone of light shed from the Great Hall; a mountain troll, and from the looks of it, an adult male and fully grown at nearly nine feet in height. Carrow couldn't believe his luck. It was just like an orc, except less lucky.
His head whipped round as a soft hissing chuckle came from his left. Red gleaming eyes marked the presence of the possession; its teeth glittered in its manic smile as it leered at Carrow. So, admiring its handiwork was it. He barred his teeth, snarling his defiance. This thing, this unnatural abomination would not get the better of him. The eyes winked out as it backed in to the shadows.
At that precise moment the troll finally came to a decision and lumbered more fully in to the light from the Great Hall. Carrow made a split second decision. Not wanting to see what an adult mountain troll would do in a room full of children, he launched himself over the railing. Landing with a soft thud behind the creature, and, drawing his boot knife he roared his defiance.
He was gleeful. It was a full-grown male, and it was all his!
The troll lumbered round as fast as it could to challenge this new threat, grunting its own challenge in response, brandishing its club, a torn-off tree limb as threateningly as it could.
Carrow barred his teeth snarling and lunged under the creature's clumsy swing slashing it down the side, rolling past and coming up behind it. The troll howled in pain as the edge of the monomolecular blade sliced through its tough hide as if through paper. It lumbered round clumsily, as its tiny brain processed the fact that it was being attacked by a very dangerous predator, howling and grunting with anger and pain, and just at the edge of its slow thoughts a touch of fear, frantically thrashing around with its club. Carrow slinked aside or dodged under the wild blows before darting in again and stabbing the maddened creature in the ribs. The troll's howl of anguish and pain was breathtaking. Carrow joined in bellowing his joy and triumph of the combat. The troll utterly crazed with pain and fear tried to charge its attacker, lumbering forward and slashing its club down, Carrow only just getting out of the way in time. The troll tried to close the distance again, and, Carrow seeing another opening leaped forward and slashed the creature across the torso.
The troll was beginning to slow down now, its breath wet and ragged, blood flowing freely down its torso. Its eyes blinked and it staggered as it tried to concentrate on the aggressor who was taking it apart piece by piece.
Moaning low and wounded in its throat, it lunged one last time. Carrow dogged the slow attempt, leaping on to its back, much as he had done as an eleven year old, and slit the dying creature's throat from ear to ear right down to the bone in a single slashing blow.
He leapt clear rolling up in to a crouch as the troll's body slowly keeled over with a thunderous crash, blood and ichor rapidly pooling around it.
Carrow's sense of his wider surroundings rapidly returned, revealing a row of sickened, horrified faces as the teaching staff stared at him in shock. Spying Dumbledore, he tilted his head; there was a niggling little question he just had to ask.
Dumbledore stared in wordless horror at the atrocity Carrow had just perpetrated and suddenly realised he was completely alone with the man.
Carrow had quietly stalked up to him, breathing heavily, a strange smile on his face, pupils mere pinpricks even in the dim light of the entrance hall. Stinking of troll and his own unique and pungent body odour, Carrow bent down until they were almost nose to nose.
"Do they...come in packs?" he asked his smile almost wistful.
