CHAPTER 3
Harry looks around and is mildly impressed. It is ten past six in the morning and though the sun has risen already the tightly packed elm trees, reaching heights of almost twenty meters barely let any light in. "I prefer riparian woodlands myself. But well, if it's creepy enough for the Grimm Brothers, why not for a de-bodied Dark Lord, am I right?"
The response hiss is instant.
"You dare! I am the…"
"Yeah, I know who you are, Voldemort, don't get your tail in a twist." The large black snake looked startled as Harry spoke back in Parseltongue then switched back to English. "How long does your host last after possession?"
"The stronger ones last a month." The snake answers without thinking. Excuses could be made that it has been a very long time since he's spoken to a human.
"Wow, that's over fifty snakes since our last encounter in this timeline. Real creepy, Voldster, leaving a trail of animals in your wake. It's a dead give away, pun intended, that you're a psychopath. You know, in case you were wondering."
"What last encounter?!"
"Oh, you know. The one that resulted in you being a human confetti cracker. POP! Bye, bye Dark Balloony."
The viper raises itself up from the rich brown soil, doing its best to stretch out it's almost ninety centimeter body. It stares at Harry for far too long, even for a manner-less Dark Lord, before hissing out. "James Potter! Impossible! I killed you."
"I used to get that a lot. Not the 'you killed me' bit, but the whole 'I look like my Dad' bit. Note the lovely green gems," Harry tilts forward and flutters his eyelashes, "I inherited these beauties from my mother."
"HARRY POTTER!" Voldemort lunges.
With a wave of his hand the snake is restrained by invisible ropes. "Woah there, Voldmeister, hold your thestrals. I come all this way for a nice little chat and you try to bite me. Bad Vipermort, bad!"
"Release me!"
Harry rolls his eyes and a huge grin takes over his face. "Impressive. You know, that sounded exactly like Dr Okun in Independence Day, when the alien has its tentacles around his neck and he's talking to President Whitman. Man, I love Bill Pullman. Such a great actor, I'd vote for him." Then in the worst attempt at an American accent ever tried, he quotes the movie. "We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: 'We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive!'" Harry looks wistful for a second then clears his throat. "Gets me every time. Makes me proud to be, well, I'm not, so never mind. Where were we?"
"Release me!"
"Right, that's how we got here, thanks for the reminder."
"I am…."
"We did that already. Let's move on, yeah?" The snake glares. "I want to try something out before getting rid of you. Alright?!"
"You dare threaten me, the greatest..."
Harry silences him. "I forgot how much you talk about yourself in the third person. Goodness. We're going to have to work on that. How about we get down to business," then because he was definitely a tad insane (hey, we're all pretty crazy, some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all) he sings and bops his head, "to defeat the Huns." Again, he clears his throat, ignoring what just happened. "Now, it's currently 1985 and while five year old Harry Potter is supposed to be tucked away in a cupboard in Surrey, here I am, a man of...hmmm," he pauses, "I'm actually not sure how old I am. But I'm old. And! From the future. A future where I kill you in a little over a decade from now. That about gives you a nice recap of the sitch. Which brings me to our little Black Forest tea party. I gathered all your little trinkets, my dear Dark Klepto," Harry digs into his pocket, pulls out a black pouch which he enlarges into a duffle bag and removes a black diary, a ring, a cup, a tiara and a locket and tosses them on the floor in front of the snake. "I'm gonna put you back together again. It's gonna hurt. Sorry, not sorry."
Harry stuns the snake. He then digs up a pile of dirt, floats the snake on top of it, and surrounds it with the horcruxes. He removes a jar of salt from the same bag and creates a circle around everything with it. He puts the salt away and removes a large cloth covered stick from his bag. He unwraps it to reveal a human femur and places it next to the snake close enough that they touch. Last, he removes a rune engraved athame. He grimaces before shaking off the nerves, lifting his hair away from his face and in a quick motion slices off the lighting scar. He tosses the bloody flap of skin on top of the bone. He waves his hand over his forehead and heals the self inflicted injury and cleans up the dripping blood. He places the knife in his back pocket. Then takes a deep breath and steps out of the circle.
He kneels onto his right knee, resting his left arm on his bent left leg. He rubs his right thumb over the pads of the other fingers, from pinky to pointer, and in a flurry a fifteen inch knotted black wand appears. He presses the tip of his wand on the salt. "From the dust of the ground be made. Breathe in life. Become one living soul."The circle flares instantly and the salt merges to create a solid line. He hears the wretched yowls of the horcruxes as they are ripped from their vessels. The anguished crying of the poor dying viper. Voldemort's screams in agony.
The circle grows warmer by the second, escalating to a fiery inferno within minutes but Harry did not move. Sweat drips from his body as he watches the waves of heat rise from the dirt mound. The smell of burning flesh is nauseating. The snake melts into a puddle of blood, the pilfered bone and carved skin turn to ash. Minutes pass. Still he did not move.
Finally, the forest is quiet once again. The mound blackened and solidified like cooling lava. The ritual is almost over. Harry rights himself, using his shirt he wipes the sweat from his face. His thumb trails down the knots of the wand and it disappears. With a wave of his hand the smoke clears from within the circle. He steps into it and notes that all the trinkets are gone. Left is a tomb. He removes the athame from his pocket and upon the top of the tomb lightly etches a triangle, within it a circle and bisecting both, a straight line. He returns the knife to his pocket then gently places his left hand over the symbol and pushes down as he exhales.
The entire mound crumbles like wet sand revealing a tall, naked, man. The man inhales sharply and groans. Harry steps away to the outside of the circle again, and waits for him to get his bearings.
"Humpty dumpty sat on a wall, humpty dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again." Harry sings as he watches Voldemort slowly sit up and look around. Then after staring like a drunk toddler at a passing deer did he finally look down at himself.
"What…" his voice cracks. He clears his throat. "What have you done?" He is inspecting his hands, flexing his fingers.
Harry bows and says, "I call it the horcrux kragle!" with his arms spread out before straightening up again.
"What?"
"Never mind. You'll get that in like thirty years, maybe. Probably not."
"You made me mortal again?!"
"No, I made you human again." Then Harry starts singing in a horrible French accent and swaying because why not. "Good-looking again, poised and polished again, and gleaming with chaaaarrrrrrmmmmm."
"Stop that infernal racket."
Harry finishes off the last long consonant before pouting. "Tough crowd. Anyway." He claps his hands. "You were always mortal, Humptymort. Everyone and everything dies." He rolls his eyes. "You only extended the inevitable. Once you would have reached an age where your magic couldn't sustain you, then bye-bye horcruxes." He shrugs like it was obvious.
"I will kill you slowly for daring to steal from me!"
Harry gives him a slight frown. "If you wanted immortality, you should have become a vampire."
"Vampires have weaknesses. I am the greatest…"
The ranting was interrupted before it started. "There's this super creepy coven in Volterra that would love you. They have minions, hate humans, love to torture, right up your alley." Harry nods his head way too many times while highlighting the similarities.
"You insufferable brat! You steal from me, threaten to kill me..."
"I said, get rid of, not kill. Both are still options. Depends on how our chat goes."
"How dare you…" Voldemort shouts.
"I was going to offer you tea." Harry narrows his eyes at the man and folds his arms over his chest. "Even some pants, but you're being rude." He shakes his head. "So, you can just stay there, thirsty and naked, Starklord."
"What do you want?" the man bit out.
Harry shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at him seriously. "What would you do if I let you out of the circle?"
"My plans are none of your business!"
Harry starts rocking back and forth on his feet. "Go back to England? Gather your scream queens. Try to take over the world again, Brain?"
"I said…"
"Or," he stops fidgeting and stares into the man's almost black eyes, "would you try to start over. Create a new name for yourself. Not a stupid anagram this time. Maybe go into teaching like you wanted. Help shape the next generation."
"Teaching," Voldemort scoffed. "I am the greatest…."
"You ought to spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself and a little less time trying to impress people." They sit in silence for several minutes glaring at each other.
"You seem to know my answer already. Why bother asking?" Voldemort sneers.
Harry looks up to the sky with a deep frown, hands up beseeching. "Do I get brownie points for trying?" He huffs, looks the man in the eyes, and raises his left arm in his direction. "Goodbye Voldemort."
The force of energy knocks the man flat on his back. Mere seconds later he is sobbing. "Ah ah ah." Sad hiccupping cries without pause erupt from the man. Such pitiful sounds.
Harry grabs his bag. He removes a bottle, a carton of apple juice and two thin vials. He adds the entire contents of the blue vial into the bottle and three drops of the yellow vial. He caps the bottle and shakes it. After examining the color change of the liquid he crosses into the circle.
The man is still wailing. "It's okay. It's okay." He kneels down beside the man, and while supporting his head with his right hand, feeds him the bottle with his left. The man suckles the drink, his whimpering cries pitching as he shrank. By the time he finished the bottle the man was gone. On the ground was a sniffling baby.
Harry removes the bottle from his lips. He wriggles his fingers and the dirt rises around the baby and is transfigured into clothes. The infant is now wearing black shorts that reach below his knees, orange socks, and a green t-shirt that says 'Party Wagon' around a yellow vehicle with four muscled human-reptile mutants hanging out the sides all equipped with swords and nun chucks. He lifts the baby, placing his head on his shoulder and pats his back. "There, there." The boy burps, yawns, and promptly falls asleep.
Harry looks around the site and sighs. He cradles the sleeping boy against his left side and steps out of the circle again. He waves his right hand. The circle and dirt mound are gone.
"Death?" Harry calls out softly to not startle the sleeping baby.
"Hello." A friendly voice answers before a woman flickers into existence.
"Here," Harry passes the boy to her waiting arms.
"He's gorgeous." She smiles down at him and strokes his cheek with her finger. "Who's the cutest little Dark Lord, you are, yes you are."
"Death!"
"Oh, right," she looks away from the boy to Harry. "Sorry, sir."
"I erased his memory. He's literally a newborn."
"I thought you would have turned him into a gym sock."
"I considered it but it wasn't the worst I could think of."
"I'm quite curious now," she says as she rocks the child in her arms like a baby and hums the postlude to In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus."
"I remembered that leech. You know which one. We couldn't eat after learning about it."
"We don't eat."
"Not the point. What was it again?"
"The leech that lives in a Hippopotamus' anus." The woman wrinkled her nose.
Harry wags a finger in her direction. "That's the one. The hippo's anus leech!"
"They don't live long."
"I know. That's the problem. So that's how we have Kindermort."
"I'm not sure how you leapt from anus leech to infant, sir, if I'm being honest."
Harry shrugs. "I don't know how my mind works either."
"What shall I do with him, then?"
"Find him a family, please."
"Here?"
"Wherever."
"Yes, sir." But before leaving she pauses. "Would you like a sample of his blood?"
Harry looks at her confused for a second. "Oh you mean for the scream queens?" She nods "Hmmm," Harry shifts from side to side considering it. "Nah, I can deal with them in a couple of years."
"If you say so."
"Thank you, Death."
"Happy to help, sir," she replies before blinking out of existence.
Harry gathers his supplies and walks deeper into the Black Forest while singing "Breakdown" by Jack Johnson.
ANs:
-Movies and TV Shows that hinted at, sometimes not subtly: Phineas and Ferb, The Lego Movie, Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, Breakfast Club, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
-The ritual words are partly from Genesis when man is created.
-The song Death hums, In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus, is the end of the piece by Mahler which is about the power of death but how love is stronger.
