The Nightmare Man

Summary: In the depths of the Ministry, there is a cell for the world's most dangerous man… and he wants out.

Pairing/s: None.

Warnings: Time travel, OOC-characters, Light!bashing, Twisted!Harry, Evil!Harry, violence, mention of gore. Yeah, stuff like that.

Disclaimers: I don't own Harry Potter nor do I make any money writing this.

-o-

Thank you all for your reviews!

For those who want to read the prequel to this story, I will post an update on this story when I upload the first chapter of it.

Enjoy the last bit of this story.

-o-

Epilogue

A few months later

The air was hot, the sun blazing down on everyone. The summer was turning out to be hot and humid with little to no rain surprisingly enough.

Harrison solved this by having at least a few of his children nearby. The Dementors were naturally chilly, he wasn't sure where they got that from, so they were only too happy to snuggle up around him and cool him down.

"You're weird," was Harry's only comment before he begged Harrison to make a swimming pool.

After having the teen explain what exactly a swimming pool was, Harrison made one and Harry refused to leave it except at night. More or less. Someone dragged him out when he tried to sleep there.

Right now Lucy was learning to swim with Elise and Joanne who both loved the pool. As heat apparently wasn't good for small children Angel was inside and away from the sun. Severus was baby-sitting her, more than happy to not go out which of course only spurred more rumours he was actually a vampire. Harrison offered to give him a set of fake fangs when he returned as a potions professor at Hogwarts, and Severus was seriously considering it.

For now though Harrison didn't want to make anything.

"Summers didn't use to be this hot!" he complained to Lucian. "This is unnatural!"

"Actually, it's quite normal nowadays. You've been spending too many summers in a damp cell underground."

"At least there was no bloody heat down there!"

The Dementors moved closer as Harrison fanned himself. Lucian, dressed in light clothes, sat down underneath the shade beside the Nightmare Lord and said:

"Why not use a cooling charm?"

"I'm not good with those kinds of spells," Harrison said. "You know, I can move a mountain with a snap of my fingers but ask me to levitate a spoon… Merlin, magic is complicated at times."

"You can levitate things."

"Have you seen me levitate a spoon?"

Lucian thought about it as Harrison got more comfortable.

"No," the servant admitted.

"Well, it wasn't much spoon left after I tried to be honest."

"Our great master, defeated by a spoon."

"Yes, defeated by a spoon… oh, Voldemort's here. Doesn't that man ever stop working?"

"No, he doesn't."

"At least Harry's not here to great him alone. That was one awkward silence I walked in on."

It had happened not too long after the final battle. Harrison had been in the dungeons, preparing… guts, if you had to ask, and for some reason no one else was there when Voldemort arrived. No one else but Harry. Harrison had walked up ten minutes later to a tension he could cut through. To make that tension go away he made a snap decision and painted stripes on Harry's cheeks with the blood on his fingers, making the teen shriek in rage. They ended up having a physical fight that made Voldemort snort, and the tension was gone.

Harry was still wary of the Dark Lord but they did manage to greet each other politely before one of them fled from the room.

Voldemort came out to the back where they were and took one look at Harrison with his Dementors before glancing over at Lucian and saying:

"When he made you into his servants, he dished out all of his sanity to you guys, right?"

"Oi!"

"I believe so," Lucian said. "Would you like a drink?"

"Ywgraine already offered and is on her way. She won't poison it?"

"No, that's what master does."

"Once!" Harrison said. "I did it once. Alright guys, give me some room to breathe."

The Dementors moved away, passing Voldemort and fleeing into the darkness of the manor. One of them stayed behind of Harrison, breathing down his neck. Harrison himself had thrown off his robes and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, shoes left somewhere in the manor to be picked up by someone much, much later.

"Have you finished working for the day, or are you just taking a break?" Harrison wondered.

"You're still not going to become headmaster of Hogwarts?"

"That again? I told you, paperwork and me does not function well. I set paperwork on fire. It offends me."

"He's impossible," Voldemort told Lucian. "I ought to make you headmaster to punish him."

"You're not taking Lucian away!"

"Master, I don't have the qualifications to become headmaster anyway," the blond man said but not moving away from Harrison's grip.

"You're too clingy for your age," Voldemort said.

"Yes, I'm a clingy old man, what are you going to do about it? Are you here only because of the headmaster-situation?"

"Yes, and to take a break. If I had started on anymore paperwork, I might have just followed your example and set it on fire."

"That's the only way to deal with paperwork," Harrison said and sat up properly.

Ywgraine came with Voldemort's drink and then went off to the pool.

"New installation?" the Dark Lord wondered.

"Yes, Harry told me how they should look like."

"You've lived in this time once before," the man said, "and you don't remember swimming pools?"

"I never really was in one."

Voldemort did know about Harrison's past as Harry Potter. A short version of it anyway. Freaking out was an understatement and Voldemort had never been so close to passing out as in that moment. After that he nearly made Harrison pass out by asking around five-hundred questions and not allowing Harrison to breathe between the answers. Then he asked about another five-hundred questions before staring at Harrison, declaring the whole day insane and went home to lie down in a dark room.

He returned the next day and demanded to know how it was to see Dumbledore die twice. After that he wanted to see memories of Harrison's life as a teen, but when his questions started up again and revolved around the whole time-travelling thing Harrison pulled the stops and said he had to go lie down in a dark room if he started thinking too much about it.

It had taken them a few days to get over the whole thing, and now Voldemort treated Harrison's past as a very fucked up timeline that they should never touch, not even with a ten-foot pole. It didn't stop Voldemort from sort of hovering around the subject now and then.

"But you lived in this time," Voldemort stressed. "I haven't lived amongst Muggles since I was seventeen and I know what a swimming pool is!"

"That was a long time ago," Harrison replied.

"Meaning," Lucian said, "you are old and have forgotten."

"You're about as old as I am so shut up."

"Apparently you made us with better memory than yourself."

"Lucian, shut up."

Voldemort snorted and leaned back, sipping at his drink.

"He seems happy at least," the Dark Lord said, gesturing at Harry. "Despite losing both of his parents."

"He's strong," Harrison said.

"He doesn't hate Severus for it?"

"No. I thought he would but he didn't. Lily could've been spared but… she decided not to let that happen." Harrison sighed. "It did pain Severus a bit to kill her… apparently they were quite good friends."

"So I heard. Why didn't she just give up?"

"She could never imagine the dark side as anything but pure evil," Harrison said. He had seen Severus' memories and honestly wasn't surprised at her reaction and what she had done to make Severus cut her down. "She was so disgustingly stubborn."

"But you didn't kill her."

"No, I didn't. I let her go, several times. Sentimental perhaps? She was my mother after all."

"She was Severus' friend and he managed to kill her."

"If he hadn't, I probably would have, eventually… I've been taunting parents for so long that I did it with her as well."

"You are a horrible person," Voldemort concluded. "And so am I. Cheers for that."

"Cheers."

Lunch was served outside. Harrison was beginning to believe that most of his servants would prefer to follow Harry's example and sleep in the pool at night; they were already more or less spending most of their time outside in the shade. The manor wasn't quite as cool as they wanted unless they went down to the dungeons, and no one but Harrison and Severus wanted to be down there at any extended period of time. Cooling charms worked up to a certain point, but never enough to cool down an entire bedroom for a whole night.

Harrison's room was chilly due to him allowing the Dementors to mill around while he slept, but his servants didn't want any of his children breathing down on them. Apparently the sounds alone were nightmare-inspiring, which was kind of the point when he made them.

Harry came up from the pool for a short period of time and sat down next to Harrison. Voldemort stiffened a bit but tried to act normally. Lucy broke the tension by barrelling into Harrison's legs and then climbing up on him, using his clothes to hold on.

"Hello," he said, "I'm not a climbing pole, remember?"

She giggled breathlessly and hugged him around the chest.

"Alright, I don't know what to do now…"

"Just hug her back," Harry said, "she doesn't expect more of you right now."

"What do you mean right now?" Harrison said.

"Oh, it's going to be fun watching you raise them," the teen said. "Watch how Lucy and Angel wrap you completely around their little fingers."

"They will you know," Voldemort added. "You're terrifying to anyone but those two."

"I… I don't know how to raise children. Children are the terrifying ones."

"Stop moaning, master," Elise said, "they're not that difficult. Besides, if you didn't want one you certainly shouldn't have picked up two of them."

Harrison gave in and pulled Lucy to a better position, letting her have a go at the sandwiches that had been prepared. Severus brought Angel out for a bit; no sun at all wasn't good either, and the girl was taken by Ywgraine and Joanne.

"I survived hundreds of years without sun," Harrison pointed out.

"And see how you turned out," Elise replied.

"… Point taken."

"Hundreds of years?" Lucy said. "You're old!"

"Why yes I am," Harrison said. "I am old and evil and I will eat up all the sandwiches for you if you don't eat properly."

"I want ice-cream!"

"Too bad, I will eat your ice-cream too."

"No!"

"If you eat two sandwiches," Harrison said, "I might leave a bit for you."

Lucy did as she was told and ate two sandwiches, drinking the juice Harry handed her. Voldemort watched Harrison for a while before saying:

"You, feeding a child… it's not natural."

"Do I need to start telling you to shut up too?"

-o-

Harrison rarely found time for himself nowadays, which was a startling difference from his earlier life. In the cell, he was punished by solitude, before that… he chose solitude. That and Dementors, but they preferred peace and quiet so it wasn't much of a difference than being alone.

Now he could run across Europe and be sure someone was chasing after him. Probably Elise, because she was used to chase people. This need of theirs to protect him was something Harrison had finally learned to accept, and recognize. He used to have that need too, when he was a teenager.

He remembered people from long ago, or rather, person. When he was thrown into prison as Harry Potter, the Nightmare Lord lost all but one friend. Everyone else abandoned their saviour, but not George Weasley. Had Fred lived through the war, Harry would have had two friends but as it stood, he only got one.

Harrison leaned against the railing of the balcony outside of his bedroom. It was in the middle of the night and the air had somewhat cooled down but he couldn't sleep. He had slept for so long in that cell he felt he didn't need as much as before. So he thought about a George Weasley that no longer was. The George in this time was asleep, bed next to his brother's, both of them probably dreaming what horrible pranks they should plan on… on others, not Harrison. They had learnt that the Nightmare Lord did know how to prank people, and he did it well.

The George he thought of this night was the one who came to Azkaban as often as he could. The one who played Muggle chess with Harry, and the one who fought for him. The one who finally managed to play things right and get Harry out.

The one Harry cared for, and then forgot. Harrison stared up at the dark sky, counted stars and then sighed. Being thrown back into the past had left him with only memories of George, and once he became the Nightmare Lord, those memories were locked away so he could no longer recall caring for anyone.

"Master, are you alright?"

"Lucian… yes, I'm fine."

He turned back to see Lucian stand in the doorway, lightly dressed, eyes searching Harrison's face.

"I just thought of a very old friend. Or young, depending how much of a headache one would like to have before bed."

Lucian frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you actually want me to get a headache?"

"No."

"Then let's leave it at that. An old friend, and a young one. But he's gone either way."

"Master actually had a friend?"

"Yes, I did. I was terrible at it though, I even forgot him for a very long time."

Harrison walked into the room again and sat down on the bed. Lucian moved to close the door to the balcony but Harrison stopped him:

"Leave them open, Lucian, and come here."

The Dementors perked up, their heads turning towards Harrison as he gave them a silent command. One by one they vanished into the cloak he had made into their home, and Lucian sat down.

"You didn't have to call them back just for me," he said.

"I didn't have to, but I did it anyway. Or do you want to return to your room?"

Lucian looked at Harrison and then lay down on the bed. Harrison smiled a bit and leaned back against the headboard.

"I can't promise I'll fall asleep," he said.

"It's alright. But you should. Raising children I hear, is quite an exhausting process."

"Don't remind me. What was I thinking?"

"That they were adorable? Or nothing at all, because master has a tendency to do things without thinking it through."

That was true. Horribly true. Harrison groaned and slid down so he could face Lucian.

"Am I still the nightmare man?" he asked. "Or just an idiot?"

"A bit of both, master. Bit of both."

"… Well, that's better than being just an idiot I suppose."

One of the Dementors peeked up from underneath the bed behind Lucian, and Harrison said nothing. It came closer and then breathed into Lucian's ear, making him shriek.

"Master!"

That was a bit evil Harrison supposed. But that's just who he is.

End

And here we are, at the end. I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Until another time,

Tiro