Author's Notes:
Here we are again, another installment of the Valerian Series that hasn't been rewritten or abandoned!
A couple of story notes before we get much further, though by this point I'm sure you know them all.
The Valerians are a warrior's race, regardless of what skins they wear, and can be very bloodthirsty in their protective natures both within that circle of protection and outside it. Though we haven't seen much of either of them, Ebony and Dark are worse in many cases than the others and their scenes could have an apathy or murderous intent that surpasses anything we've seen even from Tarana in the first few chapters of Sorcerer's Stone way back. I'm giving you all a heads up here because I might forget to later down the line, whether it be in this story or a future one.
As always, I don't own many of the characters that I work with, I simply borrow them and their names from time to time. I'm sure I've mentioned it in the past, but it bears repeating that many of the children here are out of character from their book counterparts. This is because they've been raised differently from those incarnations of their characters, or have had different experiences up to this point. Love or hate them, don't expect a perfect rewrite of them.
And my final story note.
I write because I enjoy doing so. As I'm sure it is for many writers, it's an escape from my everyday life. I'm not perfect and welcome constructive criticism that will make me a better writer and even an extra set of eyes that points out mistakes I've made in spelling, grammar, or even the fact that I'm an American attempting to write a series that takes place in a country I've never been to with almost all of my information being translated through google, up to and including distances from one place to the next. If you've read the last three stories in this series and don't like it, I have no idea what you're doing here in the fourth, but I don't want to hear any nonsense about how the story sucks, my writing is abysmal, and all the characters are like something out of left field.
Be kind to everyone who has the guts to put their stories up for public consumption, because I guarantee it's not something easily done to sit back and watch it be consumed by potential vultures.
All that aside, I'm eager to know what you all think of this story,
Harry Potter, the Valerians, and the Goblet of Fire
Chapter One-Plans in the Dark
Dark slips Peter out from beneath Ebony and Sirius' searching gaze and begins serious preparations with Voldemort and Desmond for the approaching war.
A shadow had stalked the halls of the Riddle house.
Night had set in hours ago and the intruder had been hard at work even before darkness had cast its net on Little Hangleton.
Personally, he had thought his companion more than a little fixated on the mundane meat-sack that lived within the walls of the boring little home, but he needed the ambitious little fool and if assisting him with this desire put him ever closer to his end goal, then so be it.
'The servants are gone for the evening,' the shadow had said, stepping into the kitchen, where the tall, warmly dressed teen stood, staring around with distaste at the literal spit-shined appliances – it had been a long wait this evening, and he had needed a bit of entertainment. 'Your target is in the sitting room. Your tracks are covered, boy, provided you don't do anything foolish.'
The teen, Tom Riddle, – Junior, the shadow had mockingly added – had looked at the direwolf hidden in the shadows of the doorway. "I'm only here to tie up a few loose ends," he had assured his companion.
Dark had scoffed, too-knowing amber eyes watching the teen. 'Don't presume to find me a fool, boy,' he had warned Riddle. 'This is no loose end. This is your ego and nothing more.'
Riddle had thought about his answer carefully. The creature – Valerian, he had to remind himself – had found him in the orphanage months ago and made no secret that he found him useful, but Riddle wasn't fool enough not to know that, at least for the moment, that usefulness had limits. "I want to be sure that any and all shackles that tie me to this world, this mundane life, are gone before we begin to bring the Wizarding World to its proper place."
Dark had snorted, licking a fang. 'And the new bauble you wear?' he had asked, mocking the teen as he was well aware of where he had found the large, gaudy ring he now wore on his index finger, gold with a black stone.
The teen had rubbed his thumb against the stone. "Merely to ensure that those who come after will know that I do not lie. I am who I claim to be."
Dark had sneered at him, his cold amber eyes boring into the teen's own dark ones. 'I have not hunted you down and taught you all that you know, boy, so that you can turn this plan into a vendetta against those who have wronged you. Against those who have abandoned you.'
"No vendetta," Riddle had assured him. "I can't have anyone alive who knows of this heritage. I will be supporting a pureblood hierarchy. To have muggle blood in my veins..." his expression twisted with such hate that there was no way the teen could possibly pretend to enjoy being a half-blood.
Dark wasn't all that fond of the hiccup either, though that was more because of the trouble that may come down the line from the impurity in his veins than because he genuinely cared about their cause.
The black wolf had turned on his tail, leading the teen further into the house. 'Remove your tumor, boy,' he had instructed coldly. 'Despite how early you've made your move, I trust that you haven't fouled it up entirely. There's still work there to be done.'
XX
Tom Riddle Jnr had walked quite casually into the sitting room of his blood father's home.
His namesake, his once loved, now loathed namesake, had finished his meal and sat with his grandparents, equally as hated.
They'd clearly managed to have a last meal before Dark arrived in their home, or perhaps, judging by their unconscious state, they hadn't managed quite before the Valerian had gotten to their servants.
"Did you drug them?" he asked the wolf standing in the shadows.
'I am exceptional at what I do, boy,' Dark had growled, irritated at the unspoken insinuation. 'Your tracks are covered in from the mundanes.'
Riddle had moved further into the room until he could see the faces of his muggle relatives, so easily brought to heel.
Despite their drugged and unconscious state, they were still perfectly upright, as though they were sitting and having a conversation with one another.
Pointing the old and gnarled wand – certainly not his own, which was far more elegant in nature – at the man who was so very much like him in appearance.
His hate had grown for the man in that moment and it took every ounce of his control not to simply kill him in that second.
"Enervate," he had intoned, instead of the other words that Dark had so kindly taught him to use.
Immediately the older, mirror-like image had stirred.
Bleary-eyed and so foolishly trusting, Tom Riddle Snr took a moment to reorient and finally focus on the thin figure before him.
Despite the features they shared, right down to the derisive sneer on the younger's face, it had still taken him several seconds before he realized exactly who was standing before him.
Riddle had relished the revelation as it moved across his face and settled into disgust. In the deepest pangs of his heart, where he had harbored even the slightest bit of that damned emotion, that hope, he felt actual pain.
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" his father spat at him. "Here to wring money from me? That whore mother of yours send you?"
Riddle had tilted his head. "You lack anything redeeming or worthwhile, father," he had said with disgust, raising the old wand until the man in the chair was going cross-eyed trying to look at it.
The teen who would later become the most feared Dark Lord of the Wizarding World had relished the words that rolled off his tongue like the sweetest of caresses. "Avada Kedavra."
The green flash had come and gone, but there was no satisfaction following this kill.
Expression twisting into something demonic, something far more appropriate for who he would later become, swung his arm wide toward his grandfather and cast the same curse.
Still nothing.
His grandmother slumped next with still no emotion.
He felt nothing for these people, these blood relations that had left him with this blood he did not want.
It was this nothing that enraged him, and he was breathing hard, like a bull, when the dark shadow stepped out of the darkened doorway and circled the three dead muggles, eyeing his work.
"Amateur," Dark had sneered. "But it is passable."
Apparently oblivious to Riddle's emotional state, the dark wolf turned on his tail and left the room again. 'Don't just stand there, boy,' the Valerian called impatiently. 'There's still one last stop to make before sunrise.'
Riddle had exhaled his rage the air crackling like kindling. "One more stop," he had whispered, following the direwolf from the room.
XX
Down the sloped lawn, the gardener, who had just finished his own supper, stared at the tall figure that walked down the Riddle's driveway and wondered what kind of business the family could possibly have at this hour.
XX
Years had passed and Dark had, again, found himself moving through the halls of the house the local idiots still, decades later, called 'Riddle House'.
He hadn't been entirely sold on this return to Britain, given that several of their eggs were still in the air, or however that mundane saying went, but his own plans could just as easily be completed here as they could be beyond the borders of the country that housed his Kin.
None, after all, were aware of just what the little fox had managed to accomplish for him.
"Stop quaking," he had suddenly snapped sharply, solely to see the hunched form behind him flinch so badly his shoulder hit the wall, knocking a framed photo of some mortal that couldn't be seen through the dust and darkness, to the ground with a clatter.
He had grinned at the simple pleasure it invoked in him.
He had been rather pleased when he'd managed to find this little rat, given the hunter it had managed to irritate.
Mentally, the direwolf had paused.
Was it luck? He had wondered, suddenly skeptical.
The Shade was not often outmaneuvered, after all.
As quickly as the thought had come, however, the Traitor dismissed it.
Not often, he had reminded himself, but I have managed it before. Ebony is not infallible.
Ahead of them, a soft, red glow lit their destination.
Peter Pettigrew had still been wearing the torn and shredded rags he'd been wearing when he escaped Hogwarts and the rapidly closing net the Valerians had cast out to keep him there.
He wasn't sure yet if being found by the black wolf was any better a fate.
"You have a guest, Master of the House," Dark had announced with malicious amusement, mocking both the Dark Lord he supposedly served and the quivering man at his back. "One that had best prove somewhat useful, given the effort I'd needed to put into his retrieval."
A massive green serpent suddenly reared up and hissed at Pettigrew, causing him to shriek and dart away from it, knocking the wolf he followed.
Dark had snapped sharp fangs at the man, drawing blood from his hip as he further shredded his rags. "Grow a pair of balls, rodent," he had snarled. "If you don't prove useful, I'll tear your throat out."
Pettigrew cowered.
Against the fireplace, watching with cold eyes, Desmond Zabini snickered as he cleaned blood from the grooves of one of his knives.
"Come here, Wormtail," his master had hissed.
Pettigrew hesitated.
"Well," Dark had snapped, his good mood ruined by the idiot having stepped on him.
Swallowing and wringing his hands together, Pettigrew hunched his shoulders and moved through the room, around the massive armchair that was the clear centerpiece of the large sitting room.
The sight of his master for the first time in over a decade, caused him to scream and stumble backward, nearly tripping over the large, decorative urn he'd missed sitting between the armchair and the fireplace, metal glowing.
Desmond reached forward and shoved the animagus, sending him to his side, but protecting the Urn from toppling over.
"Watch your fool step, rodent," Dark had snarled. "I've put a great deal of effort into that Urn and I won't have you screw it up with your incompetence."
"Calm yourself, my friend," Voldemort said, his voice a sibilant hiss. "I am not what I once was, after all. His surprise is to be expected."
Pettigrew scrambled to his knees and presented himself to his master.
"I am glad to see you, Wormtail," Voldemort had said. "I have need of your unique, skillset."
/\/\/\
Months had passed since Peter Pettigrew had found his way to the Dark Lord's service, and he had been immediately put to work alongside Desmond Zabini.
Currently, the Thrall held the elderly muggle gardener on his knees before the armchair housing their master, a knife at his throat keeping him entirely cooperative.
"You've been amusing to me," Voldemort told the terrified and wheezing old man. His visit to the manor had not been a pleasant one and it showed in the toll it had taken n his old form. "But you've outlived what little use you've had."
The shadows of the doorway, as though reluctant to let him go, clung to the black wolf that stepped into the room. At his tail was a plump figure with a green tint to her skin.
Pettigrew had thought, at first, that she was ill after her contact with the Urn that Dark was so fond of but had quickly been disproved of that notion.
"Given all we've accomplished thus far," Voldemort told his companion, "I don't feel that it is required that I keep my presence here a secret any longer. You can have the muggle."
"And your loyalist?" Dark asked, pacing to the side of the armchair and tilting his head at the quivering muggle.
"We'll be retrieving him shortly," Desmond drawled. "If all goes well, he'll get us access to Potter."
Dark scoffed. "You're too focused on the boy, Tom," he chided. "You have other things you should be working on. Like the ingredients for this potion you're testing."
"It will be a poetic move," Voldemort replied, ignoring the use of his old name. "Potter is a requirement for things to progress to their natural conclusion. How goes your experiment?"
Dark wasn't phased by the deflection, but he honestly didn't much care whether Potter was included in the resurrection, so long as it went according to plan. He had little use for Riddle in his current state, and he had no patience to search out another of the man's shards to make this attempt again.
"Feris," he barked sharply. "Bring the Urn."
The woman at his side turned and went to the desk, where the Kristavi Urn, a massive dark gray urn covered in white and silver swirls, sat like a trophy in the center. It was capped with a heavy silver seal etched in gold and emerald runes that glowed.
One corner of the seal, however, was cracked and dark, the silver lid having come away from the edge to form the smallest of holes.
Feris, with the utmost care, placed the Urn before Frank Bryce.
With little care for his age or comfort, Desmond shoved the man's head toward the lip of the Urn.
The effect was immediate.
The air around the Urn rippled, as though heated, and the Urn itself rocked on the floor.
The man screamed as it came to life, struggling to pull away from Desmond's grip, but the younger man was stronger and had prepared for this reaction.
Bryce's screams became more frenzied, higher-pitched, as his skin flushed with heat and kept getting hotter.
Desmond abruptly released the old muggle, looking at the blisters forming on his palms with surprise, before looking at the old man as he slumped to the side.
Immediately the reaction of the Urn ended, but the human still screamed and writhed on the floor as though he were still touching it.
Though it was a long, loud several minutes, eventually the corpse, went still.
It didn't resemble Bryce at all any longer, appearing as though the man had been set on fire, now a charcoal husk.
The silence was echoing.
"It…it didn't do that last time," Pettigrew stammered, looking nervously toward Feris, who was scowling at the corpse as though Bryce was at fault for the failure.
"Perhaps the muggle's too old," Voldemort mused thoughtfully.
"Could be because he's a muggle," Desmond suggested in turn.
Dark alone seemed unmoved by the failure, staring at the Urn with a smile. "Well," he said slowly, smile turning vicious. "If your plan is going so smoothly, I suppose we'll have a bit of extra time on our hands for an experiment." He turned, tail flicking, toward the door. "Dispose of the failure accordingly," he ordered Feris over his shoulder.
Desmond and Feris immediately moved for the corpse on the floor and Pettigrew hesitated before taking a step toward it.
"Not you, Wormtail," Voldemort purred as the massive serpent coiled her way up his armchair. "I have need of you."
Pettigrew glanced between the Bryce and Nagini, not entirely sure whether he was getting the better end of the deal or not.