Black and White
By Kenaz Astaroth
Rating: R, for graphic calculated torture, dark themes, and disillusionment.
Disclaimer: Anything and Everything that you recognise from JK Rowling's Harry Potter Series is not mine. It is hers, obviously. However, everything else is mine (or if it is someone else's, I am not consciously plagiarising or imitating).
Author's Notes: Here's chapter three. It'd short, I know, and it ends on a cliffhanger, but I promise that I'll make up for it next chapter. Also, I added a couple scenes for chapter two, so go reread that before you read this.
Author's Note 2: I need a beta! Preferably one with experience in both betaing and writing, and has no problem with darkfic, slash, character death, and my turning canon on it's ass.
Chapter 3
In Dreams, part three
((IMPORTANT: GO REREAD CHAPTER TWO! I ADDED TWO SCENES!))
Harry woke up and stretched, feeling tired and drained, yet not, at the same time. He had awoken the day before with a similar feeling. He imagined that it was caused by using so much raw magic. He yawned and made to get up off the bed, only to knock a mother-of-pearl, animate, stag off of the bed. It landed on the floor with a rather loud thump and looked up at him reproachfully. Harry stared for a moment before shaking his head and wondering what he had done in a past life to deserve this. Could he possibly have a more conspicuous pet?
He rubbed his temples, trying to get rid of his slight head-ache, which wasn't exactly eased by his aunt's shrill scream coming from downstairs.
"Are you up yet?! You know Vernon has a business dinner tonight, boy! It's noon! You should have been up hours ago helping me cook!"
Harry's eyes widened. "Noon?!" he murmured incredulously. He looked up at his clock. 11:13. Harry rolled his eyes. Petunia always did have a tendency to exaggerate.
Suddenly the whole house shook Harry was jolted off the bed and onto the floor. The stag pranced nervously.
Harry cursed and got up, scrambling over the fallen toys to the window.
Death Eaters. Hundreds of bloody Death Eaters. They all raised their wands and threw a spell at the same time, silvery blue sparks shooting from their wands. The spells got up to the garden fence before they were stopped. They sparks outlined a dome around the house, then vanished. The house shook once more, and a broken model car fell off its shelf and hit Harry in the shoulder.
"They just couldn't have waited for another two days until I was gone, could they," muttered Harry. Even if the underaged wizarding laws had not been in place, he doubted he would be able to get off a single Expelliarmus charm, as magically drained as he was, let alone hold off as many Death Eaters as there were outside. He sincerely hoped the wards held.
The Death Eaters fired off the spell again and the house shook even harder than it had before. Two shelves fell off the wall and Harry yelped as several toys hit him on their way down. He moved away from the shelves, and away from the window, rubbing his foot where the broken rifle had landed on it.
'Where are the Aurors?' he thought distractedly. Surely, surely if they could detect a house-elf levitating a pudding and get an owl to him but moments later, they would know about a Death Eater attack. 'And you would think that they'd be faster in their response when it's a real emergency.'
Suddenly an owl flew in the window and dropped a letter before flying right back out again. Harry caught the parchment and opened it.
Dear Mr. Potter,
We have received intelligence that several ward disabling charms have been used at your place of residence this morning at seventeen and twenty minutes past eleven.
As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform magic outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C).
We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity that risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.
Enjoy your holidays!
Yours Sincerely,
Mafalda Hopkirk
Improper Use of Magic Office
Ministry of MagicHarry stared at the letter for a moment, then began to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the whole situation. He fell onto his bed, clutching his sides, completely oblivious to the hysterical note that had crept into his voice, and laughed.
He didn't stop laughing even when his sides ached and tears had begun to stream down his face. He didn't stop laughing when the stag nervously butted him with his horns.
He did stop laughing, however, when there was a bright flash of light outside his window and the house gave a final shudder, informing him that the wards had fallen.
At that point, he couldn't find anything at all funny with his predicament.
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Replies to Reviewers:
Ice Lupus- First Review: Thanks! Second review: here's more.
Dani-loves-Sirius-Black- Ah, **goes into misty Trelawny voice** All shall be revealed in time, my dear. **falls out of Trelawny voice, feeling slightly nauseous about having gone there in the first place** Er, yeah. You will find out later, promise. And it's actually both and neither. I'll leave it at that.
VB- **grin** Thanks! Though it's not really from the "bad guys'" perspective, but that comes out a bit more in later chapters. Here's an update, though I'm rather afraid that I'm going to be bugged anyway, seeing as it is both short and ends on a cliffy…
Never again- Thanks. Heh, if I had just reversed the roles, this would be a helluva less complicated fic to write… too tired for a long review? **pouts** y're welcome.
Caspian- hehe, might wanna get that fixed. Flawless? **reviews chapter ** huh? No t'wasn't! It was choppy and I skipped scenes (I went back and added them, actually), and the whole thing is all confusing and… **trails off and smiles ruefully** You compliment me, and I argue, go figure. This story has a very different tone/feel to it than More than a Dream. Part of it is that I have more writing experience now More than a Dream is a trifle less original than this, and the writing style I use with this fic is a bit different than how I'm writing the other one. The rest of the difference is that this one is more ambiguous and mature, if I might quote you, than the other one. This one is darker, and a lot less predictable. I've gone out of my way to make this different from the typical fanfic, and More than a Dream is a rather tame, run-of-the-mill fic. **shrug** There really is not much of a comparison between the two in my opinion.