Harry Potter, Lord of Darkness

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed my stories. I sincerely apologize for taking so long to update. Good news: I excel in my Latin class.

I do not own Harry Potter, thanks. Didn't I promise 2000 words? Well, that's not likely to happen… but I'll try anyhow! The next contest is going to be a George Strait song. You will get two lines of it next update…

Harry led Hermione to the Astronomy Tower. He jumped up on the ledge he had gotten before, and helped Hermione up. "Hermione-" he said, then abruptly stopped as he felt a warning twinge of pain in the back of his head. He ignored it and said, "Hermione, there's something you really ought to know. First of all, back when Draco showed us the secret room… and I touched the door… well, you won't believe this… okay, there was an emerald green flash, the world froze in time, the door vanished, I walked through, rode on a stone snake to an altar of some sort, found a green and black medallion, left the altar, stood exactly where I had when the flash happened, another flash happened-"

"Harry, what are you saying? Slow down, please, and start over!" Hermione exclaimed.

Harry took a few deep breaths, calmed down, and started over. "If it wasn't for what you just saw in the hallway, you would definitely think that I've gone mad. You might even come to that conclusion with the visual evidence that you were handed in the hall. All I can say is that I know so very little; you know nearly as much as I do."

"I don't know anything in regards to this, Harry!" Hermione responded in a petulant tone.

"That's my point, Hermione," replied Harry in the most patient voice that he had ever mustered, "The only things I know are what happened to me. In the hallway, some sort of spirit creature tried to take control of me. It probably is not the first time that the thing has tried it. It has saved my life, on occasion."

"What do you mean by spirit creature? When did it save your life?" Hermione was intrigued; this story had captivated her.

"I said spirit creature because I don't know what it is. It saved me from the Avada Kedavra when I was a child, it saved me from getting hit by a bus once, I think; I'm not really too sure what had happened with the last incident, just that the Dursleys had been afraid to come near me for weeks afterward, and the spirit creature thing persuaded me to jump down there-" He pointed at the spot he had jumped to earlier, "- and saved me from dying."

"In the hallway, when I was looking at the book you showed me, the words 'Deathly Hallows' caught my attention, because of something that had happened to me earlier." Here, Harry held up an emerald on a chain. "This is the second Deathly Hallow. It allows communication between the living and the dead. It is a gift and a curse; ever since I got it, this spirit creature thing has been plaguing me and simply won't leave me alone."

Hermione was now completely enthralled, but realized that they had to get to lunch. "Harry, we have to eat… Remember, we have Charms and Transfiguration before the school day is officially over."

Harry blinked, then grabbed Hermione, picked her up, and jumped down where he had jumped down to before, Hermione was stupefied (not the spell) into silence. Right before they landed, their descent slowed, and Harry landed lightly on his feet. He pulled out his wand, tapped the statue of some forgotten wizard, and suddenly, Harry and Hermione were standing in the center of the Astronomy Tower. They hurried down to lunch.

At lunch

Harry's mind was elsewhere, so he didn't notice Ron come up behind him. "Potter!" Ron snarled.

Harry turned around and glared at the ignorant, petulant fool. Weasley was backed by Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas.

"Potter, I really hate your guts. Playing the good kid while the teacher is looking, masterminding plots to humiliate your betters when the teacher is looking the other way! You are either a masochist, or just a stupid bastard! But either way, I'm going to get my revenge, and when I do, you will wish that I had killed you…" Ron said in what he assumed was a cogent voice.

"Weasley, were you born this stupid, or did you have to work to achieve it?" Harry asked.

Ron was taken aback. "You little dickhole- you will curse my name when I'm through with you!" he yelled, attracting the teachers' attention. Seamus and Dean dragged Weasley off while he was shouting similar profanities.

Harry turned to Hermione, and noticed that she was blushing, and then he realized that her face had simply discolored due to the fact that she was holding back laughter. Lunch passed quickly, and soon, they were heading to Charms.

Once they got there, Hermione and Harry took the seats closest to the front of the class. The diminutive professor greeted the students collectively. "Welcome students! Today, we are going to work on the Levitation Charm wandwork. This is very important, Weasley; if you get it wrong, it could kill you." He added when Weasley scoffed.

Ron didn't reply.

Flitwick pulled out his wand, then walked to a stepladder. There were snickers coming from the back of the classroom, where the Gryffindors were sitting. He climbed on top of it, and then demonstrated the wand movement. Hermione, of course, was the first person to get the motion correct five times in a row, followed by the rest of the Slytherins. The rest of the lass went like this, with the Slytherins working, and the Gryffindors playing around.

Afterward, the Slytherins and Gryffindors went to their next class, Transfiguration, which, of course, they shared. They went in, and saw Professor McGonagall sitting in her seat, calmly. After everyone sat down, she said, "Today, class, we are going to start learning about Transfiguration. We would have started on this yesterday, but…" she trailed off. Everyone knew what went after that. "And now, your class is a day behind. You will have to work very hard just to catch up. You can thank the Gryffindors for the pressure just put on you.

"Today is just going to be a demonstration, but you will have to pay close attention to everything I do. The other first year class had two days of demonstration, you only get one. If you can't pay attention to what's going on, you can't do Transfiguration. Transfiguration is a magic of the imagination, and in order to perform Transfiguration, you have to imagine what the end result is, in perfect detail. One detail imagined wrong can throw off the whole magic."

This startled Hermione. She wasn't used to classes where one detail different can change the whole thing.

McGonagall pulled out her wand, and stated, "The wand acts as a powerful focuser of your imaginational magics. This is why the whole magic rests in getting each and every detail exactly how you want it. You don't imagine each detail separately, but together. If you put emphasis on one detail, such as size, the shape could get skewed-" She pointed her wand at a wooden cube, and it shrunk to half the size, but turned into a hemisphere. "- and vice versa. This kind of magic, once initiated, is carried through to the end. It will drain your power until you are either dead, or the magic is complete. That is why most Transfiguration magics are done step by step, like this-" Here, she pointed her wand at the wooden hemisphere, and it changed into a wooden cube, then doubled in size, then turned acid green in color. "- but even though you are changing just one detail, you still imagine them all."

Hermione raised her hand and asked, "Just why is it that Transfiguration requires that you get every detail completely correct in your mind?"

"Transfiguration has no incantations, no spells, no cantrips. This magic requires that you imagine the end result during the spell. All other magics were once like this, but great witches and wizards imbued certain words in combination with runes and motions with the magic that they described to happen. Take the spell, Stupefy, for example. This is a more recent spell. Stupefy means to stun. The spell stuns. This one was created by Dumbledore himself in his youth, whilst in a duel for his life with Grindelwald. The only other magics left that require your imagination are silent spells, and Potions, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. I won't explain why for them; this is Transfiguration.

"Live Transfiguration is exceedingly difficult, as if you mess up there, you could kill the subject; you might even transform them into a monster. The first werewolf came around because of such an unfortunate mishap. He was trying to turn himself into a wolf, looked up at the moon halfway through, and accidentally confined the spell to the lunar cycle, halfway through. A side effect of the spell was that he became bloodthirsty, and somehow, his curse was also contagious…" McGonagall muttered the last part, her eyes glazed over. She came back to reality and said, "You must be really careful when attempting any kind of Transfiguration."

The class ended, and everyone rushed out towards the Great Hall for dinner. When they were about three-fourths of the way there, Hermione pulled Harry into a deserted side hallway. "Harry, what were you trying to tell me earlier?"

"I was going to tell you that the spirit creature thing called itself 'Excrucia.'"

In a different tower of Hogwarts, a certain teacher paused in the middle of cleaning up her classroom. She said,

"The end is coming, come all who See

Darkness is rising, the end of all

Is coming, this came to me

Beware of the light, for in it is shadow

A revered survivor conceals the beast

Beneath a cloak of his own skin

Voldemort, of our worries is the least

A new name will take his place

And that name is Excrucia…

The end is coming, come all who See

Your talents are needed

Darkness is rising, this came to me…"

Sybill Trelawney abruptly fainted, and at the same time, so did a handful of students around the campus.

Well, you got 1,759 words… Enjoy!