I want to thank Artemis1000, CarpeNoctem17 an d Ami G. Thank you for
reviewing! ^_^
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Chapter 3:
Harry arrived in a faintly lit room. Once he had retrieved his glasses, he saw that the floor was of dark wood and the walls, covered by dark red tapestry. There were matching sofas and armchairs, all placed in a semi- circle near the fireplace.
"Where am I?" he asked himself, getting up and brushing the soot off his cloak.
He coughed a little and looked back at the fireplace, seeing that the green flame had already disappeared. There was no pot in which he could find any form of floo powder and so he was stuck wherever he was.
"Am I really in the Malfoy's manor?" he mumbled, making a few steps forward.
He stopped, staying silent as he examined the room more closely. The ceiling was high and some sort of chandelier was floating above him, illuminating him a little with candles doomed to die out very soon. The few windows were closed and curtains were stopping the light of day from entering. Once he got closer, he saw that wooden shutters were closed on the outside. He decided that he was logically out of England seeing that he had left Diagon Alley shortly after midnight and that it was morning outside the window.
He turned around to look above the fireplace and his issue was proven. A large painting showed Lucius Malfoy, along with his wife and son. Harry was now used to moving pictures, but he still shivered when seeing Lucius' eyes blinking, looking at him sternly.
To his horror, Lucius rose from the seat in the painting and marched away.
*He's going to get someone!* an interior voice yelled.
The Draco in the picture smirked and sniggered, watching Harry run to the door and vainly pull on the silver handle. He pulled out his wand from his pocket and aimed for the door.
"ALOHOMORA!" he yelled, panicking as he heard Draco and his mother start laughing loudly in the painting.
The door did not budge, and it was only then it occurred to Harry that he was stuck in a Death Eater's home, that no one knew he was there and that no one would help him.
"What the hell pushed me to do this?" he yelled, kicking the door with his foot.
All he could do was wait, and so he did. The portrayed Lucius came back less than two minutes later, smiling evilly as he sat back in his chair, staring at him unblinkingly this time. Harry was now very afraid of what was to come.
Five minutes passed, seeming to be an eternity for him, an finally, something happened.
The door opened quite violently and Harry stared wide-eyed as Death Eaters waltzed in like they would in their own home. They were wearing black robes, the same they wore in the Ministry of Magic. The only difference was that their faces weren't hidden. They were talking to each other, ignoring Harry almost completely.
Harry recognized the first Death Eater as Lucius Malfoy. He still looked the same, but the Dementors had still had a bad effect on him. He seemed quite happy, and it didn't improve anything in Harry's mood. He was talking with another Death Eater Harry also immediately recognized, his heart filling with despicable hate seeing his godfather's killer, Bellatrix Lestrange.
"You win, Lucius," she said calmly. "I would have never guessed he was so stupid."
To Harry's incredulity, he saw her take out a small bag of galleons from one of her pockets and hand it to the second Death Eater. They had *bet* over his coming. And he had fallen right in the trap.
"Thank you, dear," Lucius said, smiling ever so evilly. "But I told you his lack of common sense exceeded his bravery."
"And you were right!" Bellatrix laughed, making Harry shudder.
Lucius finally turned to him, staring at him unblinkingly, just like his representation in the painting had done. All the other Death Eaters stopped talking one after the other, sitting down in chairs and sofas, or simply standing somewhere, watching Harry intently and all having a proud smile plastered on their face.
"Good evening, Potter," Lucius said, his voice somewhat echoing around the room. "Thought you'd drop by for tea? Or breakfast?"
Harry was thunderstruck, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"No, you won't save the world today," the Death Eater continued. "Your little friends can't reach my home like you did. I let you be an exception again by using your vocal cords as code to let you arrive by floo powder. But the floo network can't trace you down either, I made sure to that. They lost your trace half way across the Atlantic ocean."
The Death Eaters laughed, making Harry's face redden.
"Now, you are going to die," Lucius continued. "But I still want to give the chance to each of us here present to have the honour of torturing you to death. I still need to be fair."
"You're a fool," was the only thing Harry was able to say and he immediately regretted it.
"Crucio," Lucius hissed.
Harry immediately fell to the ground, screaming in pain. It lasted for what seemed an eternity, his body burning in pain as if millions of knives were cutting through his skin, inside and outside of him. He wanted it to end, he wanted everything to stop.
Lucius flicked his wand and muttered a spell. Everything stopped and Harry felt like his mind had stopped thinking.
"Now run, Harry Potter, run your last race," Lucius hissed, moving aside and showing him the door.
Harry hesitated for a moment, but his mind stayed blank. He had no choice. He rose from the floor and ran towards the door after one last look at the Death Eaters. All of them were ready for the chase.
He gave one look at the hallway and started running. Turning the first corner, he turned around and saw that Bellatrix was already out of the living room, walking in his direction. The others were slowly coming out, but not all of them were following him.
He jogged down a second hallway, passing many closed doors and staring portraits. He turned another corner and came face to face with a Death Eater he had never seen before. He was young, had brown, greasy hair and was of medium height. He smiled at Harry evilly and muttered a curse Harry did not hear.
Before he could react, Harry felt his forehead burn and felt blood dripping on his face. He did not know what had happened, but knew it wasn't good to simply wait for another cure to hit him. Quickly pulling out his wand, He aimed it at the young man in front of him.
"Expelliarmus!" he yelled. "Impedimenta!"
The Death Eater froze, stunned.
Harry heard someone else approaching and turned around, wiping the blood off his forehead before running off again.
Long minutes passed and Harry was praying to find an exit, an opened window, a fireplace and floo powder, anything . . . anything . . .
"Not so fast, Potter!" he heard a voice say behind him.
He turned around to receive a cruciatus curse in the chest, thrown by Bellatrix.
He screamed again, but thought that the pain was easier to bear this time. He waited it to pass and once it did, he threw the same spells he had given the first Death Eater. Bellatrix, who hadn't expected him to reply to quickly, was caught by surprise.
Harry ran away, knowing that the spell wasn't going to last very long on that Death Eater.
~How could I have been so stupid?~ Harry asked himself, stopping for a gasp of breath. ~This is not possible . . . no.~
He felt so brainless and vulnerable he almost wanted to cry.
"I'm going to get you, Potter," Bellatrix's voice echoed down the hallway.
Wiping his forehead again, Harry started jogging away again. He ran for a long time, trying to hide in the shadows and desperately trying to open each door he saw.
A few minutes later, he found a rather small stone door. He tried the alohomora spell and was relieved to see that it worked, making the door unlock itself.
He opened it, ran inside the dark room and closed the door. Holding his wand in front of him, he whispered 'Lumos' and was soon illuminated by the tip of his wand.
To what he could see of the room, he knew it was some sort of laboratory and office. Noticing all the dust, he had an impression that no one had come in for a while, and so the Death Eaters would maybe not immediately think of coming here to look for him.
The shelf-filled room reminded him of Mr. Burgin's shop, in worst. Jars overflowing with wild, odorous plants, Bottles filled with disgusting fluids and dead animals, mummified shrunken house elf-heads exposed on the walls, pictures in which Lucius seemed to have locked live wizards, rolls of parchment and magic artefacts were seen absolutely everywhere.
Harry, still gasping for air, made a few steps forward, looking curiously at what was exposed on the shelves, momentarily forgetting all his troubles.
About ten feet from the door, he found a large desk on which papers were spread out. He took a look at what was written and frowned.
July 14th . . . conference with the Dark Lord. The Giants will join.
July 16th . . . more Dementors have joined. A dragon was captured.
July 20th . . . Fudge has agreed. Five million galleons and Dumbledore's head in exchange of his assistance.
Harry couldn't believe it. Voldemort was truly coming back.
"This is mad," he muttered under his breath.
Footsteps in the hallway took him out of his daydream and he started jogging down one of the rows of shelves.
~There must be a portkey here . . . somewhere . . .~ he thought. ~I need to get away.~
His eyes gliding on each shelf, he started finding books.
~I'm too far, the magic artefacts are on the other side,~ he thought.
He was about to turn around when something familiar caught his eye on one of the lowest shelves.
A large trunk.
He observed it for a second and knew he had seen something like it before. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling it in the middle of the passageway and was trying to open it.
An interior voice was telling him to turn around and not waste his time, while another told him to hurry up and open the cover. He had no idea why he wanted to open the trunk, but he decided to follow his instincts.
Pointing his wand at the trunk, he whispered alohomora. The chest opened and Harry's eyes narrowed questioningly. He had expected to find dark arts objects, more jars and creepy things, but instead there was . . . what seemed to be old school supplies.
"What?" he exclaimed out loud.
He rummaged through the books, quills and rolls of used parchment, trying to find something useful.
~It's simply a bewitched thing whose only purpose is to draw people to it . . . and waste my time,~ he thought.
Even though, he kept on rummaging through the very old looking transfiguration books, potion vials and History copies. He found an old racing broom and a Slytherin prefect badge, a dark arts book and more little things.
"Lucius Malfoy was a prefect?" Harry asked out loud.
Unconsciously, he opened one of the books, looking for a name. But the one he found didn't belong to Malfoy.
The name Tom Riddle was written inside every book.
"Of course!" Harry almost yelled.
He rose from the ground and looked around, passing his illuminated wand on the shelves.
~It's got to be here.~
He jogged through the aisles, but was too nervous to search for what he was looking for. He pointed his wand in a vague direction, and yelled.
"Accio Diary!"
He waited a few moments and about five books came zooming in his direction. He hadn't thought of specifying 'Tom's' diary.
He quickly identified the one he wanted, and saw that it looked just like he remembered it to be, with a few . . . changes. The hole in the centre of it, the spilled ink, the black cover and the yellow pages were the same, but he could clearly see that someone had tried repairing it. The pages had been somewhat arranged with something that looked like spellotape. There was more black ink blocking the puncture that had been made in the cover and it strangely looked like sticky sap.
Harry opened the cover and was a bit surprised to see that a few of the pages were not at all blank, but covered in writing. Some phrases seemed to be part of previous conversations Tom had had with people that had encountered his diary, others seemed to be part of formulas he had used to make the diary, and others were simple rubbish, like if Tom's memory was feverish and was saying nonsense.
Hello . . . Memorius encantem . . . I remember . . . Are you there, Lucius? . . . Basilisk . . . help me . . . A girl named Minerva Mcgonagall came to ask professor Dippet a question earlier today . . . she finished Hogwarts when I was in my first year . . . aparecium . . . That Hufflepuff named Rubeus Hagrid . . . I'll frame him . . . they won't know anything . . . I'm going to kill my father . . . they'll all regret . . . all of them . . .
Harry ran back to the school trunk with the diary and searched for a quill. When he found one, he turned a few word-filled pages until he reached a blank one.
-Help me,- he wrote.
The words disappeared, but it took a while for a reply to come.
-I'm a memory,- appeared, written in a rather curved way.
-Please, take me away from here, people are after me,- Harry scribbled.
-And what will I get?-
-I'll find something,- Harry wrote quickly, hearing the door open and someone enter.
-I'm covered in ink . . . I should get cleaned up, but I can't.-
-Please Tom, I need your help.-
-HARRY POTTER!-
Harry was a bit surprised to see his name appear like that, but knew that Tom was angry. It was as if he was remembering that Harry had 'killed' him.
-I beg you Tom, please help me,- Harry wrote down, hearing the footsteps getting closer and closer.
No answer came and Harry turned around trying to see if the Death Eater was reaching him. He looked back at the diary and found an answer.
-Welcome to my world.-
Harry saw, just like the last time he had been brought in the diary, the pages began to blow as though caught in a high wind, and stopped on a date: the first of August 1943.
The page opened like a window over the whole in the middle of it, and for a second, Harry thought the book was going to burn. His body was dragged forward and he was absorbed by the book. It was painful and Harry almost regretted to have used the diary, but he couldn't stop now. Between having a painful death caused by a mad Death Eater and entering the diary, he chose to face what was to come.
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Do you like it? ^_^ I'm so excited! Tom is in the next chapter!
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Chapter 3:
Harry arrived in a faintly lit room. Once he had retrieved his glasses, he saw that the floor was of dark wood and the walls, covered by dark red tapestry. There were matching sofas and armchairs, all placed in a semi- circle near the fireplace.
"Where am I?" he asked himself, getting up and brushing the soot off his cloak.
He coughed a little and looked back at the fireplace, seeing that the green flame had already disappeared. There was no pot in which he could find any form of floo powder and so he was stuck wherever he was.
"Am I really in the Malfoy's manor?" he mumbled, making a few steps forward.
He stopped, staying silent as he examined the room more closely. The ceiling was high and some sort of chandelier was floating above him, illuminating him a little with candles doomed to die out very soon. The few windows were closed and curtains were stopping the light of day from entering. Once he got closer, he saw that wooden shutters were closed on the outside. He decided that he was logically out of England seeing that he had left Diagon Alley shortly after midnight and that it was morning outside the window.
He turned around to look above the fireplace and his issue was proven. A large painting showed Lucius Malfoy, along with his wife and son. Harry was now used to moving pictures, but he still shivered when seeing Lucius' eyes blinking, looking at him sternly.
To his horror, Lucius rose from the seat in the painting and marched away.
*He's going to get someone!* an interior voice yelled.
The Draco in the picture smirked and sniggered, watching Harry run to the door and vainly pull on the silver handle. He pulled out his wand from his pocket and aimed for the door.
"ALOHOMORA!" he yelled, panicking as he heard Draco and his mother start laughing loudly in the painting.
The door did not budge, and it was only then it occurred to Harry that he was stuck in a Death Eater's home, that no one knew he was there and that no one would help him.
"What the hell pushed me to do this?" he yelled, kicking the door with his foot.
All he could do was wait, and so he did. The portrayed Lucius came back less than two minutes later, smiling evilly as he sat back in his chair, staring at him unblinkingly this time. Harry was now very afraid of what was to come.
Five minutes passed, seeming to be an eternity for him, an finally, something happened.
The door opened quite violently and Harry stared wide-eyed as Death Eaters waltzed in like they would in their own home. They were wearing black robes, the same they wore in the Ministry of Magic. The only difference was that their faces weren't hidden. They were talking to each other, ignoring Harry almost completely.
Harry recognized the first Death Eater as Lucius Malfoy. He still looked the same, but the Dementors had still had a bad effect on him. He seemed quite happy, and it didn't improve anything in Harry's mood. He was talking with another Death Eater Harry also immediately recognized, his heart filling with despicable hate seeing his godfather's killer, Bellatrix Lestrange.
"You win, Lucius," she said calmly. "I would have never guessed he was so stupid."
To Harry's incredulity, he saw her take out a small bag of galleons from one of her pockets and hand it to the second Death Eater. They had *bet* over his coming. And he had fallen right in the trap.
"Thank you, dear," Lucius said, smiling ever so evilly. "But I told you his lack of common sense exceeded his bravery."
"And you were right!" Bellatrix laughed, making Harry shudder.
Lucius finally turned to him, staring at him unblinkingly, just like his representation in the painting had done. All the other Death Eaters stopped talking one after the other, sitting down in chairs and sofas, or simply standing somewhere, watching Harry intently and all having a proud smile plastered on their face.
"Good evening, Potter," Lucius said, his voice somewhat echoing around the room. "Thought you'd drop by for tea? Or breakfast?"
Harry was thunderstruck, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
"No, you won't save the world today," the Death Eater continued. "Your little friends can't reach my home like you did. I let you be an exception again by using your vocal cords as code to let you arrive by floo powder. But the floo network can't trace you down either, I made sure to that. They lost your trace half way across the Atlantic ocean."
The Death Eaters laughed, making Harry's face redden.
"Now, you are going to die," Lucius continued. "But I still want to give the chance to each of us here present to have the honour of torturing you to death. I still need to be fair."
"You're a fool," was the only thing Harry was able to say and he immediately regretted it.
"Crucio," Lucius hissed.
Harry immediately fell to the ground, screaming in pain. It lasted for what seemed an eternity, his body burning in pain as if millions of knives were cutting through his skin, inside and outside of him. He wanted it to end, he wanted everything to stop.
Lucius flicked his wand and muttered a spell. Everything stopped and Harry felt like his mind had stopped thinking.
"Now run, Harry Potter, run your last race," Lucius hissed, moving aside and showing him the door.
Harry hesitated for a moment, but his mind stayed blank. He had no choice. He rose from the floor and ran towards the door after one last look at the Death Eaters. All of them were ready for the chase.
He gave one look at the hallway and started running. Turning the first corner, he turned around and saw that Bellatrix was already out of the living room, walking in his direction. The others were slowly coming out, but not all of them were following him.
He jogged down a second hallway, passing many closed doors and staring portraits. He turned another corner and came face to face with a Death Eater he had never seen before. He was young, had brown, greasy hair and was of medium height. He smiled at Harry evilly and muttered a curse Harry did not hear.
Before he could react, Harry felt his forehead burn and felt blood dripping on his face. He did not know what had happened, but knew it wasn't good to simply wait for another cure to hit him. Quickly pulling out his wand, He aimed it at the young man in front of him.
"Expelliarmus!" he yelled. "Impedimenta!"
The Death Eater froze, stunned.
Harry heard someone else approaching and turned around, wiping the blood off his forehead before running off again.
Long minutes passed and Harry was praying to find an exit, an opened window, a fireplace and floo powder, anything . . . anything . . .
"Not so fast, Potter!" he heard a voice say behind him.
He turned around to receive a cruciatus curse in the chest, thrown by Bellatrix.
He screamed again, but thought that the pain was easier to bear this time. He waited it to pass and once it did, he threw the same spells he had given the first Death Eater. Bellatrix, who hadn't expected him to reply to quickly, was caught by surprise.
Harry ran away, knowing that the spell wasn't going to last very long on that Death Eater.
~How could I have been so stupid?~ Harry asked himself, stopping for a gasp of breath. ~This is not possible . . . no.~
He felt so brainless and vulnerable he almost wanted to cry.
"I'm going to get you, Potter," Bellatrix's voice echoed down the hallway.
Wiping his forehead again, Harry started jogging away again. He ran for a long time, trying to hide in the shadows and desperately trying to open each door he saw.
A few minutes later, he found a rather small stone door. He tried the alohomora spell and was relieved to see that it worked, making the door unlock itself.
He opened it, ran inside the dark room and closed the door. Holding his wand in front of him, he whispered 'Lumos' and was soon illuminated by the tip of his wand.
To what he could see of the room, he knew it was some sort of laboratory and office. Noticing all the dust, he had an impression that no one had come in for a while, and so the Death Eaters would maybe not immediately think of coming here to look for him.
The shelf-filled room reminded him of Mr. Burgin's shop, in worst. Jars overflowing with wild, odorous plants, Bottles filled with disgusting fluids and dead animals, mummified shrunken house elf-heads exposed on the walls, pictures in which Lucius seemed to have locked live wizards, rolls of parchment and magic artefacts were seen absolutely everywhere.
Harry, still gasping for air, made a few steps forward, looking curiously at what was exposed on the shelves, momentarily forgetting all his troubles.
About ten feet from the door, he found a large desk on which papers were spread out. He took a look at what was written and frowned.
July 14th . . . conference with the Dark Lord. The Giants will join.
July 16th . . . more Dementors have joined. A dragon was captured.
July 20th . . . Fudge has agreed. Five million galleons and Dumbledore's head in exchange of his assistance.
Harry couldn't believe it. Voldemort was truly coming back.
"This is mad," he muttered under his breath.
Footsteps in the hallway took him out of his daydream and he started jogging down one of the rows of shelves.
~There must be a portkey here . . . somewhere . . .~ he thought. ~I need to get away.~
His eyes gliding on each shelf, he started finding books.
~I'm too far, the magic artefacts are on the other side,~ he thought.
He was about to turn around when something familiar caught his eye on one of the lowest shelves.
A large trunk.
He observed it for a second and knew he had seen something like it before. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pulling it in the middle of the passageway and was trying to open it.
An interior voice was telling him to turn around and not waste his time, while another told him to hurry up and open the cover. He had no idea why he wanted to open the trunk, but he decided to follow his instincts.
Pointing his wand at the trunk, he whispered alohomora. The chest opened and Harry's eyes narrowed questioningly. He had expected to find dark arts objects, more jars and creepy things, but instead there was . . . what seemed to be old school supplies.
"What?" he exclaimed out loud.
He rummaged through the books, quills and rolls of used parchment, trying to find something useful.
~It's simply a bewitched thing whose only purpose is to draw people to it . . . and waste my time,~ he thought.
Even though, he kept on rummaging through the very old looking transfiguration books, potion vials and History copies. He found an old racing broom and a Slytherin prefect badge, a dark arts book and more little things.
"Lucius Malfoy was a prefect?" Harry asked out loud.
Unconsciously, he opened one of the books, looking for a name. But the one he found didn't belong to Malfoy.
The name Tom Riddle was written inside every book.
"Of course!" Harry almost yelled.
He rose from the ground and looked around, passing his illuminated wand on the shelves.
~It's got to be here.~
He jogged through the aisles, but was too nervous to search for what he was looking for. He pointed his wand in a vague direction, and yelled.
"Accio Diary!"
He waited a few moments and about five books came zooming in his direction. He hadn't thought of specifying 'Tom's' diary.
He quickly identified the one he wanted, and saw that it looked just like he remembered it to be, with a few . . . changes. The hole in the centre of it, the spilled ink, the black cover and the yellow pages were the same, but he could clearly see that someone had tried repairing it. The pages had been somewhat arranged with something that looked like spellotape. There was more black ink blocking the puncture that had been made in the cover and it strangely looked like sticky sap.
Harry opened the cover and was a bit surprised to see that a few of the pages were not at all blank, but covered in writing. Some phrases seemed to be part of previous conversations Tom had had with people that had encountered his diary, others seemed to be part of formulas he had used to make the diary, and others were simple rubbish, like if Tom's memory was feverish and was saying nonsense.
Hello . . . Memorius encantem . . . I remember . . . Are you there, Lucius? . . . Basilisk . . . help me . . . A girl named Minerva Mcgonagall came to ask professor Dippet a question earlier today . . . she finished Hogwarts when I was in my first year . . . aparecium . . . That Hufflepuff named Rubeus Hagrid . . . I'll frame him . . . they won't know anything . . . I'm going to kill my father . . . they'll all regret . . . all of them . . .
Harry ran back to the school trunk with the diary and searched for a quill. When he found one, he turned a few word-filled pages until he reached a blank one.
-Help me,- he wrote.
The words disappeared, but it took a while for a reply to come.
-I'm a memory,- appeared, written in a rather curved way.
-Please, take me away from here, people are after me,- Harry scribbled.
-And what will I get?-
-I'll find something,- Harry wrote quickly, hearing the door open and someone enter.
-I'm covered in ink . . . I should get cleaned up, but I can't.-
-Please Tom, I need your help.-
-HARRY POTTER!-
Harry was a bit surprised to see his name appear like that, but knew that Tom was angry. It was as if he was remembering that Harry had 'killed' him.
-I beg you Tom, please help me,- Harry wrote down, hearing the footsteps getting closer and closer.
No answer came and Harry turned around trying to see if the Death Eater was reaching him. He looked back at the diary and found an answer.
-Welcome to my world.-
Harry saw, just like the last time he had been brought in the diary, the pages began to blow as though caught in a high wind, and stopped on a date: the first of August 1943.
The page opened like a window over the whole in the middle of it, and for a second, Harry thought the book was going to burn. His body was dragged forward and he was absorbed by the book. It was painful and Harry almost regretted to have used the diary, but he couldn't stop now. Between having a painful death caused by a mad Death Eater and entering the diary, he chose to face what was to come.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Do you like it? ^_^ I'm so excited! Tom is in the next chapter!