Author's note: Plot! Plot for you! Plot for everyone! Mwahahaha! Also, it is not very practical to make a wand into a weapon. A wand is, basically, an amplifier - and it is rather difficult to gesture a spell with a sword or a mace in the middle of battle - but not impossible. But anyways, enjoy!

Chapter 4

Harry stood there, white as a sheet and occasionally shivering. Forget about Voldemort activating his scar, the crucio curse and everything else he had suffered before - what had happened was the most disturbing event he had ever gone through. Ever.

He had briefly glimpsed inside of Cadukus' mind.

The new professor's way of trying to teach him to defend against mental intrusions was a bit different than Snape's. While Duke was not as proficient in the subtle mysteries of mind magic, his method was effective in it's own horrifying way.

Simply put, Duke tried to assault Harry's mind with awful nightmarish visions, while Harry tried to keep them out. That was supposed to strengthen his mental barriers against Voldemort's connection.

Instead, the things he had seen things - horrible, horrible things.

"What wrong with you, nappy-head?" Duke asked after the lesson ended prematurely. He leaned back in his office chair, which strained to contain his weight.

Harry only shivered.

"What? Are you bothered by those things?" He laughed and snatched a morning star off one of his office's walls - all of which had various weapons, shields, or other artifacts mounted on them.

Harry twitched.

"Heh, that's just some of the milder things I see every time I close my eyes. You get used to them - or go completely crazy." He laughed while happily twirling the medieval weapon. "Glad that didn't happen to me, huh?"

Harry whimpered a little.

"What did you do to Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall entered the office after peeking inside, quite innocently of course.

"What do ya mean, Minnie?" Duke casually tossed his morning star through the back wall with a loud crash.

"Don't give me that, Duke!" she said and pointed to the boy-who-lived - who was now staring off unfocused into a wall. "What did you do to him?

"Just finished his occumancy lesson. He did pretty well considering how unsensitized kids are in the wizarding world these days. Did you know muggle kids his age in America have witnessed over twelve-thousand fatalities on their television screens?"

"That's not the point! You're supposed to be teaching him how to defend his mind, but just look at him!" The transmogrification professor grabbed Harry by the shoulders and stared into his face. "Harry! Can you hear me? Can you understand?"

"Ung…" Harry muttered and shivered some more.

"He's young and has a resilient mind. He'll be fine!" Cadukus patted him on the back and laughed.

"That… this is NOT funny!"

"No, what's funny is that I call you 'Minnie', who's a mouse in a muggle cartoon, and yet you turn into a…."

"That is also not funny!"

"Professor McGonagall?" Harry's eyes focused as he asked.

"Harry, are you all right?"

"I'll be fine, professor." He said and shook slightly as he remembered some of what he saw.

"See? And Harry, now you have a bit more incentive to work on your mind shield, that is unless you want to again experience.."

"No!" the cry was reflexive. Harry gained a little bit of his composure. "I will try harder and I will succeed better next time."

"Good! Good, Harry. I'm sure, by the end of the year, not even a Flavian mind slicer would be able to slow you down!"

"I do not know why Albus asked you to come here, Cadukus." Minerva shook her head slowly. "You should not have even been a wizard. You were a problem back when I taught at Vincintine, and now, you are even more of an insufferable psychopath."

"And you, Minnie, are one of the few professors I had that did not suffer a nervous breakdown."

"…" said Minerva. She, then, promptly headed out the door and away to her office.

Harry stood there, taking it all in.

"She was always a capable one. Teaching at Vincintine was her first job out of school. I figured her for easy prey - new teacher, still uncertain of her abilities. Proved me wrong." Duke smiled at the memories.

"Professor Cadukus?" Harry spoke up. "Why are you….. like… I mean…?"

"Why am I an 'insufferable psychopath'?" Duke imitated McGonagall's voice.

No one spoke for a little while.

"My family have always been… prone to violence, Harry. My ancestors were battlemages and bezerkers. Although we've never been good at following the rules, we have, mostly, fought on the side of light. Chaotic good is the term that a certain muggle game… er.. never mind. "

Cadukus leaned forward with a smile. "The short, very short answer to your question started with my father. While the wizards were attacking Grindelwald, my father saw a equal threat in a different castle. He went there by himself, since he was a squib and could not help the others. He went through it like the glorious blade of the Angel of Death. In the end, he brought back many artifacts and devices he found there - both magical and scientific. The Mumblesphere of Dagola'ab was forged by infernal forces in a place that can not be pronounced by the human tongue. It can warp a pure soul to find new unimaginable forms of depravity and make a normal man into gibbering idiot. It scrambles thoughts and fills a mind with gruesome horrors from beyond the known realms."

"Dad thought it was a children's toy."

Harry stood there with his mouth agape.

"And they all lived happily ever after. The end. Finito. Time to go Harry." Duke stood up and ushered the boy out of his office. "I'll see you back here on Thursday."

"Oh, and Harry." Cadukus said. "Don't worry, you've done well - for the first time."

When Harry returned to the common room he was still shaken up over what he had seen.

He shrugged off his friend's questions and went to his bed, but sleep did not come easily.

He saw a house, whose various rooms were each in a state of disrepair. And in each room, there were forms in dark robes and masks - reading, researching, and flitting from one point to another.

"What news have you, Pettigrew?" Harry heard himself say in a voice not his own.

"My lord, our source reports of a new professor at the school." Petter groveled before him.

"I could have told you that! What news on the new professor or the prophesy?"

"The professor is… it is Cadukus Blazkowicz."

"Cadukus? Why would Albus hire that… that monstrosity? When he fought my loyal followers, it was as if I was watching babies fight a dragon, without magic. Letting him near children…"

"He seems to be behaving himself, mostly."

"Time will reveal his true nature. How goes our recruitment?"

"The giants are still undecided, the dark ones are almost in agreement, and per your order we will not induct any of the children into our ranks - overly."

"Good, good." The man who used to be known as Tom Riddle hissed. "Now, any news on the prophesy?"

Peter bowed a little lower. "The seer does not remember any of what she says, and the only other ones…"

"I KNOW who the other ones are…. Wait a second. We are being watched."

Harry felt his dream become turbulent. His thoughts turned to the memories of what he had just discussed with Duke.

"I know now Caducus' secret! And, now for the prophesy." Harry heard Voldemort say as his mind exploded into pain. All he knew was that he could not let Voldemort know what the prophesy said. He frantically searched for anything that could hold off the probe. And in desperation, he used the only thing he could think of.

The memories of what he had seen in Duke's head.

Harry woke up suddenly in a cold sweat, the dark wizard's screams of horror still ringing in his mind.

Bonus Mystery scene of mystery (It may appear, or it may not. flips coin)

Flames were everywhere.

Hogwarts, the school that stood for millennia, was burning. Pieces of movable stairs were falling to the first floor as flaming wreckage.

In the inferno, one figure strode through the heat - as if the flames, themselves, were afraid to touch it.

Even Voldemort paused in his battle with Potter as the new figure exited the fire - his armor gleaming red in the flames.

"It is time to end this. All of this!" said the figure as he unsheathed a slender sword.

Harry blinked, then blinked again. His eyes were seeing something, but he was having great trouble processing it.

"Dobby? Is that you?"