A/N: I'm not dead, but I have been extremely busy in dealing with work plus coming to terms with approaching legal blindness. Diagnosis hasn't been going well for me in finding the cause and fixing it. Writing for long periods is straining on my eyes so updates will be slow but eventual.
Chapter 10 - Memory Lane
In English, Melkor would have referred to the styling of the grand manor as somewhat overcompensatory in nature for mere mortals. It towered well above the surrounding farmland, lacking walls, minor dwellings and ultimately a sense of purpose from Harry's reference to it as a mere dwelling place. Not an area of governance or rule, but a simple house made to be as grand as possible for its wealthy owners. More akin to a castle than a simple place to reside. Elves would these days shun such constructions in favour of those more reminiscent of the older times when the Two Lamps shone so brightly. It was a castle isolated in the centre of sprawling gardens, hedges, fountains and queer looking birds of luminous white plumage.
"Peacocks." Harry said. "The birds are called peacocks. The males use those feathers for when they mate. Unfortunately, the albinos that Malfoy bred or made will probably die alone with how bland they look. And the manor is even more overboard because there were a lot of Expansion Charms on the inside. If you think the outside's bad you should see what's really inside. " Secured on Harry's arm, their ghosts followed in the wake of Harry's past self, cloaked in invisibility and silence.
"Your choice of memory is unusual." Craning his neck, Melkor spotted Harry's phantom form stalking the steps of a women in black nearly sprinting towards the approaching gate. The memory itself trembled and distorted, a faint whisper overriding and leaking through from the outside. It failed to break the dark haired woman's stride. With an irritable twitch of her wand, the gate sprung open. The ghosts neatly slipped inside on the tail of the woman whose steps came shorter as she approached the door.
"You're already familiar with this one. Malfor Manor was as high class home as they could come for Pureblood families. A huge castle out in the middle of nowhere is exactly what the Malfoy family needed since their extended family was feuding with them at some point. At the same time, regular people probably still would've helped them if they knew what happened. Think of this building as a small scale Arda as far as magical imbuement works."
"You mentioned it in passing." The Dark Lord ruffled his feathers.
"Well, I didn't mention the important part." They were inside now. High ceilings, wooden panelled rooms in some dark material while a series of sneering, rat faced individuals glared down at the woman. Melkor turned in time to see Harry smirk at the display. "By the time this was happening the manor wasn't very fond of its guests. Buildings this old have some personality, you know? Same as my tome. They have standards and this lot fell short." As Harry spoke, Melkor watched the woman trip on a perfect, unmoved end of lush carpet. Claws slipping, he extended his neck forwards. "The story goes that our resident has-been Dark Lord wanted to get back at his most influential follower for a few reasons. Repeated defeats because of teenagers was right up there on his incompetence list." The woman stumbled yet again, this time a pointed bust which had moved minutely enough for its wickedly curved nose to catch on her robe sleeve which tore nosily. "So he made this place his headquarters for the duration of the war as thanks for all of that."
"I take it the house took offence to their presence." She was wrenching on an ornate metal door handle at the end of a hallway which stubbornly refused to yield. The more she yanked the more determined the door was to remain shut. The bust was sniggering some distance away, pointed nose held high in the air as it guffawed.
"She's going to be yanking at it for a very long while with the curse Malfoy put on the door. This is where we part ways with dear Bellatrix," Harry beamed and resumed following Harry's memory form which seemed to have a distinct tremor in its imaginary form. "It wasn't so much the house as it was the owners. The spells they used to distract their guests seeped into the wards and had some unintended side effects. They realised that following a raving lunatic was bad for their continued health towards the end of the war and it rubbed off on the house. They also accidentally freed one of their main servants years ago which meant there was nobody left to keep the old place behaving itself."
"I suspect they desired to elect otherwise." They were climbing the stone stairs now, higher into the castle's true depths high in the sky. Melkor watched Harry's facial features crease.
"They turned traitor right before his body dropped. Bellatrix ran the moment she saw it happen. A bunch of her mates did as well. The Malfoys didn't think anything of it. They found their son, said their apologies then hightailed it off home as fast as possible. The Malfoys weren't overly involved towards the end of the war so nobody thought too much of it." Harry's lips were turned downwards. "By the time we got there they, like everyone else, they just wanted their family back in one piece. When people found out about this though, well, the public opinion wasn't what I expected."
"And were they rewarded as a traitor deserves?"
"Oh, they already received that while Bellatrix's master was alive and well. Kind of. Bellatrix just wanted to rub some salt into the wounds at this point. She had this barmy reasoning that if the Malfoys had of stayed that her Master wouldn't be an ash pile on the ground. Completely insane considering what did him in." Melkor clacked his beak. Keeping pace more evenly, the trio of phantoms inched their way up the stairs. "The house was fairly hostile by the time Bellatrix took them prisoner. Her, her inbred husband, his braindead brother and their halfwit of a friend, Rookwood, were all waiting for them."
"I take it that someone told you about their circumstances for you to be present at all." Melkor ruffled his feathers.
"A House-Elf told me. Kreacher, to be more precise. He used to be pretty friendly with their son, Draco. Went to check on him and well... " Amplified by the dim lighting, shadows were more readily apparent on Harry's face. The memory had swung open a rather plain and gouged wooden door to reveal a grand suite lined in subdued greens and shattered furniture. Once expensive furniture lay shattered on a scorched carpet. A bookshelf had been snapped in some prior struggle, a cascade of hide-bound tomes lay spread on the floor. Thick curtains had been pulled across cracked and spotted glass panels. A large four-poster bed had been removed from what had been an elevated dais near a window and stuffed in a dark corner of the room. Ripped fabric dangled listlessly, only swaying briefly as the door creaked open.
"Who's there?" Melkor quivered at the hoarse tones of a young man who's soft voice could hardly be heard above above the cracking of boots on splinters.
"Not a word." Harry's eyes burned as he watched his memory approach the wrecked bed. A pale, pointed and incredibly young face was peering from behind shredded curtains. "You can't tell because this is a memory, but this place was bloody freezing." Indeed, the boy who Melkor assumed to be Draco seemed to be slightly blue in colour. The coverings on the bed were nowhere to be seen and boy wearing fine silk robes which served plenty of style but little for warmth or comfort. Trembling violently, teeth attempting to chatter from beneath the grip of his jaw, Draco Malfoy was the living nightmare every noble in Arda had experienced at least once. From the blazing day outside, Melkor had no doubts as to the cold not being natural in origin.
"What in Merlin's name happened to you, Malfoy?" The memory of Harry asked bluntly, face still concealed in his cloak. Malfoy yelped and leapt backwards into the darkness.
"Potter!" Malfoy hissed through chattering teeth. "How?"
"Kreacher, I own him remember?" Own? Harry's memory was sneaking closer. "What happened?" The dream world trembled yet again. Harry for his part remained entirely unconcerned as the world buckled around him.
"They were here. Waiting for us. I think mother is fine, but they took father! They took him. In the cellar. Please." Tears were running down the boy's face, now fully exposed. Deep cuts, only partially healed had been sliced into his face. The robes were tattered, bruised arms exposed through rips in the cloth. Melkor would have welcomed the ability to view Harry's memory form, as it was he could only hesitate a guess as to what Harry's small shuffling steps meant with an inability to see his face. He angled a questioning beak towards his roosting post.
"Oh that was definitely hesitation on my part. I had Malfoy's wand along with mine. Stole it off him a few months before this encounter and kept it afterwards. The question was whether or not I should've given it back. This all makes a lot of sense in hindsight really." Melkor winced as Harry's memory form lowered the hood of the Invisibility Cloak and revealed Harry's face, almost unchanged from the doppelganger on which he was perched. Melkor leaned forwards, talons sinking into Harry's robes. How curious.
"Malfoy, you're going to have to look at me." The memory stated gingerly. For a passing moment their eyes met, before Malfoy recoiled and hissed in pain. Harry's memory-self stumbled backwards, clutching his head.
"Picking up new tricks, Potter?" The ferret faced boy snarled.
"Only the ones that keep me alive. I haven't forgotten the last time Kreacher told us someone was in trouble."
"The Dark Lord would be proud." Malfoy spat from between gritted teeth.
"I actually think he'd be extremely critical about my technique." Malfoy snorted at Harry. "Well, I think that's confirmation that you're not going to attack me if I give you your wand back." With a continued expression of disgruntlement, Harry tossed back Malfoy's stick of a wand and flicked his own in Malfoy's direction. A surge of colour came back into the pale face as he was rapidly warmed.
"Thanks." Malfoy grunted, slowly climbing over the foot of the bed.
"You know where your mother is, right?" Memory-Harry asked. Malfoy nodded in response. "You take care of her, I'll get your father. Anything additional I should know about?"
"Rookwood is with them. Bellatrix's husband and his brother." The chatter in his voice had faded, but it remained rough and perhaps overused.
"That must've been one hell of a family reunion. Here, I'll Disillusion you before you go." Harry's memory rapped Malfoy across the head with his wand, Malfoy fading entirely with the Charm's completion.
"Potter." Malfoy presumably reached into a deep pocket and a black pouch materialised, then seemingly pelted itself towards Harry's head.
With that Harry's Cloak had been replaced and the contradictory pair flew onto the landing and in opposite directions. They glided after the memory as newly Silenced shoes took steps three at a time as he literally bounded down the stairs. Harry's memory skidded around the corner, immaculate carpet neatly dragging him into position as he made for the direction of the drawing room while the pointy nosed bust leaned backwards. Without even reaching for it, the brass launched itself open directly into the face of the exiting Bellatrix Lestrange. "I'm not even sure if the door is hinged to swing that way," Harry noted mildly. Melkor watched with morbid fascination as Harry Banished a pouch full of black powder into the room past Bellatrix and released a series of scuttling objects from another. They cheerfully zoomed inwards, Bellatrix fell backwards in a scream of rage and a deafening explosion rattled dust from the ceiling.
"Well, that was quite spectacular."
"Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and some enhanced Decoy Detonators gifted by Fred and George. Something about thanking the Malfoys for them. I don't think this is quite what they had in mind, but they forgave me for it afterwards. I didn't exactly tell anyone it was a rescue mission." Harry shrugged and the memory behind him whispered something. "Homenum Revelio is the spell, it reveals humans." Harry's memory swore in a distinctly louder tone of voice than the spell which had been incanted.
"I take it there were more than five people in the room." More screams of rage joined that of Bellatrix's initial outcry.
"There was six," Melkor heard Harry sigh and trilled.
"In addition to our good friends Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix, the Lestrange brothers and Rookwood, we had Yaxley lurking in the corner." Melkor watched the echo of Harry hug the side of the door as a series of sickly coloured lights blasted outwards from the room. Another handful of Detonators were carefully lobbed into the room, another series of yells and tremors as Harry slid around the corner into the depths of the room. Melkor and Harry leisurely entered the drawing room.
Melkor could hear the hiss of flames, shrieks and a shrill scream of "Who would dare to interfere?". Harry rolled his eyes in the directions of Melkor.
"They never really worked out that blasting off spells while you're blind isn't a great idea."
"I was expecting something more... notable."
"Were you now? I don't know about the wars you've been in over however many millennia, but ours have never been glorious. Usually it's small teams of people bumping off other people as they sleep. Not enough of us for large scale epic battles. More cloak and dagger than anything else."
"Ah, so the operation you are carrying out here, then?"
"Nope. These guys were awake and perfectly capable of defending themselves, unfortunately." Harry rolled his eyes at Melkor. "I'd have preferred if they were sleeping." Harry made a noise at the back of his throat. "Bloody powder, I can't even remember what spells I used here."
"Were your spells not worth viewing?"
"More like they couldn't be viewed. Malfoy didn't have his Hand of Glory on him so I couldn't use it as a light. Broke it I think." A sharp wail issued through the open door in conjunction with a sickening crunch. "That was Bellatrix on the receiving end of something she probably should've dodged." Another yell with a cracking noise, this time a male, followed by a strangled gasping of air. "That was her brother-in-law, took a boot to the guts off Lucius. Pretty sure you heard some ribs cracking." Finally, an explosive crack of some heavy object shattering and one final yell. Rapidly approaching footfalls approached and two men covered in white dust burst into Melkor's like of sight. A pockmarked man, stooped low, was sprinting through the hallway, only for the toes of his boots to catch the edge of the rolling carpet and sent him sprawling. "There's Rookwood, in fine form." The blond haired man trailing Rockwood, unable to stop in time, hooked Rockwood's fallen body and flew head first over his colleague in an uncontrolled tumble. "And Yaxley, also putting out his best."
"Your kind are not all together coordinated."
"Robes do it to you. Eyes probably hadn't adjusted to the light either. We need to start heading outside now for the next part," commented Harry, craning his head to squint at the front door. As he spoke the two entangled man were struggling to their feet while exchanging torrents of abuse.
"Piss off, Rookwood!" The blond was screaming as he staggered to his feet and bolted for the front door. The man he stumbled over spat out a sharply articulated word as he too clambered to his feet.
"And this is the nobility of my world, mind you," said Harry, shaking his head.
They were moving back to the lobby once more when a pale, distorted streak hurtled in front of them and out the handsome door, narrowly tailing the two men who had only just cleared the entryway. "And there's Malfoy with his mother and some sort of highly illegal Levitation and or Flying Charm."
"For the love of Merlin, Potter, hurry up!" Echoed from outside. It was then the house began to tremble.
"Well, Harry?" Melkor chittered deeply, kneading his talons deeper into Harry's thick, hided robes.
"I accidentally collapsed a string of wards holding the place together," Harry explained haltingly. "Spells do strange things when you mix them and I sort of forgot to test this one before I used it."
"You forgot," the corvid turned to Harry. "How does one forget to test their magics?"
"It's a compression spell, you know, so I could shrink the powder to just where they were and keep it away from me. I made it for air compression, but it turns out that I didn't quite limit it as much as I'd have liked."
"And the difficulty with the spell?" Melkor asked lightly.
"It compressed space and time instead of just air." Melkor squawked heartily, violently rocking back and forth as Harry itched at an empty spot on his pale nose. "You done yet?" Harry hoisted the quivering bird into his arms as he stepped back into the light of the day. The bird's beady eyes honed on a thin, skeletal looking woman who leaned oddly against a slice of clear air. Flush to a lining hedge, a peacock dipped its head inquisitively towards the anomaly.
"Not yet, no," Melkor panted.
"Oh Great Morgoth, Enemy of Arda, Consumer of Gourmet Pizza, Destroyer of Worlds, Idealistic Sap, God Who Wasn't Hugged Enough, made helpless by a spell gone wrong. I bet you everyone living here wishes they had've got that one wrong."
"Indeed, it would have offered them some scant seconds of relief before I crushed them for their insolence."
"Take a look." And the Dark Lord gazed up at a building no longer as majestic as before. Memory-Harry, with an aristocratic blond haired head of hair bouncing loosely over one shoulder, was running as fast as his legs could carry him. Behind the building twisted and warped, stonework distorting and reforming, towers rising and falling, wood splintered and regenerated as the manor stuttered and bucked. A window exploded and reformed, hedges rimming the front door withered and regrew. A criss-cross of of ages cycled in a single second as it shuddered, light shearing it sideways before it snapped back to a vertical position. Endlessly cycling from past to present, the manor shrieked in protest, wards cracking and cascading downwards in a haemorrhage of light. The only dead constructs in a constant circle of rebirth. A living breathing relic of another world shaking itself to pieces across the fabric of time.
Draco Malfoy, with Harry close behind were pumping every respective limb as hard as possible as the anomaly grew with shattered fingers and reached out to them. A clawed hand thrusting through the steaming air. The peacocks faded and returned, the grass to hardened black earth and back again. The main path swirled away abruptly and lashed back whip-like as Harry's phantom launched himself across the boundary, robes flapping wildly.
In a tangle of memory and flesh, they watched the each edge of Malfoy Manor fold and spiral inwards to nothingness. A moment of silence, then deafening thunder which blasted the memories backwards as air rushed to fill in the now vacant space.
"You broke time," Melkor breathed.
"That sounds a lot more impressive than what actually happened," Harry twitched his fringe away from his eyes. "I broke about three seconds of time which broke the wards and that caused that. If I had've done it in a Muggle house nothing would've happened. Not enough magic to do this to an unwarded building. No magic to mix."
"But you did not. You did it in a place seeped in ancient magic and memories."
"You'd be hard pressed to get something so extreme short of Hogwarts or the Ministry or any of the other old magical buildings. Malfoy Manor's a few hundred years old, but I could be wrong."
"Fascinating."
"Can you do me a favour?" Harry was examining Melkor critically, even as he lay belly up in the wizard's arms.
"It depends strongly on the favour."
"Have a think about what that same spell would do to Arda, an entire world sustained by magic and memory." Frost resonated within the feathered form, Melkor shuddered involuntarily as words rolled over him. Foreign and unforgiving, it seeped into his very constructed bones.
"Surely not." The crow blinked upwards at Harry, but the features were stony and unchanged.
"Anything built by magic and this place is one giant magical construction." In that case, I too am a magical construction...
"So if you were to truly end this world..."
"Yeah, mate, you probably wouldn't come out of it in one piece. Nothing would..."
"You said it spread only as far as the ward boundaries." Harry's face was inscrutable, blanked by some undefinable emotion that seldom surfaced in the Dark Lord's presence.
"Adra has no wards, not even the barrier your old man used to keep the atmosphere in."
"The reaction would have no end."
"Not one I know about, but you know your backyard better than I do."
"I will have to rethink our stratagem." A crystal clear image filled the bird's mind of Arda swirling, spirally and simply ceasing to be... taking him with it. "We have already experienced irregularities with your spellwork."
Melkor watched as Harry's memory spun form abruptly and the scene ended. They were sitting once more sitting beside a lake where a set of tentacles flailed above the surface.
"You want to limit how much I get involved." The dark haired man asked, a youthful eyebrow arching upwards. "Really, you know this won't work if I'm not involved."
"No no no, I want to limit how much of your magic is to be involved." Melkor rolled from foot to foot on Harry's shoulder.
"What exactly are you proposing? My magic is the only reason you haven't been made permanently dead yet. The interaction we had was pretty mild."
"I propose that we use mine instead." There was a thrum buzzing through his constructed form. Perhaps... just perhaps...
"The magic you don't have anymore? There's no way the body I made for you can hold that much energy. Even if you retrieve it there's nowhere for you to store it without someone knowing exactly where you're hiding. Taking on the pantheon wasn't part of the agreement."
"That is why I propose for you to store it within yourself instead." From a table across the hall, echoing through the corridors into the open air, Melkor heard a mirthless laugh, tinged with mania. Harry stared.