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-
Edited 2020
-o-
Chapter Thirteen
It was mid-December, a normal day, when Lily Potter entered the Leaky Cauldron. At first, no one paid her any attention. But one glanced over, and then another, and then more and more people at the tables and the bar did the same. Whispers started.
She was covered in cuts and bruises, blood all over her body.
"Fire-call someone!"
"Like who?"
"Her husband! She's been missing!"
Lily Potter said nothing. She just stared at nothing, and let herself be herded, first deeper into the Leaky Cauldron, and then transported to St Mungo's by two Aurors who held her gently by the arms.
She was shaking, staring at her own feet. She was cleaned off and dressed, and someone helped her into bed. She looked up at the ceiling. An older witch came to her bedside and said:
"We've contacted your husband. He's coming."
Lily looked at her.
"The nightmare…" she said.
"It's over," one of the healers said.
Another stroke away the tangled, red hair from Lily's face.
"It's not over," she said, shaking her head. "It won't be over until he's dead… the Nightmare Lord, won't be over until he's gone…"
Then she rolled over to her side and closed her eyes tightly.
-o-
James refused to leave Lily's side and so the gathered Order members held a meeting in her hospital room. Molly Weasley was untangling Lily's hair, bristling and clenching her jaws almost as tightly as James did. Molly and Lily were good friends, and it hurt them all to see Lily curled up like a child, looking so very small in that hospital bed.
"Aside from the cuts and bruises, she's good physically," Poppy said, looking over the charts the healers had left her. "But she was injured, past tense."
"How badly?" James asked.
"Abdominal wound seems to be the largest. Going straight through her. Bruising on her liver, wounds on her hands… but likely also other small cuts that weren't large enough to leave scarring behind."
"Torture?" Sirius asked.
"They couldn't determine that," Poppy replied. "But they are concerned about her mind."
"What do you mean?" James asked. "Has she been under the Cruciatus spell?"
"No, but her Occlumency shields were torn apart," Poppy said. "Someone broke in her mind violently, and with no regards to her mental stability. They don't know who either, so until Lily is strong enough to tell us we won't either."
"But the Nightmare Lord took Petunia and Vernon, so it has to be him who took Lily as well."
"There are some magical traces left in her mind. Not enough to actually be anything harmful, but it could be the Nightmare Lord's magic. It could be from a spell only he knows how to use."
"That bastard did this, I'm sure of it. He did this to Lils. I don't care about those papers Cornelius had about the Nightmare Lord, all that history or that the lord can't be killed. I will kill him for this."
-o-
Somewhere else, Harrison sneezed. He winced at the pain radiating from his cheek. Lucian put down the lunch tray and looked at him.
"Did you just sneeze, master?"
"I am human, humans sneeze," Harrison snapped. "It's probably dust… yes, dust. Has this room been cleaned recently?"
"Naturally. Would we neglect our duties?"
Harrison rubbed his nose, and reached for the food. It was soup. Harrison hated soup. Well, not all kinds of soup, but a lot of it. Cold soups were an instant no. Soggy vegetables could go fuck themselves. Also, he generally didn't like having soup.
But he wasn't allowed to chew things, since he wasn't supposed to put pressure on his healing tissue.
"Soup is stupid," he muttered. "Not even bread? Soft, buttery bread? That would be quite nice actually."
"Master actually admits he likes something to eat? Let me put this in a calendar; we can mark this down as a holiday."
"No need for that sarcasm."
"Drink your soup, then, master."
"Aren't you supposed to nice to me?"
"I am nice, I made you soup. Now, I'm supposed to help Christian so can I go and do that now?"
"Why didn't you say so earlier? I could've made my own soup!"
"As if Elise would allow you near the stove."
"… I can't argue with that."
Lucian left him to his lunch and Harrison stared down at the soup. He sipped on it, and supposed it wasn't all that bad. It was hot, for one, and had no soggy vegetables.
He looked out the window and wondered about Lily Potter. Where she was right now. Had she found her way back to something she knew, or was she wandering around still? Was she too damaged to fight, or would she recover? He knew she knew one or two concerning details about him, but what was the point of regretting not ripping it out of her mind? Regret rarely changed things.
Besides, he wasn't the type to regret. Live and learn, instead. Well, get injured, and then learn, and yet not do anything about it later.
"Gods, I'm a slow learner," he muttered to himself.
-o-
From what the healers had told the Order members, they expected Lily to be screaming and crying when she finally woke up.
But she didn't.
One moment she was asleep, and in the next her eyes were open. James jumped up from his seat and leaned over her.
"Lils, sweetheart? Can you hear me?"
Slowly Lily nodded.
"Do you need anything?"
"Severus looked fine," she said, looking at James. "He looked… happy. Like he did when we were in school. Why did he say someone closer than I think was the one who nearly killed Severus?"
"What?" Albus said, leaning closer.
"At the raid, at the camp… he said the one who nearly killed Severus was closer than I think. He said he saved Severus. Why would he say that?"
"Oh, most likely to confuse you," Albus said. "To make you think, perhaps, that he has mercy in his soul. His words doesn't matter."
"But Severus was happy," she stressed. "With that… monster."
"He was manipulated," James said. "Or controlled. There's no way Snape would be on his side."
"You didn't see him," Lily snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, hugging herself. "His eyes, they were his eyes, I looked into them and he… he knew who I was, and still let the Nightmare Lord invade my mind. To Severus, the Nightmare Lord did save him."
"The Nightmare Lord is a person of ancient time," Albus told her. "Surely he has learnt tricks to appear human, and… kind to those he take and enslave."
Lily hummed, and breathed out. A shiver went through her and a whisper passed her lips. They looked at each other.
"Did she just say trees?" James asked. "Lily, what do you mean?"
"A garden," Lily said, eyes wide. "I saw it. The Nightmare Lord had a garden with trees, and the trees were alive. And they grew, they grew, they grew those things…"
"Lily, do you remember where it was?" Albus asked. "You say garden, which means you made it outside. Did you recognize anything?"
"Just land, a forest of some sort nearby. But the garden, Dementors aren't born, aren't born like we are, they are grown on trees like fungus, and he grew Dementors in his garden."
Molly gasped.
"Albus," she said. "Oh, Lily, what did he do to poor Lily?"
"Lily," Albus tried with. "Lily, listen to me, I know this must be tiring, and you have been through a lot… but we need your help."
She didn't respond. Her eyes were vacant, moving sluggishly over the ceiling. Healers came in after being called, and concluded that she had retreated into her own mind.
"For how long?" James said.
"Until she's ready," one healer said.
"But she had information," Albus said.
"That still has to wait, you can't force it out of her," the healer replied. "She needs to heal."
So whatever else Lily could tell them, it had to wait.
-o-
It was a cold and crispy day, and screaming echoed in the air. Harrison warmed his hands at the pyre he built to burn Vernon Dursley at. Which Vernon was doing, hence all the screaming.
Harrison himself didn't mind the screaming. In fact, coming from certain people, Harrison loved to hear their screaming. Vernon was definitely one of those people. So he was having a great day. He was watching Vernon burn alive, his garden was doing well and he had Petunia's tongue and heart preserved in the dungeons.
Severus had told him to not put those jars amongst potion ingredients, even for fun. Harrison hadn't planned on it, because if he had gone through the trouble of preserving them, he didn't want them chopped up for no reason.
Besides, human tongues and hearts were pretty useless in most potions.
"How do you… wait, I don't want to know how you know," Severus had said.
Vernon was trashing around on the pyre, and Harrison hummed. His skin was itching a bit, being new and all, and his healing was definitely not as fast as it was supposed to be. But Harrison just had to wait and see if it was a temporary development, or something permanent from his many years in prison. Or just his many years alive.
He really wanted to scratch at his cheek, soothing the itch, but Severus wouldn't be very pleased if he did, and would then try to stop Harrison from seeing Angel.
Which Harrison didn't want. He didn't understand his fascination with the Muggle infant, only that he frequently stole her away from Severus' careful watch, as well as the other servants, and held that fragile, tiny body close to his chest. Like she was precious.
Was she precious? To him? Harrison was confused by his own reactions to her, considering he had killed children quite frequently before. Infants too. Why was she special? She wasn't even magical.
Great, now he wanted to see her. But it wouldn't do to bring her outside, because he didn't know what clothes she would have to wear to be alright in the cold, and the screaming would probably upset her. And if she got upset, he would get upset, and then no one would be happy at all.
Vernon was getting quieter. Not that the fire was working quickly on him. Harrison had made sure the fire would eat away at him slowly, prolonging the process. Unnecessary cruel, but Harrison was good at that.
But it wouldn't do if the pain became so much that Vernon couldn't even scream anymore. So Harrison moved his hands, igniting Vernon's nerves so he felt everything again, and the scream rose once more.
"Aah, sweet music in my ears," Harrison said. "Don't you think so, Vernon? No?"
"More annoying than anything."
"Do you need something, Elise?" Harrison wondered.
Perhaps most people would jump at her just appearing behind them. Harrison wasn't most people. Besides, Elise would never hurt him.
"Permission to go to France, master."
"What? Since when do you ask for permission to go out of the country?"
"Correction then, master; permission to go to France and kill someone."
"Well, who pissed you off this time?" Harrison asked as he turned to look at her.
"It's a relative of mine," Elise said. "I swore I'd kill them all, but one line managed to survive."
"Doesn't that mean it's more than one person you're killing?"
"So far I only found person currently alive, but the numbers may rise."
"Still, that obsession of yours to kill your entire family…"
"They tried to kill master once, devoting their entire family to it," Elise said. "I'm not letting that happen."
"Is that it, even after all these years?"
Elise thought for a few moments, watching Vernon writhe amongst the flames.
"That, and I also want to be the only one alive," she clarified.
"Well, that's as good a reason as any I suppose… off you go then. Bring back a souvenir, and while I usually like gore, please don't bring back a decapitated head. I don't save those."
"Of course not, master… I'll leave his head on the doorstep of his home."
With that, she Apparated and Harrison blinked.
"Bit more sadistic than one might think, that woman," he said to Vernon. "Now, how are you holding up, Vernon? Still painful? That's alright, I can make it even more painful."
Not that Vernon seemed to be paying much attention to Harrison. That was just fine by him. It meant Vernon was more dedicated to purely screaming instead of actually speaking, which was something Harrison didn't want.
Harrison moved one hand into a fist and Vernon's screams rose even higher, became hysterical and Harrison laughed to himself.
"I said I could make it even more painful, Vernon. I guess I should tell you that means you have to brace yourself because I'm about to make it more painful. Alright? The next time I say it, make sure to brace yourself. I won't hold back."
Vernon trashed his head around, the face twisted in agony. Harrison began to hum to himself, and moved his fingers to the pace of the flames rising and falling back down.
-o-
"Are you going to keep it that way?"
Harrison, who had been awkwardly swaying to get Angel to fall asleep, paused momentarily to look at Severus in confusion. Angel immediately kicked her little feet, face twisting, and Harrison began to walk slowly around the room. Angel settled again.
"Keep what in what way?"
"You burned Vernon Dursley two days ago and his skeleton is still up like decoration."
"I like seeing it. Seeing it sends warm tingles down my spine."
Severus stared.
"There's something wrong with you," he stated.
"Oh, thank you!"
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Well, I'm taking it as one," Harrison replied. "Because there is something wrong with me, and I like it. Life is so boring if you're sane."
"Have people often called you insane?"
"Oh yes, many times. Even when I was young."
"When you were…"
"Let's not say that name, Severus."
Harrison didn't like to be called Harry Potter anymore. Because he wasn't Harry Potter. Harry Potter from his past was a naïve, foolish boy that snapped and burned away, giving birth to what would eventually become Harrison.
Because for a very long time, he didn't have a name, just a title that was used as a name. He stopped having a name after he realized he wasn't aging, and he also couldn't die.
It had disturbed him back then, and even now he freaked out about his age every once in a while. Like now when he was walking around with Angel. Perhaps because she was so very young, and he was so very old. Harrison at least took great comfort in knowing his age probably freaked other people out.
Elise and Lucian weren't much younger than him but for some reason people overlooked them which he felt was a bit unfair. He was seen as an old man, and they weren't seen as old people? So rude.
"Master?"
He turned to face Severus. Angel had fallen asleep now, and Harrison went to put her down in a cot. Which Elise had gotten from somewhere just as creepily as the crib (it better not have existed in his manor before this), and once Angel didn't wake up, he straightened up.
"What?" he said. "You keep staring at me, Severus. Do you want something?"
"I… I don't know."
"That can't be a feeling you're used to."
"No," Severus admitted. "Loss for words is not something usually associated with me."
Harrison hummed. Severus was watching him.
"When will Bellatrix come out?" Severus asked.
"Well, that was a sudden question."
"Something has to fill this silence, I suppose."
"You suppose." Harrison sat down by the cot. "When will she come out… it varies. Some came out quicker than others, but there was one time where it took almost two years for the person to come out."
"That person was still alive?"
"Well, of course. You don't age in that shell. You don't really live either. All you do is… suffer."
"So she is suffering right now?"
"I would imagine so," Harrison replied. "Does that upset you? It upsets some people."
"Not me," Severus replied. "Bellatrix is a brilliant dueller, deadly, but her attitude would make even the most patient person go insane. There were times I contemplated poisoning her."
"What stopped you then?"
"Lord Voldemort's wrath. But only just."
"Oh, yes, one does not oppose Voldemort without it having consequences."
"You can, master, and he will be the one facing the consequences."
"I could, but I won't, because I have no reason to harm or oppose him. His task of keeping the magical world hidden from Muggles is something I don't mind."
"My father was Muggle, but I suppose you know that already."
"Yes, I do. Does it bother you, that you are only a half-blood?"
"No," Severus replied. "But I am glad for lord Voldemort's efforts to keep our worlds separated. Muggles… many of them don't understand magic."
"And instead of trying to accept, they turn to fear like humans do," Harrison continued. "Fear grows hatred, and rage. Magic is a danger to Muggles, so they try to eradicate that danger. It's human nature. Should we face a similar threat, we would be planning to get rid of it as well. Magical people aren't much better than Muggles at handling threats; we just happen to be able to wield magic using silly wooden sticks."
Angel started moving in the cot, and for a few moments Harrison considered letting her be. But if she woke, she would scream, and prisoners' screaming was funny; Angel's screaming was ear-shattering. So he carefully placed a hand on her chest and said:
"Now, now, calm yourself."
He didn't expect it to work. But it did, and Angel settled down, one small hand curling around one of his fingers.
"You're surprisingly good with her," Severus said.
"Oh shut up, Severus, don't you have potions to make?"
"Do you assume that's what I do all day?"
"Are you saying you don't?"
"Shut up," Severus snarled.
"Now that's a familiar sneer. Very nostalgic, almost so much it brings a tear to my eye."
"Oh, I'll bring tears when I stab your eyes, master."
"I think you've confused tears with blood, Severus."
-o-
Voldemort was at home, reading up on some wards in the library when he was alerted by shouts that the shell around Bellatrix had opened. He figured he might as well go outside and see how she was faring, and made it out just in time to see her stumble to an upright position.
There wasn't a mark on her, only tears in her clothes from the duel with Harrison. What instantly made Voldemort alert was her silence. Her head hung down, her heavy hair hiding her face from view.
No one approached her, not even her husband. But at long last, she looked up. Voldemort moved into view, and looked her in the eyes. He had never seen Bellatrix afraid. He had never seen fear in her eyes.
Rodolphus now approached her, taking her arm. Their marriage was an arranged one, and while they weren't passionately in love, they still took each other's sides. Rodolphus hadn't been stupid enough to try and stop Harrison from imprisoning Bellatrix in that shell, and he wouldn't be stupid enough to retaliate now that she was out. But he wasn't so cruel to leave Bellatrix alone now that she had gotten free.
Bellatrix offered no resistance at being led away like a frail woman. Before she would have nearly bashed her husband's face in for holding her arm and guiding her as if she was unable to walk on her own. Voldemort let them leave, and walked up to the shell. He pushed at one of the broken pieces with his shoe, and it broke apart further, turning into fine dust. He kneeled down and scooped some of the dust up, letting it trickle through his fingers. Despite being dust, it felt an awful lot like blood.
Only moments later, the Nightmare Lord's magical signature was in the throne room. Had he been alerted about the shell? Or did he just swing by purely by accident? Voldemort cleaned off his hand and entered the manor, the Death Eaters scattering, moving back to what they were doing before the shell broke.
Harrison was tossing a jar between his hands as Voldemort entered the throne room, and once Voldemort saw what it was in the jar he couldn't help but say:
"Is that a tongue?"
"Yes, it is," Harrison said.
"Why do you… wait, do I even want to know why you have a tongue in a jar?"
"I didn't like the person who had the tongue, so I ripped it out and put in a jar. No big deal."
"Right," Voldemort replied. "Oh, yes, Bellatrix just came out of that shell of yours."
"She did?" Harrison said. "That was rather quick, but whatever. How did she look?"
"The worst I've ever seen her, and I've seen her badly wounded. Did you just permanently cripple one of my Death Eaters?"
"Will you be upset if I did?"
"There would be little point in that, now would it?"
"It would," Harrison admitted. "No, she isn't broken. People have been broken by their experience, but while she acts crazy, I do believe Bellatrix is a fair bit stronger than others I've put in a shell like that."
"So what was her lesson?"
"Not to underestimate me?"
"Is that what the shell is for?"
"More or less, and also for when I don't feel like physically beating that lesson into their faces," Harrison said as he vanished the jar to somewhere apparently safe. "People had this thing… where they thought they could overpower me, or taunt me, even… humiliate me."
"That didn't end very well for those people, now did it?"
"No. In the beginning, I killed them. But that wouldn't teach them for fear me, and tell others to fear me, thus leaving me alone. So, why not create a scenario where people will survive, and caution others in the end? That meant I could still get known even when I didn't feel like murdering people."
"There were times you didn't feel like murdering people?" Voldemort said as he sat down. "Wow."
"That sarcasm was uncalled for. But yes, I had periods when I didn't feel like killing because it got too boring."
"Naturally, why else would one stop killing?"
"Still sarcasm."
Harrison was moving around the room, little sparks of magic travelling between his hands as he spoke.
"Anyway, the shell was used sometimes during my more calmer periods," Harrison said. "It basically throws your personality back at you, and all the horrors you've done, which is why it's most effective with annoying people, and also why it's useless against let's say, a young child."
"Why?"
"Because they haven't developed a truly annoying personality, nor have they done anything significant to torture them with. So I couldn't manipulate infants to fear me by instinct."
"You tried to do that?" Voldemort asked.
"Yes, I did, but some experiments are doomed from the start I suppose."
"Wait, you put infants in shells like that?"
"They didn't work on the infants, so it wasn't like they got hurt," Harrison replied. "I mean, I have killed children before. On purpose. But the infants were not exactly put back where I took them from, however! I did give them to families who were unable to have children of their own. I was very upset when I learned that could be considered a redeeming quality."
"Oh, because Merlin forbid you ever were nice to people. What else does the shell do?"
"Those horrors I mentioned, they were both words and actions. So in the case of Bellatrix, everything she ever said or did in order to harm someone, was now done to her. That and some spells that make sure they know what will happen if they continue to be annoying towards me."
"Did you use this method often then?"
"No, which was a bit stupid since I invested so much time in it. But it was a pain to create the shell, and the magic it needs is a bit draining. I did use it on a large scale a few times, and I can decide how much magic to put in each shell. I put in a lot in Bellatrix's shell."
"Why?"
"Because she was extra annoying, and if she wasn't your Death Eater I would've disembowelled her and forced her to eat her own innards before her death."
Voldemort did not fear things often anymore. Death was an underlying fear, one he could not escape, but he feared few other things.
A shiver ran up his spine. Harrison had said similar things before but there was something in his eyes… that manic glee at torturing someone that way. It was something Voldemort never felt like doing. The biggest thing that set him and Harrison apart. Torture.
"I did that a lot when I was young," Harrison continued. "To quite the number of people."
"How young?" Voldemort asked.
He had never tortured people to that extent. Yes, he tortured to get information but Harrison tortured people for torture's own sake. Like making people eat their own innards.
"Thirty? No, forty? Maybe. I don't really remember, I just know I did it a lot when I was younger. I spent a lot of time killing people. it didn't matter who, just as long as there were people to kill."
Voldemort really had no say in this, because he hadn't lived very long, but surely people remembered things like that? Or did Harrison not care?
"So you spared Bellatrix a painful death because of me?" he said instead of wondering further about Harrison's memory.
"Yes, I suppose," the Nightmare Lord replied. "I'd be pissed if an ally would try to kill one of my servants. Lucian taught me about allies, as if I don't know what the word means. Maybe he thinks I don't know what that word means."
"So you didn't have allies before?"
"Followers, at most, but not all the time," Harrison said, turning on the spot. "You have charisma… charm. You know what to say. I have the ability to make people fear me, simply by being a murderous bastard. Well, it's not really an ability, but it's consistent and I suppose by now I'm good at it."
He walked around, tapping the wall.
"You draw people in," he continued, pointing at Voldemort. "While also frightening Cornelius' side. In terms of raw strength, you are far behind me, but in terms of gaining allies without murdering everything you see, you win over me quite easily."
Harrison moved behind the throne and Voldemort resisted the urge to turn his head and follow Harrison's movements. He wasn't Harrison's enemy, but the man had proven himself to be unpredictable and rather scary at times, and thus Voldemort wasn't at ease having Harrison hover behind him for longer periods of times.
The Nightmare Lord moved on, and Voldemort studied him. His youthful face made it hard to see the age in those bright, green eyes. But it was there; old and tired, to the point of looking dead. Voldemort had only seen the dead look a few times, but had no desire to see it more.
"Surely you have some who were loyal?" he asked.
"Not really," Harrison replied. "The four founders though… they weren't followers, but they were my friends."
It was easy to not think about it, Harrison being older than the founders of Hogwarts. Before Harrison, Voldemort had only known of Nicholas Flamel reaching the age of 665 before he died, his wife 658. But they owed their long life-spans to Flamel's Philosopher's Stone. What had Harrison done in order to stay alive for so long? Voldemort remembered he had asked, and gotten no answer, and he wasn't ready to trigger something in the Nightmare Lord by asking again.
"All four of them?" he said instead.
"Yes. What was it Rowena said now again… oh, yes, I had this awkward charm that was quite endearing. But they weren't sure of me at first."
"Why?"
"Well, they didn't know me at all."
"Did they know you had killed people?"
"Back in those days, everyone knew about the Nightmare Lord, Voldemort," Harrison said. "Some even knew my face. So of course the four founders knew I had killed people, even if they didn't believe I was as old as I claimed."
"And they weren't afraid?"
"Mildly alarmed," Harrison said. "I had quite the reputation at the time. But once they got to know me a bit more, they calmed down. I even helped them with Hogwarts."
"You did?"
"Yes."
"In what way?" Voldemort wondered.
"Many ways, I suppose. But I might have influenced Helga into making the staircases move, because that would be funny. Godric said he would blame us both for that."
"Do you know how much trouble those staircases have caused for students over the years?"
"Oh, yes. That's what makes it funny."
"… Sometimes you are terrifying, and then you act like a gleeful child," Voldemort said. "You're impossible."
"Really? That makes me very happy."
"Oh, that's the gleeful child right there."
Harrison only smiled, and Voldemort could see why Rowena Ravenclaw said the Nightmare Lord had his charm. But it wasn't awkward anymore. That smile made Voldemort's mind think the man before him wasn't dangerous. That smile would probably be able to lure him in even with every fibre in his body saying it was a trap.
-o-
It was not often that Harrison was alone nowadays. But he wanted to visit a place, and asked his servants to be left alone for a bit.
Said place was in a pitiful state, but he was more surprised it was standing at all. All that left was ruins, and he wandered through it for some time.
The roof was gone at places, so he walked over crisp snow and his breath fogged white upon exhaling. At Elise's and Lucian's insistence he was actually wearing a winter cloak with a fur-lined hood. He didn't recognize it, and asked Elise why she bought it when he had already shown he was capable of buying clothes. She had pretended not to hear him.
When he stated it would be her fault if it ended up being her buying him clothes in the future, Elise had looked him over once and said:
"Might as well, since master is awful at clothes shopping."
A low blow, even if it was the truth. Maybe that was why he wanted to be alone. Or did he care? Either way, he had a warm cloak, and he was standing in what had once been a rather grand mansion.
A place where his army used to gather. An army he still had, if all had gone well and his Inferi were still safely asleep in their lakes and bogs. He would know soon enough, when he called for them.
That had him thinking about his children, the Dementors. Harrison had never desired to father a human child, and even if he had Angel now he hadn't fathered her. Just accidentally kidnapped her. He supposed he had a hand in raising her, but had he done it alone Angel would have been dead by now, because he wasn't very good with tiny human children. Because they made a lot of sounds that were annoying to him, and they needed things all the time.
But Dementors, they were different. He could lavish them with attention, but they didn't need their hands held. Well, not for long anyway. They didn't need to be fed several times a day, or burped, or having nappies changed. Once Harrison had guided them into taking that first ounce of happiness away from a person, and then taking an entire soul, Dementors knew how to do it for the rest of their lives.
That didn't mean he didn't want them around, or that they weren't attached to him. In fact, Harrison hadn't expected them to be affectionate at all, but they seemed to like to hug him. Over the years, people didn't find that reassuring, which just made Harrison want them to do it more.
He looked around at what had once, for only brief periods of times, been his own throne room. Once Harrison had walked to the middle of the room, he tapped his foot to the floor. The magic he sent out blew the snow away, revealing a mark. He looked down at it, worn down by time, while he looked as young as ever.
It had been his own, not very known, but his. The few who had seen it had commented it looking like lightning, and yes, it had been shaped a bit after his old scar, the scar that somehow made him special. Made him into the chew toy of Albus Dumbledore and his Order.
Harrison kneeled down and traced the faint lines with his fingers. After a while he said:
"Lucian, Elise… I thought I said I wanted to be left alone."
"You've been gone four hours, that's more than a bit," Lucian replied as they came to a stop behind him. "Do you still desire solitude?"
"I just wanted to say goodbye to this place on my own."
"You're not building it up again?" Elise asked.
"It was never really a home, nor did I use it a lot," Harrison said as he rose up.
"If there had been ward stones like around your manor, then perhaps…"
"I didn't value this place as much, Elise, don't think too hard on it."
"But we could have kept it in shape."
"I gave you an order, and you followed them," Harrison replied. "Not your fault I wasn't very reasonable back then. Nor very kind. No, it's my fault really. I let myself be captured. I played along with them, until it wasn't a game anymore. I thought letting them capture me would be fun."
He turned to them.
"Besides, I don't really need a second place. I've got my manor. So lose those gloomy expressions, and say; how about all of my children at the manor?"
"All of them?" Elise said.
"Yes, no! Not just the children, not just my Dementors but the Inferi too."
"The Inferi haven't moved in many years."
"That's why I want to do it, to see how many are still active. Who wants to come and see me."
Elise and Lucian looked at each other, then at him.
"Please don't invite them into our rooms," Lucian said.
"Or yours," Elise continued. "They'll destroy the sheets on the bed…"
"And the rugs, don't forget the rugs, Elise."
"Shush, Lucian, master doesn't have that many rugs, and he doesn't care about them anyway. Your clothes, master, all your new clothes, because they'll get into the wardrobe and start poking at things."
"Other Inferi doesn't do that, I've read they don't do things like that," Lucian said. "Master, why did you have to make your Inferi curious and wanting to explore?"
"That's interesting," Harrison protested. "Anyone with a little energy and imagination can make dead people walk again. It's more challenging to make them curious."
"Well, it's weird to have dead people chew on clothes to feel the texture," Lucian muttered.
"They have to know how much they need to bite to get through fabric and get to the flesh, Lucian."
"That's morbid, master."
Harrison grinned. He remembered the looks when people realized his Inferi wasn't just the average dead bodies walking. His Inferi wanted to find out more and explore. They braved the sun's harsh light to see how it felt to walk beneath the sun, they tried to communicate sometimes and that made them more human in his opinion. And that frightened people more.
If there was something people had troubles with, it was monster that appeared human.
"Shall we go back then?" Harrison asked. "You two aren't dressed for this weather."
"And you are without gloves," Lucian said.
"Being gloveless for a few hours won't kill me."
"Frostbite, master."
"Then I'll just cut off my fingers and let them grow back. Let's go now."
Harrison didn't look back at the ruins as they left.
-o-
It was a crisp and cold morning that Voldemort made his way to Harrison's manor with two Death Eaters, one of them being Lucius Malfoy, the other one Rabastan Lestrange. Voldemort wasn't sure how the Nightmare Lord would react to Rabastan, but the wards didn't stop them from entering and Elise barely spared Rabastan a glance.
"Is Harrison busy?" Voldemort asked.
"Did you not see him outside?"
"No."
"Oh, well, he could be in the back. It's a bit of a bad timing if you wish to speak to him."
"Why's that?"
"He's calling on them."
"Them?" Voldemort said.
"The children," Elise said, as if that would clarify it all.
Rabastan and Lucius looked at each other, then at him and finally at Elise. But Voldemort did have some idea what Elise meant, and turned to walk outside again. He passed the garden at some distance and saw lumps on the trees, slowly moving. Through some translucent rot, he saw a thin arm, or spindly fingers. Dementors, growing.
Lucius and Rabastan avoided the garden altogether, and Voldemort found Harrison.
The Nightmare Lord's back was bare, the clothes lying near him on the snowy ground. Particularly the cloak, plain black, was laid out before Harrison.
"Aren't you cold?" Voldemort asked.
"It's a bit nippy," Harrison confessed.
"Put your cloak on then."
"I can't, it's a sacrifice."
"It's a what?"
"Sacrifice," Harrison repeated.
"How can you sacrifice a cloak?" Rabastan muttered to Lucius.
"Don't ask me, do I look like I sacrifice things?" Lucius muttered right back.
"Actually, you do a lil' bit."
"Rabastan, shut up."
Harrison turned around. His eyes were black, his skin ashen, and beneath, the veins were dark. Voldemort frowned.
"Oh, I'm alright, Voldemort," Harrison said, as if he had read some sort of concern in Voldemort's face or mind.
Voldemort wasn't sure if Harrison had simply delved into his mind, and so decided to proceed without acknowledging it:
"You're calling for the Dementors aren't you?"
"Yes, I am."
"Do you have to be half-naked in order to do so?" Voldemort wondered.
"Not normally, but it's been a while. The cloak is going, sacrifice, but the other clothes were constricting so I just took them off. The process is a bit delicate anyway."
"I… see."
"No, you don't, but that's alright. Now, don't stay too close, alright?"
"Why not?"
"Oh, you'll see why soon enough," Harrison promised him.
And Voldemort did indeed see why.
But first, Voldemort did step back a bit and waited. Harrison's skin started to glow with magic within a minute, and he stretched out his arms. Even his eyes changed from black to shining orbs before he closed them.
Soon, the light started to move from his body to around him. Voldemort had never seen anyone call for anything in that manner, but then again, it was Dementors. How did one call for them?
Could they sense the magic? Voldemort knew little about them. He didn't know if they could see, or speak, or what held them at Azkaban. Why had they never gone after their maker after he had been captured? Had he for some insane reason told them to stay away?
Thoughts like that were pushed away once he saw shapes moving over the snow, approaching with rapid speed. Dark garbs hiding gangly creatures. Voldemort began to back up even more, Rabastan and Lucius following his lead because they had never seen a Dementor practically run.
There had to be over a hundred of them. More? Their rotten arms were outstretched. Voldemort could hear shrieks. Voldemort had never really heard them make sounds before. The trees growing Dementors shivered at the sounds, branches twitching and he could see his two Death Eaters taking out their wands.
He didn't blame them. Dementors didn't usually attack on sight, or at random, but no one ever completely relaxed around them.
But he soon realized he might as well dance naked in front of said Dementors, and they wouldn't give a damn about it. Because they were going straight for Harrison, and once the first reached him, he was picked off the ground. The Dementors were crowding him, screeching sounds filling the grounds and Harrison laughed. He petted them, held their hideous heads in his hands as if they were precious.
To him, they were. They were his children.
One of them removed their garbs and wrapped the black fabric around Harrison.
"Thank you, dear," Harrison said.
More and more Dementors came, all trying to get close to Harrison, their hands pulling at each other. He was shifted from one Dementor to the next, laughing.
"I'm not going anywhere, calm yourselves!" he called out. "Oh, this will take a while won't it… yes, yes, I missed you lot too. Oi, no fighting!"
Which one did he tell? They all seemed to be fighting each other to get closer to Harrison.
"He will most likely be busy for a while," Elise said, having come up behind him. "Would you like to have some tea while you wait?"
"Yes, I believe we will have some tea," Voldemort said.
"No urgent business today then?"
"No, not today. Why?"
"Because it might take a few hours," Elise said. "The Dementors haven't seen master for hundreds of years, and even those living at Azkaban he did visit frequently."
With one last look at Harrison, Voldemort went after Elise back to the manor. As the Nightmare Lord was not available for the question he wondered about, he asked Elise about it instead:
"Do Dementors feel love?"
"Towards master, I believe they do," Elise said as she shut the doors behind them. "Master insists they have emotions, and perhaps they do, but they express in ways no one but master seems to see. Let me give you a good advice though; don't make any movements towards master that can be seen as threatening here in the beginning."
"They'll harm us?"
"They might. If you're lucky, they won't go straight for your soul."
"I've always wondered; what happens to the souls they take?" Voldemort asked.
"I'm not sure you want to know," Elise replied, and well, Voldemort felt that answer could probably wait a bit if not even one of Harrison's closest servants wanted to talk about it.
-o-
Harrison had long since stopped trying to get down onto the ground, and instead just let the Dementors hold him up. When one was pushed away, another took its place. Several rotten arms held him up. Clawed hands pawed at his arms and shoulders.
Their faces were meant to be frightening, meant to scare, but to him they were the sweetest thing. The more he laughed and smiled, the more they made sounds of contentment. Of course, to others it just sounded like shrieks, but that was more fun in Harrison's opinion. People freaked out, plus they didn't understand that the Dementors actually had a language.
He had missed them. He didn't understand why he hadn't called on them the moment he got free. Because before he was captured, he never thought about missing their company. Missing the servants. It was only after years in that dark cell, completely missing out on everything, that Harrison truly appreciated company. His servants always ready and around, the Dementors roaming around the manor… hell, even the Inferi even if they weren't the most talkative bunch to hang around with.
The old gardens these Dementors were born out of were long gone now. Burned down or faded away. Harrison remembered one going up in flames, and how the Dementors still growing had screamed. Because they were aware, before they were born. They had screamed so loudly.
Don't let us die, maker.
We don't want to disappear.
Maker, make it stop hurting.
Why does it hurt?
Harrison had made those people pay for what they did, and this new garden was within his wards. It would never be burned down.
He was finally set down on his feet, and to others, the Dementors probably looked identical. But Harrison had always been able to tell them apart. Not just in their appearance, but also their personality. And then there was… a special one.
At first, back when he was young and trying to create Dementors, Harrison had no idea how to do it. The trees came up as a later method to grow Dementors, but the very first one… oh, Harrison remembered how he had struggled to find out how one created a completely new species out of nothing.
The first Dementor was something he had created and nurtured like one would care for an infant, minus all the screaming and burping. He had watched his new creature grow from a seed to a being two feet taller than him. He had fed his magic to it to make it grow, but his hatred had been even more efficient, until the Dementor could grow on its own.
That first Dementor was ancient today, would be called that if people knew Dementors could live for that long. But to Harrison, it was still a child.
A respected child, as the Dementors parted way as Harrison's first Dementor made its way to him. Two hands, bigger than his own, reached out. Harrison didn't hesitate to take them and he smiled up at that eyeless face, the face people hated to see.
"Welcome home, children," he said.
-o-
It was dark once Harrison came back inside. He had the cloak draped over one arm, his shirt and vest back on again. His first child moved behind him, feeling the walls and the few paintings there, ghosting over cases and panicking when Harrison moved too fast.
"Silly child, I'm hardly going to run away," Harrison told it.
The Dementor screeched softly.
"Now, now, don't fret, I'm not going to let myself be captured again. Hopefully." The Dementor grabbed his arm. "Oh, no, I mean, definitely not going to get captured again."
Harrison had the distinct feeling the Dementor didn't quite believe him.
So instead he swept into the living room, startling both Lucius and Rabastan quite badly while Voldemort was engrossed in a book. Harrison put the cloak down and snapped his fingers, making the fire in the hearth roar up again.
"I'm a bit chilly," he informed the room in general.
"Standing outside half-naked for hours tends to do that to people," Voldemort replied. "Who wrote this book?"
Harrison squinted at the cover.
"Godric," he replied. "He had a thing for unnecessarily long titles."
Voldemort looked up, and then at the book. He carefully put it away.
"Don't worry, Ywgraine makes sure most of the books doesn't get damaged," Harrison said. "That girl loves books as much as Rowena did."
"I see," Voldemort said. "You have only one Dementor with you. Where are the rest?"
"They're sleeping, safe and sound. This one didn't want to leave just yet though." Said Dementor put its hands on his shoulders.
"Is it one of the new ones?"
"The opposite," Harrison replied and both Lucius and Rabastan looked at him. So he explained, "This one, I raised myself. I didn't come up with the trees at the start, Voldemort. This one is my very first. It was born out of a seed and I fed it my magic and hate. It outgrew me within a year."
"Are you saying that Dementor is over a thousand years old?" Voldemort asked.
"They are sort of immortal from the start."
"What do you mean, sort of?"
"Meaning I don't know what kills them." Fire had killed the ones still growing, but once they were born, Harrison hadn't lost a single Dementor. "Of course, I've never tried to harm them. But others have tried and never succeeded."
"Um…" Harrison turned to look at Rabastan, who cleared his throat and tried again, "Aren't you… uncomfortable with it that close?"
"Why would I be?" Harrison wondered.
"Isn't it cold, I mean?"
"Not really, not to me."
"Why?" Rabastan asked. "Why is it different with you?"
"I'm their father, for starters," Harrison replied. "Oh, and when they noticed I wasn't happy, they used to take joy specifically to give to me. Souls too, despite the fact I couldn't eat souls. Good times."
The Dementor screeched, which made Lucius and Rabastan jump.
"Yes, good times," Harrison said as he looked over his shoulder at the Dementor. "Now then, you should sleep some too. Go on, you know I'll be nearby."
It hesitated for a few moments before withdrawing from Harrison's side, moving over to the cloak. Before Voldemort had a chance to ask what the Dementor was doing, it grabbed onto the cloak and held it up. The blackness of the fabric became bottomless, almost moving on its own, and the Dementor put its arm… inside.
Within moments, it sank down, deeper into the cloak and before their eyes the Dementor completely vanished into the cloak itself.
"What was that?" Voldemort said.
"Dementors didn't really… roam around in my youth," Harrison said. "The idea of a cloak, a portable, temporary home for them, came up later. They didn't really like being away from me. Most of them anyway, a few were more independent."
"But a cloak?"
"Yes, I know, fabric wears down, but a cloak is easy to replace and remake into a home for my children."
"The cloak is their home?"
"It's the perfect environment for them in there," Harrison said and walked over to the armchair where the cloak was draped. "This way, I can also take them with me, without people noticing them."
"So that's why you make them disappear?" Voldemort wondered.
"Yes, because if you see a monster, you deal with it," Harrison replied. "But if you know a monster exists, yet you barely ever see it… people will be more nervous."
"Is that all? Why you called them back?"
"These children are mine. Azkaban wasn't a prison when I left some of them there, it was just a wizard's home. He was fascinated with them, and never harmed them. Never forced them to do anything. How they were coerced into working at Azkaban once it became a prison, I don't know, but while they got well-fed there, I wasn't planning on letting them be there forever. Their place is here, with me. They all came back to me."
"Why would they, though?" Rabastan asked. "As you said, they were well-fed at Azkaban. Also, you haven't been around for what, more than two hundred years? Do Dementors even have loyalty?"
The cloak rippled, like waves, and out of the blackness several Dementor emerge, mouths wide open and screaming. The Dementors reached for Rabastan, as if enraged, but then they pulled back and vanished into the cloak again.
Voldemort saw a flicker of magic vanished back into Harrison's hand, and Harrison turned to look at Rabastan.
"They do have loyalty," Harrison said to him. "Not in the sense I made them loyal, no. They chose to be loyal, because I care for them, like they care for me. However, do not question their loyalty. They feel insulted when someone tries to make it look like they are not loyal to me."
He turned to look at Voldemort.
"Now, was this a so-called social call or what, Voldemort? Or perhaps you have some plans to stir things up this upcoming holiday nonsense?"
To be continued…
I hope you enjoyed!
Chapter fourteen: Harrison has more allies that will answer his calls, and he runs into both Order members and Aurors transporting families. What will he do?
See you later,
Tiro
