A/N: If anyone thinks they can bribe me with songs, you can think again! It no longer works! All thanks to the wonders of file sharing!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the related characters or places, but I do own Tanhisial and the Italian kid that always annoys Sirius.
Chapter 19
"Dove state andando? Perchè state funzionando via? Ritornato! Non ho fatto nulla!" [Where are you going? Why are you running away? Come back! I did not do anything!]
"Kid! Stop following me!" Sirius yelled at the kid. He had been there a total of two days, one of which had been spent in bed, and now he was conscious again. And annoying Sirius.
"Che cosa è errato? Sono irritante voi?" [What is wrong? I am irritating you?]
Sirius growled in frustration. Why the hell did this kid insist on annoying him of all people?
"Il bambino, che cosa è il vostro nome?" [Child, what is your name?] asked Bella. She had been watching the whole incident and had finally decided that Sirius deserved a break.
"Il mio nome? È Ehno." [My name? It is Ehno]
"Perchè siete irritanti il mio cugino? So è divertimento, ma la I don't pensa che chiunque lo abbia irritato mai così tanto." [Why are you irritating my cousin? I know it is fun, but I don't think anyone has ever irritated him so much]
"Huh?" said Sirius.
"Poiché è un idiot!" [Because he is an idiot!] The kid exclaimed, happily laughing.
"Bene, quello deve essere uno dei motivi migliori per irritarlo che mi sono sentito mai," [Well, that has to be one of the best reasons for irritating him that I have ever heard] she said, before switching back to English again and noticing her cousin's glare. "What?!"
"You've been able to speak to him all this time and you haven't done anything to stop him from being so annoying?!" he yelled at her, obviously mad. To anyone watching them it would have looked as if Sirius was about to explode.
"It was funny. Oh, and before I forget, the kid's name is Ehno, and he's one of the smartest people I've ever met," she said, smiling into Sirius's glare
"And why's that?" he asked suspiciously.
"Because he rightfully thinks you're an idiot," she responded cheerfully, smiling happily.
"I hate you," Sirius muttered, glaring at her.
"Welcome back," said Tanhisial, welcoming Harry back to the wood. "It is time you answered my question. Do you believe in destiny?"
"What? Why should it matter?" Harry asked, scowling. Why should it matter at all about what he believed?
"Just answer me," the last true elf said, amusement creeping into her voice. "Do you believe in destiny? The inevitable divine path which life forms must follow? The predetermined course of a life?"
Harry's scowled deepened. Why the hell should he answer a question that obviously wasn't important? It made no sense, but then, he reminded himself, most things in the magical world didn't.
"Kinda," he replied, after several minutes thought.
"Kind of?" she asked him, looking at him in curiosity. "How so?"
"Err," he started off. "I don't know."
"What is it you believe or disbelieve about destiny?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes, it does. I will ask you again. Do you believe in destiny?"
"… To an extent, I guess," he said, after a moment's pause. "I believe people have freewill, but there's gotta be something guiding them somehow."
She smiled at him slightly, similar to the one she had given him the first time he had come to the forest.
"That is a wise thing to believe. I am glad the fates chose me to guide you in your future."
"Huh?"
"Time in your world is passing quickly, Harry Potter. It is time for you to go back."
The wood slowly faded from view, and the next thing he knew he was staring up into the face of Ron.
"What do you want?" he asked harshly.
"I… I…" Ron tried to respond, stammering.
"Spit it out!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Ron! I've told you before! I'm not interested! Now get out of my face!" Harry shoved passed him, ignoring the hurt look on his ex-best friends face and getting out of the room quickly.
Ehno chuckled slightly as he entered the Black family's library and transformed into his true form. This was too easy.
Silly humans, alphabetizing and categorizing everything in such a way any idiot could understand it. It just showed how idiotic they could be. Surely any of their enemies would find their way around without the slightest bit of trouble. Surely it would make more sense to have an illogical filing system, using the first word of the book, or some such thing? It would be harder to navigate, so no enemy would have access so easily to the information they wished to have.
He ran his finger along one shelf of book, his long finger become caked with dust form the amount of time this old house had obviously been neglected by it's owners, though now it seemed as if they were trying to reverse the effects that time had had over the effect, along with destroying any of the more dangerous artifacts that had been gathered in the house over the years, yet they had not yet reached this room.
He smirked, still thinking of the idiocy of mankind, unable to think of a truly good reason why they were the dominant species of the planet. Maybe everything else on the planet was just really, really dumb. But no matter, it only made it easier for him to complete his plan.
A cruel smile reached his lips and his eyes gleamed as he pulled down a thick leather bound book, about what most humans would consider A4 in size. The leather was stained a deep red, so dark that it could be mistaken for black, and the parchment was yellowing with age, and the ink was slightly faded.
Ehno's smirk left his face and was replaced with that of a scowl. Humans were murderers, that much was plain to see, but the amount of murder that was committed everyday was truly shocking.
Every human on the planet, with the possible exception of a rare few, had taken a life, in some cases millions, yet very few actually believed their actions as murder, very few actually realized what they had really done.
Take a child playing in a garden for example. Say the child found an Ants nest. The would, most probably, go get some water and pour it into the ants nest, effectively killing many of the ant, without realizing that it was killing. It was murder.
Next there are the people who kill ant, again for they are so small, along with other small animals and insect, as they walk along the street. This wasn't deliberate, but it was still the taking of another's life. It could be described as manslaughter.
Manslaughter. Humans were really ego-centric if you thought about it, and a lot of things they said gave the entirely wrong impression. Mankind is one such thing. Man being considered kind could be described as laughable. This is the same species that kill other species (which is perfectly natural to an extent in the animal kingdom, but not as much as has been done, for no species besides humans have really gotten others to the level of extinction) along with their own and, pretty much, destroying the world in the aid of 'development'. But that is another subject altogether.
Now let us go up a level from that innocence of a child playing in a garden and the person who inadvertently kills simply by walking to full grown humans who know that that they are killing, yet they manage to justify it. For example, there are butchers. They kill, or butcher, if you will, many, many animals in their life times. Their justification for this is that people need to eat, which could be considered fair enough, but to Ehno it was still killing, it was still murder.
Next up on the scale of killing are soldier and assassins. These people are paid to kill other humans, the soldiers often in efforts to keep or regain the peace, the assassins often to prevent it. It was still murder.
And finally there are the people that the human race regards as murderers, the people who kill their own kind without being paid to do so, but just out of anger, revenge, or maybe just in cold blood. These people can be described as the worst of the lot. They really do murder.
Throughout the animal kingdom, no matter what level you are at, from the smallest flea to the largest whale, you will not encounter any species that would kill their own, save for the humans. Surely this told you that humans are truly a bloodthirsty race, who desire to see death and pain more so than they realize consciously.
Ehno looked down at the book he was holding, with the leather and parchment that made it up. This was only part of the proof that men were murderers. Parchment was sheep skin, whilst leather is that of a cow's. It was murder.
He shook his head slightly. It was not the time to get emotional over the loss of the lives of millions and billions of animals. He had a job to do.
Shrinking the book ('So You Wish to Learn the Forbidden Arts by Russell Spindel) and hiding it before changing back to his guise of an annoying ten year old boy, he left the library to see if he could use any of the forbidden arts.
A/N: YES! CHAPTER'S OUT! WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO! Okay, you can tell I'm happy. Especially having a little rant half way through the chapter itself, but that just adds to the charm of it!
Okay, happy streak over. I have a question for anyone who's interested. I want to see if anyone can guess the truth about Ehno. It may not be totally obvious, but there are some clues I've placed in this and in previous chapters that may help. And yes, I'm totally bored, if you're wondering.
Not as many reviews for last chapter as there was before, but I'm not bothered.
StryderDarkwynd: There's only one way I can respond to such a review. Err... ew!
Madfoot Moony: NO ONE CAN BRIBE ME ANYMORE! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FILE SHARING IS GREAT! I know how you feel about addictive fanfics. Especially a lot of the ones I'm reading at the minute (damn slow writers! Ad I resent the hypocrite remark I know it coming!). The dream forest thingy will have some importance at some point too. More of the Harry/Bella interaction soon, hopefully (if I remember to get rid of most other characters)
Dark Miroku: Thanks for both or you reviews! And thanks for the help! I think I'll really need it!
Launigsiae: Thanks!
Zaraky: No, you're not the only person who believes that. No one could be all good or all evil. To believe such a thing would be stupid. I'll try to make my chapters longer too (I do try, and it does work, nowadays my average chapter length is 1500, instead of what used to be just over 1000).
Hi Im Crazy: I would have thought that fact that Ehno (ITALIAN KID HAS A NAME NOW! REJOICE!) wasn't human would have been obvious from the chapter where Sirius came back to England. Thanks though. Glad you liked the forest and what it symbolizes too.
Amscray: But I'm not any good at writing fight or action scenes! And I HATE Ron! He's the only character that I hate so much that I would actually let it change what I write in a fic! All of the other characters, whether I like them or not, don't change a fic too much for me!
jeangab057: Okay! To London!
FrostWing: Like I told Zaraky, my chapters are longer than they used to be on average, but I will try and get them each up to 2000 words (this one's only about 400 off). And I don't know why if people like Bella they Hate Ron. Must be one of those things.
A. Person: Thanks! But what's wrong with weird pairings?! They're fun and out of the ordinary. The line I added in for Sirius, well, I had to do something that was so totally Sirius (so definitely not serious) and that just seemed to fit the bill. And my explanation about Sirius actually being there in this should be up sometime in the next few chapters.
