International Wizarding School Competition
Story Title: The Possession of Albus Severus Potter
School: Durmstrang
Theme: Fear - Write about a character discovering or facing their worst fear.
Mandatory Prompt: (character) Ginny Weasley
Additional Prompt: (plot point) Ghostly Possession
Year: 7
Word Count: 2,955
Warning for possession by ghost, exorcism, and religious tones. I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who beta read this story for me. It truly means a lot to me that you would take the time out to help me like this. I would also like to take the time to thank my Durmstrang for being the best teammates that anyone could ever ask for. So, thank you all so very much. I hope you enjoy The Possession of Albus Severus Potter.
Dread surrounded me like an ice-cold blanket. I had known this fear before when I was a young girl. When I would lose hours on end and wake up in my dorm room with chicken blood on my hands. But the thing that frightened me the most was that this wasn't happening to me. It was happening to one of my children.
It had been little things that Harry had pointed out that made me start to take notice that our youngest son, Albus was possessed. Like how often he'd spend hours on end glaring at his father during summer holidays. He'd also speak against Muggles and Muggleborns and not even know that he'd done so ten minutes later.
An incident involving Hermione came to mind when my youngest son had called his Aunt a Mudblood and his uncle Ron a Blood traitor. The voice that had come from him that day had held a hint of Tom Riddle's voice and mannerisms to it. But I thought nothing of it because he was back to being Albus in the time it took to blink an eye.
I just didn't want to believe that this could be happening to my son. My youngest boy. I knew that I had to prove Harry's and my own fears wrong. I knew that….but I didn't know anything, did I?
"What are you thinking about, Gin?" Harry asked me as we lay awake in bed.
"You know what I'm thinking about Harry," I said, turning on my side to look at him. "I'm thinking about the same thing that I have been thinking about since you told me about…."
"Maybe I'm just making something out of nothing?" Harry said, sighing as he turned on his side to face me, too. "Maybe it's just a bit of….I don't know. Maybe it's a prank on his part? You know how many rumors from our days at Hogwarts are still floating around. Maybe he heard one of the rumors…."
"But wouldn't he know that's not a good form of prank to play on us, Harry?" I asked, allowing a bit of my fear to creep into my voice. "I know I raised him better than that. We raised him better than that."
"I don't know what to say then, Gin," he said, leaning up on his elbow. "I hope to Merlin that I'm wrong but…."
"But sometimes hope isn't met and fulfilled the way we want it to be," I finished for him. "What are we going to do if he is….you know what?"
"Possessed?"
I nodded, hating the sound of the word. Hating the fact that the word was even being spoken in my house. By my husband. About my son. Hating the fact that I felt like there was nothing that I could do to help Albus because the very thought of my son being possessed brought back thoughts of my own possession by Tom Riddle's spirit through his diary. A sharp chill sent tingles down my spine and had me leaning closer to Harry's warmth.
"We will handle that if and when we come to it," Harry said, putting his arms around me and enveloping me in warmth.
I had thought that we'd already determined that Albus was possessed and now we only had to deal with the outcome of it. But looking into Harry's eyes I could see my fear magnified back at me. He must have come to the same conclusion that I had without and I knew it without him having to say so.
"Alright," I said, the feeling of dread and tiredness mixing and dragging me into a world of troubled sleep as I snuggled into my husband's chest.
My dreams hadn't taken such a dark turn since the year that I started Hogwarts. The year that I was possessed by part of the spirit of Tom Riddle Jr. otherwise known as Voldemort. All of them featured the same theme. Albus possessed by Voldemort standing above Harry and me with his wand pointed at us the killing curse plain upon his lips. But before it could hit us I could feel myself being shaken awake.
"Don't…" I shouted, sitting up in bed and looking around me for the source of the shaking. I finally found it in the shaking form of my daughter, Lily Luna. "Honey, what's wrong?" I asked, pulling her into a hug and cradling her against me.
"Something weird is going on in Albus's room," she whispered, the fear showing clearly in her voice.
"What's going on in Albus's room?" I asked, watching her face as she tried hard not to look as scared as she sounded.
"He was talking to someone," she said, looking towards the door as though afraid some invisible being was watching us and listening in. "This strange voice was answering him back but with a hint of Albus's own voice in it."
The cold dread enveloped me once more, going deeper and deeper into my very being. I looked at her and asked quite clearly, "Was the voice a rather thin, cold, and cultured one?"
She nodded.
I had been hoping that she wouldn't nod. I was hoping that she would shake her head. I knew now for sure that Albus Severus was possessed, and I knew who possessed him. Neither of these were a comforting thought at all, seeing as the person I knew it to be would rather see my entire family dead.
"Wake Daddy up for me, Lily," I said, sliding out of bed and putting my slippers on. "I'm going to go and check on your brothers."
"But Mummy…."
"Lily, do as I say," I said, going out the door after picking up my wand. I didn't know what I was going to do with it. It's not like I was going to cause harm to my own child.
"You must do it," I heard the familiar thin, reedy voice say, and to my shock, Lily had described it accurately enough. Especially the undertone of the voice which was my son's.
"But why?" Albus asked, his voice sounding as terrified as I felt at the moment. "Can't we just ask…."
"No." The voice was brisk and brokered no arguments. "There can be no chance that we will be moved against until I have once more regained a body of my own."
"What will happen to me then?" Albus asked, voice shaking warily as though he'd had this conversation several times before.
"As I've told you before, dear Albus, once you have outlived your usefulness you will rejoin your family."
"But that's not…."
"Life is not fair," the cold voice said as I silently slid the door open.
When I peered into the room, it looked like Albus was staring into the mirror and looking at his reflection. But the person in the mirror wasn't Albus Severus at all. I knew that face and that voice. I'd seen and heard them once upon a time when I was younger and not so wise. The trusted voice of 'friend' who only wanted to help me.
"You were being too loud," the voice of Tom Riddle chided my son from his own mouth. "Do something, you fool."
Before Riddle could make Albus move towards his wand, I had brought out my own and shot a full body binding curse at my son. He fell to the floor where he stood with a bang. I could hear the approaching footsteps of both James and Harry as they raced towards the room.
"What's going on?" Harry asked as he crashed through the open door and into our son's room. His eyes fell first on the full-length mirror which showed not our son lying at my feet but his old fallen foe Tom Riddle Jr. otherwise known as Voldemort. He did a double-take: looking from the mirror to our son then back to the mirror and once more to our son. "What's going on here?"
"Lily woke me up a few minutes ago and told me that she'd heard a voice coming from Albus's room," I said, looking at my son who was being made to glare maliciously at both my husband and myself. "When I heard the voice that didn't entirely belong to Albus I knew that thing which we'd discussed earlier was true. I knew I had to act before something worse than this happened to us."
"Who?" Harry asked, staring sadly at our son. "Who are you?"
"I might not look familiar to you, Mr. Potter," the cold voice said while making our son glare at his father. "But I assure you, you know perfectly well who this is. I told you before you killed me that we would forever be tied together, you and I, didn't I?"
"Voldemort," Harry said, his face going a sickly pale.
Albus's mouth opened and a thin, reedy laugh escaped him. A laugh that sounded full of malice and death. His eyes glittered a pure black as Voldemort took full control of Albus's body.
"Your spell will not hold me forever, woman," snarled Voldemort. I couldn't think of the being in front of me as my son. My son would never say anything like that to me. My son wouldn't have given me cause to put him under any such spell.
"James, go and bring me the phone," Harry told our oldest who was standing in the doorway wide-eyed. "I think I have an idea on what to do. Something I saw once in a Muggle movie. Now!"
The dark-haired boy backed into the hallway nodding his head. I could hear his feet pounding across the floor and towards the stairway, Lily calling after him asking if everything was alright. No. It wasn't alright.
"Gin, go and take Lily and James to your parents' house. I will stay and look after Albus," Harry said, holding his own wand at our son.
"Harry…."
"Ginny, now!"
I nodded back out the doorway with my wand still aloft. I padded back towards my room and dressed as quickly as possible and motioned for Lily to come with me. I took her downstairs where James was just grabbing the phone and turning to head back up the stairs to take it to his father. I waited until he had returned with a frightened look on his face.
"Mum, what's an exorcist?" he asked, walking over to me that sad, frightened look breaking my heart. "Why does Dad want one to come and take a look at Albus?"
"Is that who your father wanted the phone to call?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm and the fear out of my voice.
James nodded. "What's wrong? Why does Albus need an exorcist?"
"I'll explain later," I said, taking a scoop of Floo Powder and throwing it into the flames. Not wasting any time, when the flames turned emerald, I ushered my children into the flames and cried out, "The Burrow!"
Stumbling out of the flames into the kitchen of my childhood home, I could see the confused look on my mother's face as she sat in her rocking chair knitting.
"What's going on, Ginny?" she asked, setting her knitting aside. "Is everything alright?"
"I'll explain later, Mum," I said, looking back at the flames which had just turned normal once more. "Can you watch James and Lily for me? It's important."
"Of course," she answered, moving over to place her arms around her grandchildren. "Where's Albus?"
"I'll explain later," I said, the cold dread once more clouding my mind. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if we couldn't get him back. If he remained possessed by Voldemort. "Once the matter has been dealt with."
I moved back towards the fireplace, taking a huge handful of Floo Powder before she could say another word. I threw it in the fire and once again as soon as the flames flickered emerald I walked into them, this time crying out my own address. The one where my husband was holding our possessed son at wandpoint and more than likely praying that either I or help would return soon.
When I was once back at my own house I could hear footsteps coming from overhead. The sound was making my heart leap into my throat and almost choke me. I felt as though I was floating outside of my body as I walked up the stairs and towards the room where I had left my son and husband.
"I thought I sent you to Mum and Dad's," Harry said, looking out of the doorway. "With James and Lily."
"You did but I wasn't about ready to leave you here without any help if your plan didn't work out how you thought it would," I said, looking past him to see an unfamiliar man dressed in all black standing by my youngest son's side. "Who is that?"
"That's a priest from the Muggle world," Harry said, sending a cold chill down my spine. Muggles weren't supposed to know that magic existed. Why had Harry decided to bring one into our problems?
"He said that the Muggle church has a thing that can cast Voldemort out of Albus. Exercise or something like that."
"Exorcism," the priest said, walking over. "You must be the young man's mother. I am sorry for your plight, my child."
"You're sure that this exorcism will work?" I asked, watching as Albus glared at everyone in the room in turn. "That it will drive out the evil spirit in my son?"
"I am sure it will work, ma'am," the man said, looking at my son.
"But the spirit won't be able to linger, right?" I asked, looking at him in concern. "It's just that I have two other children that call this place home. I don't want to bring either of them back if they might also end up this way."
"I assure you," the priest said, putting a hand on my shoulder, "this night will be the spirit's last night on this plain."
Voldemort's thin, raspy laugh flew from my son's mouth as he glared at the priest once more. "Don't make such lofty promises, Muggle," Voldemort's voice snarled. "You have no control here."
"I may not have power here, but there is a higher power that works through me, and He will see you unhand this boy tonight, spirit," the priest said, holding out a vial of water in a jar with a cross on it. He then started to chant something in Latin like a strange type of spell that I had never heard before.
"Mummy, make him stop," Albus screamed, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes and a pleading face. "Mummy, he's hurting me. Make him stop!"
I felt Harry's arm wrap around my shoulder and turn me from the twisted, screaming face of my youngest boy. Although the image of his face that way floated still behind my eyes making tears sting them.
"Release your hold of this boy now, evil spirit," the priest said, flinging the water at my son and causing him to scream in pain. The chanting in Latin began again in earnest.
It went on for hours and hours on end: demanding that the spirit leave followed by the Latin chanting that mingled with Albus's tortured screams when the water from the jar touched him. It felt like never-ending torture, no doubt Voldemort's plan.
"What is your name, spirit?" the priest asked, looking at the boy in pity.
"I won't tell you," Voldemort's voice said, sounding a little less like Albus's than it originally had when I had first come upon them unawares. "You have no power over me."
"Tom Marvolo Riddle," I said, walking over and standing by the priest's side. "akaVoldemort."
Albus's face twisted into a glare of pure hatred, but as his mother, I could see the fear of my little boy behind it.
"We cast you out, Tom Marvolo Riddle who is also Lord Voldemort," the priest said, once more shaking the holy water on Albus and causing him to scream. "We cast you away from this place of light and send you on your way to your final resting place."
"No," Voldemort screamed, fear filling his voice. "No!"
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," the priest, Harry, and I all chanted. I had no clue what it all meant, but I trusted Harry enough to follow his lead. "Amen!"
A terrible shrieking sound came from where Albus lay unconscious, but it wasn't coming from Albus. Instead, it came from the ghostly figure floating above Albus's body and glaring at us.
His cold malicious eyes seemed like red reptilian slits as they glared daggers at us. He was about to speak when a cutting wind ran through the house. The maliciousness was gone from Voldemort's eyes in an instant and was replaced by fear. Then the ghostly figure was caught by the wind and dragged out of the house screaming at full force.
As we thanked the priest for his help and Harry walked him out, I could feel the cold dread that had been hanging around the house dissipate. It was as if someone had pressed a switch and sent us from darkness to light. Then and there, I knew that there was nothing more to fear on this front. The problem had been taken care of, and everything had been set right once more. But I would never forget this night and the fear that I had faced down. It would be ingrained in my mind for the rest of my life and more than likely in Albus Severus's too.
I hope you all enjoyed The Possession of Albus Severus Potter. It was really interesting to try writing a story like this for the first time.