Chapter 10: Deathday Delirium
Harry raced Draco down the stairs and around the corner, running on air to keep from making a sound. Dante was swiftly coming up behind us, making a tight loop over the ceiling in order to get an edge on them. Harry pulls out into the front and takes the banister at a run, sliding down it's marble polish with ease.
The dropped to the ground before the Great Hall, all three smiling evilly at one another, as Harry and Draco pulled packs of their back. They had a grand total of 187 coconuts and had drawn a variety off odd faces over an incision made for the mouth. Now he was charming them before he and Draco set them up in the Great Hall.
Ginning, Harry took another look at his charts. He really had to invent a new Marauders Map. These paper copies were getting old. Carefully he transformed into Firefly and cried the sack of coconuts to the Great Hall. Harry handed them off to Draco and Dante who started setting them out on rafters. Harry nodded and flew off, his work not in the Great Hall.
He flew up around the school wandlessly adding his two bits to the prank. It would be the biggest since the Marauders. He soared through the sweeping halls, pleasantly aware of the lack of a voice teasing the back of his mind. Everything was going to be fine.
The next morning Draco, Dante and Harry rolled out of bed, ready to great a prank filled morning. They moved to the Great Hall in a huddled mass, Harry pointing out his prank spaces so they wouldn't get cared away. The school's first surprise was when a fourth year stepped on a tile Harry had Bobbie trapped. Suddenly he was gone. Everyone stopped dead. Harry and Draco high-fived and strolled into the Great Hall proudly.
As people filled the hall, Harry and Draco moved into position opposite each other. Dante seated himself beside Hermione, easily keeping her attention off the other two. Ron and Neville were watching the teachers, hopping to keep them none the wiser. They had been on their toes since the theme song incident. Even now they were looking at their food with varying degrees of uncertainty.
Harry and Dante nodded at each other, Harry nudged Draco underneath the table and the three pointed their wands at the ceiling. Quietly they sent their activation spell at the 187 coconuts which promptly fell from the ceiling, bouncing on strings that tied them to the rafters like budgie jumpers.
It looked like they were floating in midair. Just as they had gained everyone's attention, they began to dance. Swinging back and forth, bouncing on their strings the different mouths cracked open and a chorus of "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" began. The larger of them sung a deep base while the smaller sung a high soprano. They sung in perfect harmony through the whole song. When they finished the second versus, Dumbledore suddenly jumped onto the table and sang a rousing rendition, with the dancing coconuts as his background singers.
(A.N: Dumbledore, The coconuts)
I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
De dilly de
There they are a standing in a row
Bum bum bum
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
Bum bum bum
Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist, that's what the show man said!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts.
The teachers jumped on top of the table, with exception of Hagrid who just moved to the front, and started doing a sort of jig, everyone singing. By now the hall was in fits of laughter, people flopping over the tables, clutching their sides, tears pouring down the sides of their faces as the teachers ended with jazz hands, one leg extended, leaning back, large smile spread over their faces.
Harry and Draco where flopped over top of each other, laughing as hard as the others, whipping tears from their eyes as they smiled. After a while Harry's laugh turned into a cough but he was quick to brush off Draco's worried looks. It was bad enough scales still covered most of his body.
After breakfast the second year that had disappeared before breakfast, showed up claming to have been taken to some room in the seventh floor corridor. After that people all over the school were being transported to different sections of the school, even teachers, pushing classes back as people kept showing up late and even teachers were forced to race all over creation to get to classes.
The next problem came in the form of the door knobs. After lunch, the stones went dead but the door knobs came to life. As someone reach out to grasp it, it would move, every time someone tried to grab them they would slip out of reach and wait for the next attempt to grab it. It took eight or nine guys to grab the knob and even then they were sometimes fakes or slid through the door taking that hand with it.
The charm on Snape made him act completely out of character. Whenever he would say an insult, instead a compliment would come out. Whenever he tried to sneer at someone, or smirk, it came out as a smile or a laugh. Whenever he tried to take points from someone, instead he gave points. He tried the opposite, give points, or give a compliment, but it backfired on him.
Instead of giving the child five points and hoping that it would take away, instead it doubled the points given. And when he tried to give a compliment instead his compliments got more and more flattering. Whenever he tried to just wipe his face blank of all emotion, instead he began to laugh hysterically.
Dante's prank on Mrs. Norris was quite funny to the students, though not to Mrs. Norris or the caretaker. Dante had put some kind of spell on Mrs. Norris to attract male cats to her. All day cats were running up to her, and practically stalking her. Mrs. Norris was running around all day, trying to avoid cats that were all trying to get her attention at once.
That day's atmosphere was the complete and total opposite of the one that fell over the school on Halloween.
Harry woke that morning after a rough night of tossing and turning, dreams plaguing his sleep, to find himself soaked in sweat. He was swimming in his sheets, which took him seven minutes to untangle. When he finally managed to sit up his head was swimming, the dorm around him spinning like a top. He groaned and flopped out of bed, coated in the sweat. What was worse was when he realized the salty sweat had crusted in the scales that were still on his arms, chest and back.
He heaved himself up and into the bathroom where he lay himself under the cold pelt of the shower head. When he woke up, someone was propping him up, scrubbing the grim from under his scale plates. He looked blearily over his shoulder to see Draco. The boy had on a pair of boxer shorts but his chest was bare, water dotting his chest like crystals, his laired hair dark with the water it retained.
Harry noticed that he was also clad in boxers though he never remembered putting them on, but as he thought about it he never remembered taking them off. He looked up, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
"Hey" Draco whispered, righting him a bit more. "How you feeling?"
Harry mouthed at him like a guppy. Draco smiled sadly. "You have a fever. Luckily you're trained in self-preservation." Draco pulled Harry closer to him. Harry naturally went for his warmth, glade that Draco had been the one to find him. He was so embraced that whatever on him wasn't flushed from fever, suddenly disappeared into the reddish tinge.
"Hey now… none of that." Draco smiled, pushing Harry's wet bangs from his forehead. "It's not your fault nor can you help what happens. Now, I'm going to pick you up and take you back to your bed. You'll stay there for the rest of the day got it?!"
Harry nodded mutely.
Draco smiled. "Good. I'll come see you during lunch." With flexing muscles Draco's strong arms shifted under Harry's body, cradling his limp forming a padding of thick physical strength. Harry grasped limply at the boy's neck, trying to hold himself as dignifiedly as he could in the arms of another man. Draco hitched him up in his arms and eased the bathroom door open.
"It's breakfast time. No one is around to see you." He whispered, noting the way Harry's fever glazed eyes darted back and forth looking for invisible people, his ears straining to hear footsteps that wouldn't come. Harry relaxed becoming like jelly in the man's arms. He was slowly loosing his grip on reality, sinking farther and farther into dreams he never wanted to have again. In a despite attempt to remain conscious, he clawed at the air above him as he was lowered into a trap of warm bed linens.
The effort was for not, and he sank resignedly into a symphony of eerie dreams accompanied by a strange dance of twitching shivers and painful thrashing.
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It was light out. He knew because their was a small ray of light coming from the slight under the pantry door, which he knew to be directly across from the large sliding glass door in the living room.
He knew that it was late in the morning because the stomach wrenching smell of fat grease in the frying pan wafted towards him through ever opening in the door. He knew that he had twenty-seven more days to go because he had scratched the day markers into the back of the pantry behind the beans that his aunt never used because they gave Dudley gas, a feat he didn't need help with.
He knew that his uncle would be coming for him soon because he always came after his morning's coffee which came after his morning paper. By the beep of the machine, the coffee was done. He knew that he didn't have much time left. He knew that he had endless stretches of time before him. He knew that time was never on his side.
He knew, not un like a child knows the smell of his least favorite food, or the look his grandmother gets when she's about to pinch his checks, or the call of a bully from the school yard window, waiting for the pounding to begin. It was with ten times more horrifying clarity that Harry knew his uncle's greedy, pudgy, maniacal smile as he opened the door, a riding crop in hand, chains around his neck.
"Come along then boy. I've been waiting all morning for this. And I need some time to change my shirt before work if you get any blood on it."
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Harry sat atop the roof of the school building, watching Dudley and his gang run off to get the Dean. He didn't care. He was already in deep water, what more could be done? His uncle didn't know where his books were, and he didn't know that Harry could escape into those books when he was being flogged or burned with the iron. His uncle didn't know that every time he approached Harry with a letter opening or the fire poker, he could simply pull out of his body and drift off into the pages of his texts and learn how to write a message for help in Russian.
He didn't know that Harry could simply pull out of that small hell hole that had been created for him and cast himself into some fictitious world where orphaned boys were saved by family just when times seemed at their worst. He could hid in a place where his uncles abusive words, his aunt's neglect, his cosine's violence, were all barred outside the gate of a world where Harry could sit at the side of family.
He escaped now into the books, filling his mind with the first of the defense books he had recently picked up with the money he earned on the side. He never realized he had been removed from the roof or that he had left the school or even that he was suddenly under the belt of his uncle, just knew that he was quickly learning "Catching Raindrops" and would soon be able to break a man's arm just by twisting out of his grasp.
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The hills were alive with fire. Everywhere he turned there was fire. No matter were he went or what he did to escape, there was fire. Suddenly there was a burly man with army suits. He held a gun, which he pushed to Harry's temple. As if on autopilot, Harry rapped his arms around the gunman's hand and snapped it making him drop the gun. Dodging and rolling, Harry fired off six rounds hitting the people in the shadow of the fire. Hiding behind the skeletal of what had once been a stair case Harry took aim back flipped of the stairs' remains, fired hitting the last man square in the for head before landing on the other side of the fiery ring.
As he spotted his chance he dove out of the ring and heard a gun go off. He felt something penetrate his side, digging deep into the flesh. Falling out of his dive Harry hit the ground with a crack telling him that his arm was dislocated. He rolled away from the sniper and hid behind a tree, transferring his gun to his left hand as his right was unusable. Nearly passing out from pain, Harry looked over his shoulder to where the crunch of a twig alerted him to someone's presence. They were getting closer. Softly letting the gun come to rest against his pounding chest, Harry sighed silently letting the cool metal reassure his racing heart.
Another twig snapped. Harry shimmed up the tree, still soundless. He crept around the side to get a better view of the person behind him. But it wasn't a person. It was a stag…a gleaming white stage with tall antlers.
"Dad?"
Then he heard it, the ominous click of the safety on a gun being release filling the forest, echoing in his mind. The shot rang out before Harry could have imagined. He saw the sniper and he saw the bullet. He saw his father and he felt his feet moving on their own accord. He felt himself spring into the air, throwing his body in front of the stage. He felt the bullet enter his chest. He felt his soul leave his body before his body hit the ground. Every single soul collected in his mind went free. To hell or to heaven it didn't matter, they were free.
Harry watched his father change back. He watched the man pull the bullet from Harry's chest, letting the boy's healing magics work their wonders. He waited for Harry's soul to return to his body like it had so many times before. But something was wrong. Harry's soul wasn't coming back as quickly as it had every other time.
"Harry?" Sirius whispered desperately trying to rouse the boy.
"Son?"
Still nothing.
"Harry come on! It's all over. He's gone Harry you killed him! HARRY! HARRY!" Painful sobs racked his frame. He was shaking violently, Harry's motionless body suddenly shuddering in his arms.
"HARRY!" Sirius cried throwing his head back, screaming to the heavens.
Harry James Potter was dead, at the hands of a muggle.
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Harry woke with a violate jerk that launched him out of his fevered dreams and into the arms of the strong blonde at the end of his bed. Shivering like an Azkaban prisoner, Harry clung to Draco. The last dream had not been a memory. He hoped that all it had been was a fevered dream, but his magic whipped out from his control, licking the minds of his friends, gathered around his bed.
He was painting like a dog out side in the summer's heat, sweat soaking his white t-shirt to a see-through second skin. He felt it being stripped away from his body before he was gently picked up and moved to the bed beside him. He clutched at the arms whimpering, not wanting to be sucked back into the dreams.
He wanted to stay in the strong arms off the unknown person before him. He wanted to see the face behind the sheen of sweat that covered his eyes. He wanted to know who was there for him, that he wasn't on his own any more. He had to settle for a firm hand on his leg as he was pulled back into darkness by the cold covers of the clean bed.
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"Harry?"
Harry spun around, Mr. Fluff on his shoulder as he burped the beast after it's serving of holiday fruitcake, for the timid Miss. Figg.
"My boy, where did you get that bruise?" She pointed to the long bruises around his neck. He had tried to cover them up with a scarf but the house had been warm that Christmas and the cats had insisted on choking him with it so long as he wore it while they played.
"Oh, I got in another fight Miss. Figg." His uncle had set him up with readied made excuses so that if he was ever asked about the wounds when at work for the neighbors, he didn't have to think up elaborate stories.
"Was the boy older then you?" She asked, pretending to be generally interested.
"Much." Harry replied sadly then collected himself.
"Would you like some tea Harry?"
"Not unless you would like some Miss."
"Let's have some then." She followed Harry into the kitchen where she supervised his tea making. She was standing over them, a bottle in hand when Harry returned with the milk. He didn't ask questions. He had learned better when he was three. He was a fast learner. She sipped his tea quietly, allowing the Cat Lady the pleasure of his obedience.
She suddenly reached over, after the tea was gone, and pulled up his shirt to see the black belt with its glistening 'V' buckle.
"What is this used for Harry?"
He wanted too look at her like she was crazy, to respond with "for holding up pants" but his mouth opened of his own accord and words he had been trained all of his life to respond only to Uncle Vernon, slipped out like she had called them from the darkest place in his soul.
"It's used for whipping, when I don't get all my chores done, or I think about telling anyone about my beatings. It's used by holding the leather part and slamming the buckle down onto my back, through a T-shirt if Uncle Vernon's too tired to rip it off but usually he's not. If I scream the number of hits is doubled, if I move it's tripled."
She looked at him with pity then sent him to the store with five dollars to pick up bread.
That night his Uncle beat him with the belt, drawing out the answer to the very question he had been asked that morning. He practically made Harry sing the response. But it wasn't enough. He hit Harry over the back of the head with his now empty whisky bottle before collapsing into his chair so that his wife could haul Harry into the cupboard.
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"BOY!"
Harry ran up the stairs at full tilt, ignoring the splitting pain in his leg and arm as he clung desperately to the limb as it swung uselessly from its socket. He dashed into Dudley's bedroom to hide from his Uncle. He didn't want to think about what the man was going to do to him. He didn't want to do anything but get away.
"HARRY FUCKING POTTER!" He heard his uncle roar. Before he could reach the door he felt pain unlike anything before in his leg. He toppled to the ground and turned around to find that his uncle had plunged a knife into the back of his leg and pulled.
"YOU WILL NOT CAUSE MY FAMILY ANY MORE PROBLEMS! YOU ARE A MENUS AND A DEVIL! YOU WHILE DIE! ONLY THEN WILL MY FAMILY BE FREE!"
Harry rolled away as the knife tried to catch his eye, leaving only a scratch over his eyelid. Another scar.
Harry got away but barely. He made it into his room by rolling away and using his Uncle's weight against him, just as he had learned to do in his book. The man couldn't get up as fast as Harry could. Harry slammed the door shut and pulled the dresser in front of it. He collapsed onto the bed and cried out in pain. He passed out. When he next woke up, his leg had been stitched up and his damaged eye heal with only the nasty scar over it to imply the cut had been there.
That when he heard it. A tempting call that heralded him into the night. It was unfamiliar, but tantalizing in every way. It filled his mind and stole his senses away from him.
Harry sat up, not fully aware of the change from sleep to wakefulness. He tipped out of the bed and moved down the common room stairs, answering the call with one of his own.
Yes…Blood for the young one…You must feed on the liquor of life or be tortured by the lust for it…Come young blood…Follow me…….
Harry nodded, ear pressed against the wall both to hear the voice and to keep himself steady on his shaky legs. He pulled himself along what he thought to be rivers of molten lava. What was he doing? He stopped. This wasn't him. This was the creature within him. This was what he had been fighting for so long. If he gave in, what would Draco think? Would he be able to live with himself? What had he been thinking, diving into this head first without fully understanding its depths?
Live for today… Because you might not make it to tomorrow….Don't fret over the past… it's done and gone…
Harry nodded, all since of reasoning left behind, lifting himself up the jungle wall, rock climbing to the temple wall. He saw the idle, the river of liquid life, and felt his mouth water. He saw a priestess, flaming red hair flowing about her black robes as she scrawled the message across the wall behind where the idle sat. She backed away, respecting his hunger, her face hidden in shadows.
He felt fangs rip from his mouth at a lightning fast speed. His hands braced himself against the bloody wall which he slowly slid down, hands trailing the bloody liquid to his mouth. But the instant he brought it to his lips, it smoldered and turned to ash. A cry of anguish escaped his lips.
Come to me young blood…I will feed you.
Harry picked himself up, finding strength in his need for the feed the creature offered. He was passing down the river, blood all around him, bodies piled up on the shore, the red haired priestess sitting on the banks, hiding in a tangle of vines. He continued on down the shore to where a giant cave was slowly opening, a pure white oracle floating above him, a sad look on her face as she floated over the entrance. He looked into it to see bright yellow eyes gleaming out at him.
His legs gave out, he dropped to the floor motionless, his mind went blank and the distant call became nothing more than a memory. In a last dispirit attempt on the part of his magic, a part that hadn't been used since the seven year old Harry had called so desperately to Sirius that the man had broken out of the Wizard Prison to get to him, he called for his mate, he called to his brother, he called to his father, his alpha and his family.
He called to his sister, his brothers, and his friends, but the call was ended premature, still seven heads shot up in the Great Hall feast and soon all seven bodies were dashing out the door, the same instinct in their minds. The eighth joined them about midway, coming out from a bathroom looking slightly confused but set on the same goals as the others.
Far away, a distressed werewolf and his mate were battling against family to leave the compound, tears streaking down their cheeks as they strained against the wards.
"They're killing him!" Sirius cried desperately. "He's dieing! It's the same call he sent me five years ago! Let me go to him!"
"He wouldn't want you dead!" Regulus argued. "Whatever happened, Dante and Draco can handle it." Grunting against his brother's weight Regulus gave up being nice and pulled him forward, punching him in the gut so as to stun the man while his cousin regrettable did the same to the man's mate.
"What the hell are you doing Harry?" Regulus wondered holding his brother close.
AN: UPDATE! WHOOT!
Okay, so it's been some time and I apologize for that. I'm writing some off side stories that demeaned my attention and their plot lines just wouldn't let me go. Curse you Plot Bunnies! Anywho, I'll try not to get off task any more. BIG THANKS TO ALL REVIEWERS!