Chapter 16: The Villain of the Story

AN: Long time no see everyone. I picked up a follower about a week ago and felt I owed him an update. School is back in session and doing that and work is quite taxing on my time. Adding in a social life and my writing time is gone. I am sorry it is short but I felt I owed you all to get it out as soon as I could. So, after a month and a half of waiting I grant you a new chapter. This is a personal favorite chapter of mine, not because it is well written but because it is a time jump. And Harry did not even need to be unconscious for this one! As I said before I don't think I will finish year one without crossing 100K words, but this does give me hope, as it is only 4000 words this chapter with only one or two mini-arcs remaining. To be honest I had the first 1000 words done about a month ago. Then I struggled for the next 300 for something like 5 hours. But then once I got to, well, the beginning of the end of this chapter I was able to write it in an hour, 2000 words of nothing but fun stuff to write.

To Tracy fans I apologize, you will not like this chapter. She will be back I swear.

Rights are to JK Rowling and Warner brothers. Please write a review, feedback would go a long way to improve my work. I don't care if you want to tell me I am the worst writer ever (if you do please tell me why and what I can improve) just tell me what you think!

Again, to all of my readers, I need a beta. I think it would have helped with the flow of the beginning of this chapter quite a bit.

Crystals fell from the heavens, yet Harry sat in warmth. Surrounding him, the sounds of hundreds of voices in constant chatter filled the Great Hall with life absent from it only weeks before. The carriages, upon arrival, brought with them a glow to the old castle. Halls which before chilled and stalked him called for him and wrapped him in a safety net.

While the castle had returned to its loving nature, a strain had consumed a relationship.

The headmaster possessed no fault for the situation. No, the pair had grown closer because of the midnight mirror experience, a kinship that spanned the age gap between the colorfully dressed man and his meek follower. Instead, his similarly aged relation was being tested and tempered in an unfamiliar environment, a chilling one.

Tracy had left him.

He couldn't fault her, in fact, he always saw it coming. Her happy and bright smile never belonged to him; he borrowed it from another. He was a stopgap, a tool to be used to fill an emotional hole left behind of someone worthy of her time and affection. A glow had returned to his kind friend, one absent in his company. An understanding between the brunette and her oldest friend.

Daphne Greengrass.

She had left Tracy like garbage. Abandoned her with barely a hint of care for what it did to her psyche. Then when she returns, she acts as nothing happened. She smiles and waves. They hug and talk. After a day for him, nothing. Again alone.

Greengrass was a pretty girl. Her platinum hair shined in the darkest hallways and her blue eyes looked akin to the ice that marked the black lake currently. He could swim in them effortlessly if every time he looked at her a glare did not meet his gaze. She was slender and tall, just shy of Zabian in height. Greengrass only smiled when she talked to Tracy, and even then, when it appeared, she quickly quenched it in favor of stoicism.

Harry hated her. The kind Tracy had been scared from the blonde's abandonment. The false friendship she formed with him gave hope for the next day. A hope unbefitting of him. He hated Daphne for hurting Tracy, a light in his darkest of day. Harry hated Daphne for her return ripped it away.

The nights passed and still; he did not talk to Tracy. She was with Greengrass constantly to the point where he did not try anymore. He lost her.

Classes resumed as normal, the tight run schedule returned in full force as the hordes of students wondered from learning center to learning center, mindlessly learning the rules and tips that the professors mindlessly professed. The magic surrounding him became mundane, the world was boring again. He fell in line, moving as one with the crowd.

Harry missed the holidays. Currently learning more in the library than in the classes. There he could study anything to his heart's content. He missed the freedom to wonder the hours away, instead, the world restricted him with inches of writings on subjects he understood yet could not accomplish.

He knew the spell for turning a glass into a wooden cup. Complete understanding the formula, the Latin, the intent, the push sat at the forefront of his mind. He could write another eight inches on the history of its use, but the spell would not work. Pain greeted him in response to the trial.

The pain was no longer limited to the physical.

Malfoy still teased him, though he was the only one. He still called him a Mudblood, a squib, useless. Nott had stopped his teasing, though. Instead, fear shown in his eyes every time he saw them, accompanying the word killer. Pansy avoided him to such a degree that sitting on the same side of the house table pained her too much.

The worst was Daphne still.

She talked about him in hushed voices to Tracy. The entire time only one thought ruled her frozen eyes, murderer.

Perhaps that is why Tracy stopped talking to him. Maybe Daphne convinced her he was too dangerous.

For he was. Harry was a murderer.

He killed Hermione.

He would kill Tom Riddle.

The fresh year brought Harry new ambition, a reason to belong to Slytherin. Tracy abandoning him had left all he needed behind, the humanity he needed to complete his task with her. He would kill again, the person who killed his parents, ruined his life, and tore it from him. Tom Riddle would die.

The fact he was dead ruined that, though.

But was he dead?

No.

How did Harry know?

He just did.

The Villain of the Story

Draco really was an arse. With winter still falling over them, he found the time to attack Harry at every corner, with words, not magic. Magic would get you in trouble at this school, disobeying a teacher would get you suspended, calling you a squib in front of Professor Kettleborn got you fifteen points for Slytherin for cleaning trash.

It was worse because Malfoy could back up his little boast, as he was by far the best caster in their class. Whenever a professor asked Malfoy to demonstrate a spell, he succeeded the first time, every time. He held confidence he could, a bleeding desire to be the best in the room.

Harry wished he could fade into the background and no longer exist.

Throughout the year people always stared, their eyes would say "the-boy-who-lived." Everywhere he went they would follow, poised to strike, and destroy him with the phrase. Now they had a different word on the off chance his concentration slipped (he was trying to stop the Legilimency, as Professor Dumbledore had called it) he instead saw fear and a new word, murderer.

He was a murderer; it is why she left him.

He killed Hermione. He killed the Troll.

The Villain of the Story.

His Dark Arts class had been different in the new year, more so than any other class. Quirrell appeared to be a different person, whereas before he was kind and joking, now he was more skittish, more concerned. He tried to continue joking in class, but often his jokes fell short now. Quirrell spent more time looking at Harry, a curiosity different from his previous look. What is worse is every time he turned his back Harry's scar burned with enormous pain. His tolerance from the Dursleys was the only thing that prevented him from screaming out every time it happened. He learned almost nothing in that class anymore. The death of his mother accompanied the class, her screaming death, her flashing ruins, and Tom Riddle.

Every class the feelings fought him, his burning scar pushing the negative emotions forward. Hate his classmates, hate his magic, hate his world, hate himself.

For he was a murderer.

He killed Hermione. He killed the Troll. He killed his mother.

He still heard the screams.

Time was again bleeding. Its mundanity pushed him ever forward. Harry again found solace in the library, pouring his anxiety and hope into the study of magic. He learned the theory, reading beyond his first year, and into the second, reference after reference he read instead of going back to his dorm.

Tracy was in the dorm.

Tracy had left him.

Nothing in his books found a case like his, for squibs could never hope to do the task of magic that Harry had displayed throughout his life. Apparition, impossible. Legillimency was a magic never able to be done by squibs, yet Harry did it unconsciously to where constant repression scarcely stemmed the mind from grabbing onto every passerby. With knowledge of what he did, it only became easier to do, restraint became harder and harder with every passing day.

He was a monster.

The passing months continued. They played Quidditch in the snowy pitch, children bickered in the halls. Days passed and cards fell, showing an unclear future, marked with a wheel and a high priestess.

Loneliness with Alistair as his only companion fettered away at the frost as the lake reemerged. Dreams passed by in nightmare wrenching conditions.

Tracy still had not spoken to him.

The school had loosened its hold upon him. Faces that used to hunt for him at meals and in the halls no longer searched for him. The eyes he met no longer held wonder, nor fear, nor the-boy-who-lived. Instead, his life was treated as indifferent.

His new lifestyle was significantly better than the one the Dursleys provided him. A life that held no fear of seeing tomorrow.

It failed when compared to the life provided by the Christmas holiday.

He missed Tracy, but her sun had returned. With it, his own disappeared.

Of course, she left him.

He was a murderer.

He killed Hermione. He killed the Troll. He killed his mother. He killed his father.

In class, he heard Tom Riddles taunts.

In class, he heard his mother scream.

Dumbledore was often busy. The Wizgamont returned to session. Debates over laws past and present repeated in the newspaper every day. He wondered why the headmaster did it. In his returns to the school, Dumbledore always appeared tired and worn. His crystalline eyes which often surged hope for Harry left him hollow instead. Why did Dumbledore work so hard when it left him so empty? The paper often wrote of him in a poor light; why did he continue to help those who hated him so?

Dumbledore was stronger than Harry could hope to be. Sacrificing his wellbeing for those who so callously leave him behind was something Harry could never do.

Hagrid anchored Harry from the wisp of life. His hut became a fortress for Harry to escape to when the castle he lived in became too overwhelming to bear. The school flowed, carrying the worthless masses upon it crashing over him in an uncaring tide. At the end of the week, however, Hagrid would be there, rock cakes and tea ready with stories of his parents or tales of creatures looming in the hidden places of the world waiting for his ears. Hagrid had a way of making the pain evaporate. The loneliness dissipates. Life's woes erode.

The first week of April brought with it a novel experience.

When Harry arrived at the hut, it appeared empty. The smoke from the stack did not dissipate above the hut, for inside no fire burned. Instead, the shelter on the edge of the forest loomed as dark as the labyrinth behind it, as cold and uncaring as the sea that lay just beyond.

Should he turn back?

Should he wait for his friend?

Should he even have a friend?

He was a monster. A murderer.

The forest hummed its unnatural tune. A silence that beat like a heart and screamed with a sound unheard. Inside things moved, insects crawled, and beast hunted. Yet, to him it called, beckoned him forth. The cold and uncaring spring held above a clear sky, a moon waning from a reading not too long ago. His present was an uncaring four of cups, and the high priestess overlooked his future. His past was shrouded in death. Loneliness followed him, and the unknown plots continued to pulsate around him. A wake of those precious few lay behind him.

The moon barely penetrated the surface of the sea that he waded. When he had entered laid lost to his mind. Alastair made the trip with him, a weight in his pocket which kept him sane. His yew wand collected the light from above, matching the pale glow as he silently stepped through the trees. They loomed overhead like giants, with him as the meal. Underfoot twigs snapped below his mass, though the cracks never met his ears.

Things moved in his peripheral, though never revealing themselves to him. They stalked him, watching closely for a stumble, watching closely for any weakness. His blood ran cold as the air around, a stagnant thing that held death and decay. The forest housed a rot that penetrated the very air, trapping that which cannot be held in its horrid vice.

Something grew in the rot. A symbiotic relationship between the forest and the species that grew. One of the nameless things watching him was an arachnid, black as the shadows and as malicious as his dreams. It was an uncaring thing; it saw nothing wrong with eating him, for he was nothing but a meal to it, it and its brothers.

He continued his march.

Every step he took more and more followed, the creatures of rot never moving in for the kill, for even as his blood froze his wand stayed firm in his hand.

They feared the wand. It gave him power they did not possess. In the forest of death and rot, stagnation and despair, his wand cut through it all with hope and life. It hid him from the predators of the wood by wrapping the very nature of their shadows into his own cloak.

A sound cut through the wood, dispelling the hush of the leafless grove around. The spiders fled from the sound, scurrying back from whence they came as the clap of hooves over the soft wood echoed around.

It drew closer, stopping Harry from moving, the white protector still gripped. The distinct sound moved in matching pace with his own beating heart. It entered through a gap in the trees. The second he saw it hope grew eternal.

Pure white with a glow matching the moon, the unicorn stood proudly. A horse which called forth goodness in the world of evil, light in the darkness, stood proud and strong before him. It came to him, unfazed by his dark soul. The pure innocence did not understand his burden, the sink which pulled hope from him every day. It was a massive thing, he could walk below it without needing to duck. Its horn protruded forth long as his arm into the sky above. It welcomed him to touch, to brush against the silk which lay on it, a smooth cloth which held no equal in softness.

As he watched it, the horse met his eyes. He called forth his mind to read what it thought.

It pitied him.

The creature of goodness before him pitied his nature, pitied the dark which he ever fought. It pitied his soul, which he knew to lay fractured within, and tried to fill the gap with hope. The unicorn also held a sadness, though not for him alone. It had a task, one which Harry needed to follow him in order to complete.
As they walked together, he flexed his magic. His wand glowed just as the unicorn walking on his other side.

If this creature of goodness could forgive him, could he forgive himself?

Harry tried to save Hermione. The troll was a monster. How could he fault his parents for trying to save him?

The moonlight cascaded into an opening of the wood. Trees parted for a small pond in the black forest. The unicorn trudged forward to the lakeside, lapping at the drink. Harry partook as well. The water ran clean, free of the taint of malice the woods portrayed. It reflected the light above showed the depths of the empty pool, none lived in the transparent waters, no brush made its way within. The lake was like a child's soul, completely devoid of taint. As they left, the forest would reclaim it, turning it black, but for now, the unicorn kept the evil at bay.

They continued.

What if his wand had a piece of a unicorn? The pure soul that protected him now; would it protect him always? Instead of the demiguise that lay within his yew; would the hair of this majestic beast serve him more?

His wand disagreed with his thoughts.

While the unicorn held back his pain now, what would only a piece accomplish? Did the power of this majestic beast come from one hair alone?

Instead, housed within a canister of yew, a kind profit waited to be used. A beast of foresight and illusions to wade through life in the best way possible. That is what his wand was, not hope, but a compass to grant direction. Not a shield, instead a distracter to turn away the gaze of man and monster. His companion matched the contents of his soul and would get along with his cards and book.

A unicorn would reject such a disgusting thing as the gate upon the first meeting.

The demiguise understood the necessity.

They continued in the looming woods.

Eventually, they arrived. Their destination was a place more gruesome than the rest of the woods combined. In the depths of despair, his mind showed him when he closed his eyes to rest he did not see an evil as large as that before him. The darkest of the dark he witnessed in the pits of hell, bitter chill and gruesome hot, could not compare to the discomfort that lay before him. His companion moved to nudge the sight, an obvious sadness that needed no mind reading to see. A sight so brutal that even the purest of creatures cried at the sight.

The unicorn stood over one of its own. The bowels lay strewn on the ground in a circle, all too familiar. Egyptian ruins spelled with the entrails of the pure horse laid the foundation for the ritual that was performed here. The silver blood of the unicorn still leaked from the pure beast, though the everlasting glow was nowhere to be seen, instead it ran tainted with black sludge. An evil greater than much on earth had been performed here recently. The murder of one more innocent than a child. A creature of goodness, erased for a selfish desire. The blood which sustained it consumed as an exchange for life.

His book spoke of this ritual, he could perform it.

Except he couldn't.

To kill an innocent being, to sacrifice humanity. His companion looked back with its solemn eyes. Bringing its head down it kneeled accepting the hug of Harry. The duo cried the night away, a loss the world did not require finally mourned.

The morning sun loomed through the trees budding in the new light, a ray striking the unmarked mound of dirt. His robes were ripped, and his hands were raw. Mud caked over his every inch as the duo watched in silent prayer to anyone who cared to listen. His muscles ached and his eyes were heavy, but the forest would not break him. A resolve was born again. He made a new friend. A creature of good trusted him enough to ask for aid. The sound of hoofbeats grew again, earning his attention for but a moment. That moment was all that was needed for his new friend to again disappear into the sea of trees which it called home, a lonely lamp in the endless dark.

The new creature was taller than his old companion, with fur a rustic brown. It had the body of a horse with a man fused instead of a head held a bow ready to kill. The head was neanderthalic with a bundle of facial hair curling into a beard.

"Trespasser," his voice spoke low.

Behind him, a half dozen reinforcements also arrived.

Before Harry could speak it saw the ground behind him.

"Murderer."

"No, I..."

"Bane," an unfamiliar voice arrived. Another centaur rode before him, slighter than the first. "You would accuse this child of the evil?"

"He is the cause."

"You cannot believe that."

"You see his soul, as do I. He is tainted. A monster. Ridding him is the will of the heavens."

"You cannot believe the heavens would wish for a child to perish."

"Pluto displayed itself last night."

"It was morning," Harry cut in. Both centaurs stopped and stared at him, expressions wide.

"Did you not see last night, veiled by the pale moon, the king cried. Upon his throne, the Greek trembled with sadness. The passing planet disappeared as it came, welcoming a pure heart to Elysium."

"This child speaks as if he knows the stars," Bane addressed him.

"You are foolish," Harry chastised the looming figure, turning his confusion into aggression again.

"You dare."

"Of course, I dare. You who presume to understand the sky. You are foolish if you believe you understand. The sky above is not written for you, nor is it written for me. It is. We struggle and claw to understand its message, but the language we can never understand. How can you hope to claim the skies condemn me when I could just as easily persuade it to read in favor of you?" By the end of his rant, Harry was confused. Astrology was never a subject that interests him for divination in his youth. Now, in Hogwarts, taking it as a class had nothing to do with the magic it provides, just pointless memorization of constellations as time passed. Where had acquired this knowledge? How did he know what he knew?

The second centaur laughed, "He has got you there, Bane."

Bane lowered his weapon, confusion in his eyes. "Child, how did you acquire your knowledge?"

"That is what I don't know."

Before Bane could further address the issue, the slender one spoke again, "Child, I am Firenze. Of those in my heard, I am the closest to the winds, the strongest listener, the sharpest seer."

"I am Harry Potter; it is good to meet you Firenze. Bane." He addressed each with a half bow.

"What has happened in my wood," A new arrival appeared. Larger than Bane and older than Firenze. Bane opened to speak but was cut off from the attempt by Firenze.

"A nexus has arrived, Ronan. One who has fate singing and fay reeling. A child whose by living defies the will of nature. A tainted one without losing that which is dear."

"What has brought him here?" Though the response was spoken to Harry's defender the target way himself.

"An act of evil that needed attention," Harry responded.

"That being?"

"A unicorn slaughtered in exchange for life. Losing basic fulfillment for prolonging of a hellish continuum. Whoever drank of the blood will no longer be able to quench thirst, who ever feasted on the flesh will never rid hunger. They will sleep and always feel exhausted for the crime they committed." He remembered the passage. The rite so vile the gate tried locking it away.

"I see," Ronan responded. In his eyes, Harry saw he did.

"You know much, child," Bane had drawn the bow again, threatening to aim it at Harry.

"It haunts him," Ronan responded, gesturing for Bane to put the weapon away.

"It is necessary," Firenze added, "The nexus must hold knowledge if he is to defy until the end."

"Who did this?" Harry questioned.

Bane responded, "We saw a wraith fleeing the day before last,"

"It fled to the castle," Firenze added.

"We must stand vigilant against this monster," Ronan began, "We must call for aid from the trees to defend our home. We cannot tolerate this sin." He stopped addressing his group and looked to Harry again, "Child of fate, blessed by the stars. An evil walks the halls of your home. Seek it out and end it as only you can. We shall hold our home, protect that which cannot protect itself, we need you to protect that which is precious forever."

"I will try. How can I? I cannot even cast magic."

"You cannot use the magic that your classmates can. You have a different path before you. I will escort you from our home, fate will guide you." Firenze took hold of his arm and lifted him onto his strong back.

"Goodbye, Bane. Goodbye, Ronan."

"Goodbye child, blessed by summer," Ronan called out as Firenze rode away.