BOOK 1 OF THE NURMENGARD TRILOGY: HARRY POTTER AND THE FOURTH TOWER
What if the plans "for the greater good" were never abandoned after Grindelwald's fall and were secretly nurtured since? This fanfiction continues Harry's story directly after book 7, not an alternate universe. Join Harry and his friends in finding out more about Voldemort's as well as Dumbledore's dark pasts, unraveling the mystery of the "Fourth Tower" and all of that eventually leading to Nazi-Germany-like conditions in the Magical world...
BOOK 2: Harry Potter and the One with a Thousand Names
ID: 14023755
(Or simply visit my profile to find it.)
BOOK 3: Harry Potter and the Emerald Sigillus
ID: 14151379
Disclaimer: This is a translation of a fanfiction written in 2008 by Hungarian author Juhász Roland aka. Parselmouth Lion ("Harry Potter és a Negyedik Torony"). Thus, none of the content created afterwards (e.g. Cursed Child or the Fantastic Beasts movies) is considered, this should be kept in mind while reading, but otherwise it follows the original books. Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are property of J.K. Rowling. The story of the fanfiction is intellectual property of Juhász Roland. I make no claim to ownership.
- Chapter 1 -
The Blue-Skinned Man
Like most people who have seen a lot and lived through troubled times, Eileen Prince has learned to appreciate the quiet solitude and comfort that a small house with a garden could offer. But at sixty-seven, Eileen was non-existent to the authorities, the post office, the milkman and even her immediate neighbours. No one in the neighbourhood had ever heard of Eileen Prince, never even seen her old-fashioned brick garden house, number six in the street, with neat homes for large families rising up to the right and left.
In fact, the residents of houses number five and seven were convinced that there was no house number six in the street, there never had been, that a bad mistake by the land surveyors had resulted in number five being followed by number seven – and they didn't care at all.
Yet Eileen's house had been standing there for fifty years, and if the neighbours had seen it, they would have noticed that all sorts of overgrown weeds covered the red brick walls, covering the one-storey house like a green blanket. A rusty wrought-iron fence surrounded the property, which was also overgrown with river daisies and wild roses, and a sea of weeds for metres on either side of the pavement leading to the front door. Apart from the jungle-like atmosphere, the rest of the house was well kept and tidy, with smoke billowing merrily from the chimney, indicating that it was currently inhabited – which meant that its mysterious occupant was enjoying the rampant flora around her.
It was already the first week of what promised to be a hot summer that year close to one o'clock at night, and Eileen was different from her neighbours not only in that they had not seen her at all, but also in that she was still awake at this time, reading a large collection of poems in the living room, which was also her bedroom. A large, but very old curtained bed, a wardrobe and a display case, a sofa and matching armchairs, and a rickety coffee table furnished the cramped room. One wouldn't say the place showed signs of a lot of luxury, but Eileen had been accustomed to a modest lifestyle from a very young age. That was a time, however, she was reluctant to recall – none of the trinkets in the display case reminded her of her childhood.
Behind the dim glass of the cupboard lay a gold pocket watch with chains on a soft cushion, a jar with a dead creature swimming in it with disgusting bulging eyes and octopus arms, a few jars of coloured liquids, a wooden chest with three stone cubes, once brightly painted, and a lot of books with peeling covers. That was enough for Eileen, who was perfectly content with what she had.
She turned a page in the book, and her lips curled into a smile as she read the gently rhyming lines. She had always loved poetry, even as a schoolgirl – she was a hopeless romantic her whole life, which was one of the reasons why she and her father had so many disputes.
She had just finished a long poem, in several parts, about 'Odo the Hero', when the bell rang. Eileen jumped with fright, and the book of poems fell from her hand, opened, landing upside down on the carpet.
'Who could it be so bloody late?' thought the old woman, but by the time the question had formulated in her head, a new, gripping feeling had crept into her heart, and it made her slowly rise from her armchair. From the deep pocket of her apron she drew a short wand, and, holding it in a trembling hand, pointed it like a sword straight at the door. If anyone stood before her, Eileen aimed at the heart...
The bell rang again, and the uninvited guest now held his finger on the button a little longer than before. 'Merlin's pants, please don't let it be them...' Eileen rasped to herself. The old woman walked carefully to the door, but as careful as she was, she kicked the leg of the coffee table. She cursed helplessly before the bell rang for the third time, this time briefly, twice in succession, followed by an impatient knock on the door.
Eileen had given up hope of pretending to be away. She hurried to the window and pulled the curtains aside to peer through. A figure in black robes stood outside the door, his hood pulled over his eyes. 'It's him...' Eileen told herself and pulled back the curtain. 'What could he want? Oh, no...!' She brushed away these thoughts that were causing her heartbreaking fear and cleared her throat.
'I-Is it you... My Lord?' she asked suspiciously at the door, but did not dare to open it. A low, rustling sound came from outside:
'Are you awaiting him?'
Eileen heaved a huge sigh of relief and clasped her trembling hands over her heart, then put the wand away and fished the key out of her pocket. 'You really should come at a normal time for once, son...' she growled in annoyance, and when she opened the door, a black, hooded figure stood before her, his cloak glistening with dripping rain.
'Hello,' he said quietly, then took the hood off. Eileen was momentarily startled by the sight and put her hand over her mouth.
'Severus Snape, what happened to your face?!' cried the old woman, holding her son's face in both hands so that she could examine it from right to left by the light of the lamp. The man's face was an unnatural blue, like a tropical fish, only it was not a bright, shiny blue, but dry and slightly ashen.
'What's wrong with it?' he asked in a bored tone.
'What's wrong with it? Severus, have you even seen how you look like? Your face is all blue!'
Fed up with his mother's probing, he took her hands away from his face, went into the apartment and closed the front door behind him. He rushed to the mirror to look at himself. His brows frowned as he noticed his appearance.
His black, greasy hair framed his lean face like a curtain, on which a hooked and elongated nose was enthroned – all now a solid blue. Apart from that it had no other abnormality, except maybe its piercing, scowling look.
Eileen gasped for a moment at the man with his back to her, and then, as if bitten by a mosquito, she stepped to the cupboard, opened it, and took from the bottom a battered brown wooden box with a crossed shinbone and a baton emblazoned on it. She put it on the table, opened it and took out a bottle.
'There's no need for that,' said Snape over his shoulder, when he saw the old woman's actions in the mirror.
'Don't be ridiculous, son, it's just a little essence of Murtlap...'
'There's no need,' he repeated, taking one last look at his reflection and turning back towards the door. For a moment Eileen thought he was going to leave without a word, but Snape just stepped to the window and pulled the curtain aside, as she had done.
'Are you expecting someone else, son?'
'We may have guests coming,' the man nodded. He drew back the curtain and, as if at the touch of a button, Snape went into home mode. He sighed and sank into one of the armchairs. At his feet lay the book of poems Eileen had dropped.
'D-Death Eaters?' the woman's voice trembled.
'Perhaps,' he said carelessly, glancing at the title of the book – J. Eakle: Dragon song – and setting it down on the coffee table. Eileen slid up impatiently.
'What is it?'
'You know I hate that gang!' she snapped. 'I understand that your cover makes it important for you to meet them, but I don't understand why you have to bring them here! They're animals, Severus!'
Snape raised his eyes and made a strange, satisfied expression. A faint smile hid at the corners of his blue lips.
'What are you smiling about now?' asked the woman while folding her arms tightly.
'I just admire this... fire. You haven't been like this for a long time...'
The witch was quite surprised by these words – Severus Snape was not the sort of man to give way to his feelings easily. Tonight was so different, so different from what she expected from him, and yet... somehow it was so familiar.
'Well, my son's life hasn't been in mortal danger for a long time,' she replied a little hesitantly. Neither of them spoke for a while, though Eileen was waiting to see when Snape would finally be willing to reveal the cause of his discolouration. But instead he sat in the armchair, a little stiffly, as if he were averse to this relaxed posture, and occasionally looked out of the window.
Eileen got tired of of the silence: 'Are you going to tell me what makes you look like that?' her voice sounded distinctly sharp in the silence.
The reply came a little late.
'I've been... cursed... mhh... I've been cursed for a very long time...'
'No, you're not!' she replied vehemently. 'Everyone has been through hard times. But don't change the subject! What's made you blue, son?'
'Let's just say I came a little closer to death than I would have liked.'
Eileen turned pale, dropped her folded arms, then stepped over to her son and sat down in the other armchair in front of him, looking him earnestly in the eye.
'What happened?'
'Riddle turned against me...' said Snape. 'He sent the snake... at me. He didn't even bother to kill me himself.'
His words were full of bitterness and anger. He gripped the arm of the chair so tightly that his blue fingers were turning white.
'How could he do such a thing?' Eileen whispered in disbelief. 'You were the most useful to him, even so...'
Snape said nothing for a while, just alternated his gaze between his mother and the window, as if trying to decide whether to answer or lie in wait. Finally he chose a sort of middle way: he looked at the window and began to speak.
'Riddle does not understand this. He is unable to feel... gratitude, or care, or love, because his soul was damaged. Dumbledore knew that. He had felt them once, of course, like all humans. But later he became more and more shut off from them. According to the professor...' he chose his words carefully, 'Riddle hadn't had those feeling as a child, so he despised them later. It was probably envy that fueled in him the anger and then the hatred of those who could love. And when he had the opportunity, he moulded himself in such a way that he erased even the memory of love. And with it, the ability to understand people disappeared. He did not comprehend people who would sacrifice their lives for something that is already lost. He had only cold logic and reasoning left in him, he could not understand action driven by emotion – action driven by hate and desire alone, perhaps – and therefore he could not understand humans themselves. Mhh...' Snape hummed. 'Dumbledore thought that Riddle was a "victim of circumstances".'
Eileen laughed bitterly and shook her head.
'Dumbledore...' she repeated the name. 'He was an incorrigible fool.'
Snape then gave her a dirty look, but Eileen ignored it. 'I never understood why he persisted so stubbornly with this "all humans were good once" nonsense. He'd been saying it since he was a teacher at Hogwarts. Most of his Transfiguration classes weren't about magic, they were about philosophical musings!'
Snape frowned.
'You haven't told me about that yet,' he remarked quietly. Eileen smiled.
'I didn't like Transfiguration,' Eileen shrugged, but seeing her son's expectant face, she finally sighed in agreement. 'Dumbledore had his own little inner circle of students, almost like Slughorn. They drank in the old man's words and often stayed in the classroom after class for hours to continue their little discussions. The Diggories, and the Weasleys, and the other Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, all gathered around him. They were pathetic...'
'Dumbledore was not pathetic,' Snape said quietly. 'We were all pathetic compared to him!'
For a while Eileen looked at her son's face shrewishly and in silence, but Snape did not look at her, just stared ahead, his mind elsewhere.
'I know how much Dumbledore meant to you, but he's gone and he's never coming back.' Snape stared into her eyes, prying.
'Thank you for reminding me...' he muttered.
'I don't need to remind you!' Eileen raised her voice. 'You remind yourself every day. It's time you accepted that you had no choice, Severus! That's what he expected of you.'
The wizard raised his head sulkily.
'I should not have obeyed,' his voice was downright defiant, as if he wanted to provoke her. 'I could have died instead...'
'That's enough!' snapped Eileen angrily. 'You know very well, Severus, that either Alecto or Amycus or Greyback, someone would have done it, after taking care of you and the Malfoy boy! Dumbledore saw through his situation... at least from what you told me.'
Snape listened intently to each word, as if hearing it for the first time. Eileen continued after a short, awkward pause.
'I'm sick and tired of you doing nothing else for a year but brooding!' she continued to grumble. 'It's no good. You were like this after Lily Evans had died... I don't want you to have to take ten years again to get over it. And...' her voice trailed off, 'don't wish it had been you instead! You don't know what it's like for a mother to hear that. I know how important Dumbledore was to you, but... I still say I'd rather have him dead than you a thousand times over, Severus.'
When she had finished her speech, Eileen was wiping her eyes furiously with the sleeve of her dress, and Snape was relaxing in his chair as if he had just won a sprint. Eileen sniffled for a few minutes, and he watched and smiled. Not darkly, malevolently, or insincerely, but with gratitude and understanding, and a touch of sadness mixed in the black eyes, which – Eileen just realised – were now rather midnight blue.
'So-so he found out? The Dark Lord... Does he know that you helped Dumbledore to do his bidding...?'
'It does not matter whether he knows it,' said Snape coldly.
'What do you mean by...?' But Eileen was struck by the word.
The bell rang again.
Snape jumped up from his chair as if he had sat on a spring, but he was not as frightened by the noise as she was. He drew his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the entrance.
'Open it!' was the cold command, and Eileen was so afraid that she did not even mind the disrespectful tone. She crept to the door, careful not to get directly in front of it. She peeked out from behind the curtain again, but, unfortunately for her, the hooded, large man standing at the doorway was turning constantly, and he just caught a glimpse of Eileen's eyes in the window.
'Open up or I'll break it down!' he shouted from outside, his voice sounding nervous and almost as frightened as she felt.
She looked back at Snape, looking for support, but he was just standing as he had been. His eyes were so strange, Eileen couldn't explain what she was seeing. The fear that the Death Eaters had instilled in her slowly seeped through her body, giving her an uncomfortable shiver.
'Open up, you old hag! Do you hear me?' the man continued to shout. 'Stand aside, Greg, I'm breaking in...'
'NO!' screamed Eileen, and in one swift movement she yanked the door open.
She had only a moment to observe the new arrivals, for they were pushing through the door with a haste as if a pack of wolves were chasing after them. Both were tall and rather large. Both had broad, fat faces, but the younger, who was probably still in school, was a boy with short, crew cut hair, while the older was a man in his forties with shoulder-length hair. They were bleeding from countless wounds and their faces showed signs of bruising.
They took off their hoods and began to peel off their cloaks, sighing heavily, when they noticed the wand pointed at them.
'Snape?!' exclaimed the older one, startled. The boy made a strange groan and stared at him with a dumb expression. Eileen closed the door behind them and glanced at her son, who was ignoring her.
'I thought the Dark Lord had killed you!' said the man. 'How come you're here?'
'What else have you heard from the Dark Lord?' he breathed the last word mockingly.
The large man turned pale for a moment, and when he recovered from his surprise, he, too, made a mocking face.
'You've got a tough mouth now that he's dead...'
'Dead?!' Eileen squealed in the corner and put her hand over her mouth. 'Crabbe, the Dark Lord d...'
'Yes, he is dead!' the man called Crabbe shouted angrily. 'Lestrange, Yaxley, Dolohov, Greyback... all of them! My son... is gone. I have no idea what happened to him, young Gregory Goyle says he fainted and all he remembers is the Malfoy boy dragging him away from the battlefield. Only the two of us made it out...'
Snape's face grew more and more brutal as the visitor listed the names. Crabbe seemed only now to notice that the wand was still pointed at his head.
'Why the hell are you pointing that at me?! And what makes you so... blue?'
Snape didn't move, but his expression seemed a little confused. He lowered his wand slightly, but still pointed it at the intruders.
'Where has the Dark Lord held most meetings since his return from hiding?'
'What?!' the man sputtered. 'Are you messing with me, Snape? Who do you think I am? How the hell would I know your mother's address if I was some... imp... ostor or something,' the word seemed a bit difficult for him, but his anger didn't fade. 'Didn't you hear what I just said, my son is missing, perhaps he isn't... isn't even alive anymore! AND THAT'S WHAT YOU ASK ABOUT?'
But Snape was adamant, his determination back.
'Where did the Dark Lord hold most of his meetings? Where, Crabbe? Answer me!'
'All right, damn you, you damn bat... In the Malfoy House. That was headquarters, are you happy now? We must have sat next to each other like 30 times in their bloody dining room!'
Snape grinned. He seemed satisfied with the answer, for he immediately lowered the wand, whereupon Crabbe grumbled under his breath and young Goyle exhaled – he had been waiting breathlessly.
'Is that essence of Murtlap?' Crabbe asked, picking up the bottle from the coffee table and opening it.
'So your son is missing? Where was the last place you saw him, Goyle?' Snape turned to the fat boy, who didn't move from where he stood, not really knowing what to do.
'The... the last time I saw him was in the Room of Requirements,' he answered slowly, 'I banged my head when the... the firestorm or whatever happened.'
'Firestorm?!' echoed Crabbe, who had been preoccupied with his wounds. 'What firestorm, you haven't told me about it, you wretch!'
Eileen was still standing by the door, her eyes darting from one to the other. Though she was visibly relieved to see that the Death Eaters had not come with hostile intent.
'It was like... it was like the fire had come to life... there were beast-like figures of fire and everything was burned... I didn't see much else,' he finished his account awkwardly.
Crabbe was digesting what he had heard, and Snape was silent, but Eileen spoke quietly in the background: 'Fiendfyre.'
'What's that?'
'Cursed fire,' she informed the fat man. 'A dangerous and deadly spell. In a way, more dangerous than Avada Kedavra... I've only seen it once in my life, and...' her voice trailed off and she turned away, as if ashamed.
Snape closed his eyes for a moment.
'That's too much for a seventeen-year-old,' he said, looking up again. 'Way too much. Who else was in the Room then, Goyle?'
The boy was sheepishly thinking, which clearly did not come easy to him. Eileen, standing against the wall, was getting the impression that the boy went insane.
'Ehm... well... we had Draco, and we had Ronald Weasley, the blood traitor, and the Mudblood Granger girl, and Harry Potter.'
'Potter?' Crabbe asked him back. 'Potter was there? Then it was him! Yes, he must have done it. That boy had the power of the Dark Lord, I heard him say so himself in the forest...'
Snape was watching like an eagle. His jaw moved with concentration as he listened to the man.
'Harry Potter?' Snape asked, but no one was listening. Goyle wobbled from one foot to the other and stared into space, his mouth half open. 'Harry Potter?'
When he asked a second time, Goyle looked at him, and after half a minute of thought, he said, 'No, it couldn't have been Potter... He didn't start it, that's for sure. Weasley was fighting with Vincent when the flames spread. Maybe he...'
'My God,' Crabbe breathed in a deep sigh. He sat down in Snape's former seat, holding the Murtlap bottle in his hand. 'My son... my only son... Vincent...'
Snape looked angrily at the grieving father and then said something that perhaps he hadn't thought through himself: 'It's all your fault! He wouldn't have ended up like that if his father wasn't a dirty Death Eater!'
Crabbe and Goyle looked at him with squinted eyes, Eileen blushing behind them and quickly nodding her head as her eyes met his son's.
'What... what are you talking about?' said Crabbe. 'My fault? Dirty Death Eater? What are you, Severus? What are you but the Dark Lord's greatest servant?!'
'Serving the Dark Lord?' hissed the man. 'Severus Snape has not been serving the Dark Lord for decades.'
Goyle looked even sillier than before. Eileen just kept quiet, her head bowed.
'Not... served...' stammered Crabbe. 'What do you mean? Do we deny the Dark Lord? We've done it before, of course, we can invoke the Imperius Curse again, or I can say he blackmailed me with my son...'
He didn't notice Snape's horror-stricken expression as he mumbled to the floor and guessed how he would explain himself.
'How quickly you have forgotten your grief, Crabbe!' said the black figure with a glowing hatred, and the words seemed to make his face even more blue. 'You are a good Death Eater after all. The Dark Lord would be proud of you... if he were still alive.'
Eileen could take it no longer. She stepped out of the shadowy corner and walked into the conversation, wringing her hands.
'How did it happen?' she asked everyone. 'Potter killed him?'
At first, no one seemed to want to answer the question. Goyle was again lost in madness, Crabbe was staring at the floor, but Snape grinned in satisfaction. Only now did Eileen notice that her son had not put the wand away, it rested at his side.
'Yes, he killed Riddle,' he told the old woman. Eileen could hardly believe her ears. Crabbe snapped his head up.
'No respect any more, is there, Snape?' he asked bitterly. 'There never was much, was there? Only fear. We all couldn't wait for someone to do it...'
Snape tilted his head to the side like a bird.
'Well, not everyone. Remember the Lestranges.'
'They were crazy, I always told Lucius Malfoy...' Crabbe muttered. Snape caught on and asked another question: 'Where are they now?'
'How should I know?' shrugged the man. 'By then I have long since fled. I heard the news in the Leaky Cauldron. That damn bartender and two of his customers jumped me right away. If it hadn't been for young Goyle, we'd have been captured, or worse... Everybody's out for our blood. And yours too, Snape.' He looked up at him.
Eileen blinked worriedly at him, but Snape's face did not reflect uneasiness, on the contrary, he continued to smile.
'Don't be so sure, Crabbe!' he said firmly, 'Riddle's defeaters will see to it that Severus Snape is put on a pedestal... You are the only ones to worry.'
'I... I think you're right,' Crabbe said, 'We should leave before it's too late... Many people have done it before, I wouldn't be the first.'
Snape listened in silence, Goyle staring at one of the spiders on the chandelier.
'We're leaving, far away from the country... maybe Durmstrang will take us in, like Karkaroff...'
A vein throbbed in Snape's neck, his fingers gripping the wand tightly. Crabbe stood up and reached for his cloak, which he had thrown on the couch.
'We are leaving!' he proclaimed. 'Greg, what's your decision? Are you coming with me?'
Goyle just stared, then suddenly shook himself as if cold, and nodded slowly.
'Then let's go, at any moment someone could...'
'I'm afraid I can't allow that,' said Snape, and stood in front of the man. Eileen's eyes were wide open, Goyle stared wide-eyed at his former teacher's face, which had turned midnight blue.
'Se... Severus?' said Eileen cautiously, as if afraid that her words would make her son more blue.
The alarm bells must have gone off in Crabbe's mind, because his hand slowly moved towards the inner pocket of his cloak. Snape made no move to stop him, just looked at the man with a look of terror, his eyes rapidly turning blue. No one in the room dared to breathe, only Snape snorted like a beast about to attack, and everyone knew what was about to happen when Crabbe moved.
He drew his wand, but he was too slow compared to his opponent, who simply stabbed him in the forehead with his wand. Where the tip touched Crabbe's skin, a powerful light flashed and the fat man fell back into the couch.
Eileen shivered in the corner and begged: 'No, Severus, don't do it!'
Crabbe yelped in pain, and Goyle flew across the room before his hand could reach the pocket where his wand was.
'You traitor!' shouted Crabbe, and, without a weapon, he threw various items of equipment at Snape: a vase, the poetry book and the bottle of Murtlap Essence. Snape made a wild wave with his wand, and the small bottle exploded before it could strike him, its contents splattering in the air. Covering those standing nearby, Eileen put her arm over her eyes, knowing that Murtlap Essence could make them redden badly.
Snape cried out in pain when the Murtlap Essence touched his face and hands - she knew immediately that something was wrong. It shouldn't hurt like this...
The man curled up on the floor, and Crabbe took the opportunity to pick up his dropped wand, which rolled under the sofa.
'Expelliarmus!' he shouted, disarming Snape, and then Eileen, whose reflexes were not what they used to be.
Goyle lay unconscious behind them.
'Well, Snape! What was it that you said?' the Death Eater snarled. 'I'm afraid I can't allow that...' he mimicked his voice mockingly. 'Well, I'll show you...'
The words stuck in his throat.
The man hunching on the ground began to change... His face grew longer and thinner, his mouth wider, his nose shorter and straighter, his canines alarmingly elongated and whitened. Snape's shoulder-length greasy hair had smoothed out, its colour was unchanged in its jet blackness, but it began to grow until it reached his waist.
But the scariest thing was his eyes. It was unlike anything ever seen before by Crabbe, Goyle or Eileen who was screaming in terror. His eyes disappeared as they brightened and began to glow an icy blue. Not the iris, not the pupil, not even the corner of his eye – his whole eyes glowed demonically, as if there were some lanterns burning behind them.
At the end of the transformation, the blue-skinned man slowly stood up, slightly taller than before. He was no longer panting, just examining his fingers – they too had changed, elongated, grown black nails.
'Who... who are you?' asked Crabbe, shaking, barely able to hold the wand with two hands.
'Son...?' said Eileen hoarsely, as she curled up on the floor. The man looked at her.
'I'm not Severus Snape, Eileen...' he said in a deep, growling voice that made him look much older than he did under the blue skin.
'Well, who the hell are you, then?' asked Crabbe, clearly taking courage from his wand.
The stranger looked at him with flaming eyes, which immediately startled him. He raised his wand in warning, but the stranger couldn't care less.
'You're about to find out, Death Eater!' The deep voice boomed, and he started towards Crabbe.
'Avada Kedavra!' his opponent immediately shouted; Eileen screamed madly in the corner as the green beam of light snaked out of the wand and struck the demonic figure in the chest. The blue-skinned man looked down at his chest, where the curse had hit him. Then back to Crabbe, and his face twisted into an angry grimace.
'You bastard!' he cried, and with his bare hands threw himself on the Death Eater.
Eileen didn't see what was happening, only that the blue-skinned man was grabbing Crabbe by the throat with his left hand, leaning over him and tilting him on the chair, his right hand like the paw of a wild animal, striking him... once... twice... three times...
'AVADA KEDAVRA!' shrieked Crabbe with all his might. 'Avada... Ava...'
The green light flashed three more times, hitting the blue-skinned man, who didn't care so much as if he'd been bitten by a fly. Eileen cried and screamed in the corner and covered her eyes, wishing it would all end. But Crabbe's muffled screech nestled in her ears, filling her mind, and she knew that he was on his deathbed, and that his killer most certainly could not be her son...
