I was playing Legend of Dragoon for the nine billionth time (have we
established the fact that I'm a gamefreak, yet?) and that eternal
question came back to haunt me.
How in God's name did Zieg ever put up with being called "Zieggy"?! And
has anyone else noticed that Zieg and Millions Knives have the same
train of thought? And dialogue for that matter. "Are you pointing a gun
at me?!"/"Are you pointing a sword at your father?!"
Uhm, yeah, pointless babble.
chibi - I really don't have any clue what bi xia translates to. Like I
said previously, it's the name of Raven's Legacy in EOE.
Fire-Mage - I do believe that was the _longest_ review I've ever
gotten. The party being the one I went to, correct? Oh, I've got tons
of those stories; you ever watch two drunks trying to speak the
dialogue of The Lord of the Ring while watching it?
I'm on a list of Dark!Harry fics? Really? What list is this? And yes, I
did enjoy reading it ^____^ Reading messages from the insane ones is
always fun.
Pothead and crew belong to no one but their creator, who is JK Rowling.
---
Blackened Sunrise
Chapter thirty-one: Waking
The Itch
---
Albus Dumbledore was worried.
Severus had just given him news that Voldemort was planning something--
what, neither knew, only that he was-- and a number of his students had
gone missing. Four, in fact, and no one knew where they were. Ginny
Weasley, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. If it had
been Ron Weasley in Draco's place, he'd have been able to understand
it; but it wasn't. What did three Gryffindors and a Slytherin have in
common, that would cause them all to vanish at once?
Perhaps Tom had them...? That would explain why he was plotting, but
not _how_ he had gotten the students.
The old wizard's mind slipped to Daemon Wolfos. The younger, yet still
old, Wizard had been on the staff of Hogwarts for many long years-- in
fact, he became the Potions Master less then a year after Albus himself
became Headmaster. Unfortunately, just his previous experience teaching
at the school did not disavow his fears that the DADA professor had
something to do with the disappearances.
Albus could well remember days spent watching the plotting pair of Tom
and Daemon, wondering what the two boys were up to this time. It would
be just like _both_ of them, to have kept their "friendship" all these
long years, if only to have access to someone who knew them inside and
out, and able to see flaws in each others' plans. There had been many a
day while he taught them, where he wondered why Wolfos had been placed
into Ravenclaw, and not Slytherin.
So the bearded wizard hesitated; he took no action to reveal nor
confirm his suspicions. As it was, it didn't really matter.
It wasn't what Riddle or Wolfos were planning that he should have been
concerned about.
It was the course of action Harry Potter had decided upon.
---
It was mid-way through December before they found any reference to a
Japanese-spoken spell that would bring about symptoms not unlike what
Draco was suffering through. Although, suffering was a bad word for it;
they had figured he was in a state of suspended animation. This because
he did not need anything to survive, he just... did.
It was called the Seikishin spell; Reborn Life, if Hermione had
translated it correctly. Essentially, the spell held one within
suspended animation, until such a time the caster releases them, or
dies. It had been designed originally to be used on members of the
nobility while during the Meiji Revolution in Japan; supposedly to
extend their lives until such a time as the war was over and their rule
was uncontested.
Unfortunately, there were side effects.
The mind did not shut down. It was fully active the entire time they
were in the slumber, and generally resulted in the being held within
the spell's grasp to be slowly driven insane. Hermione had been
absolutely stunned when none of the three that she was with seemed to
bat an eye, up until Virginia took her aside and explained that a side
effect of becoming and Living Weapon, was that the Power slowly drove
one insane.
When one is insane, one does not have nearly so many morals, and can
therefore be a proper Weapon.
Still, the thought that he could be driving himself mad sufficed to
spur her onwards, ever more quickly. Despite the fact that he was Draco
Malfoy, despite the fact that neither had ever appeared to have any
sort of compassion for one another, she wasn't about to let someone be
driven into St. Mungos just because she didn't want to find them a
cure.
Draco had been comatose since mid-November. He'd been under for nearly
a month. In a week, he was expected back at Malfoy Manor; not only
that, but in a week, he was supposed to be coming up with a feasible
excuse as to exactly _why_ he'd stopped communicating with Lucius, why
he'd stopped coming to his father for council on everything he did. He
was likely not to be capable of doing any such things if he remained in
this state.
So Hermione had joined them on skipping out of classes for the last
week-- only catching up on what they were supposed to be doing in class
by using a Time Turner, when Harry tried to force her to sleep. She
barely got three hours of rest per night. It was nerve wracking, and
more than once had she fallen asleep while researching.
She would always awaken back in her dorm room; unsure of who had
"delivered" her. Was it Sirius? Harry? Ginny? She had no idea, and she
was normally long gone by the time any of the other sixth year girls
awoke, perpetuating the idea that she was, indeed, missing.
"So how do we reverse the spell?" Sirius rubbed his eyes, his ears
flopping about as he shuffled across the floor. Both Virginia and
Sirius had shifted back into their natural forms, so as not to
uselessly expend the energy of forcing magic through their wards in
order to sustain the human appearance. After all, Hermione already
knew, so what did it matter?
The young genius covered a yawn, stretching, "We just have to use the
Japanese version of 'finite incantantum'."
"Which would be...?" prodded Potter, who was apparently the only one
not about to fall asleep. Not up for pronouncing the spell, Hermione
pushed the book in front of his face, and pointing to a line of kanji.
Harry sighed, "'Mione, I can't read this."
"Good," she mumbled, "Draco can survive another night, right? I really
need some sleep."
"You must be tired, to admit that," Ginny returned, equally as tiredly.
She'd had even less sleep than her. Draco was her training-partner,
after all. She'd be glad when things were back to normal-- when they
could finish training, and be "graduated" to a real Weapon status.
She'd just love to have a weapon name.
"We're all tired," Harry proclaimed suddenly, "Let's all get off to
bed, and we can finish up in the morning."
"Right," Sirius nodded, "G'Night Malfoy." they'd taken to calling him
goodnight when they'd read that he was fully aware the entire time he
was locked in his mind.
"Night Malfoy," Hermione yawned, stepping out of the room, after
Sirius, who had shifted into Padfoot.
"Later It," was Weasley's night time call, and she and Hermione
followed Padfoot back to Gryffindor Tower. Harry paused before moving
off after them.
"I'll be back," he promised, not feeling the least bit tired. They
hadn't forgotten to perform the counter runes once, although Hermione
had probably forgotten why she was preforming them, what with the
research they'd been doing into Draco's "condition". Fortunately, with
every time they were cast, Harry felt a bit more power seep through,
and it revitalized him.
He waited until after Padfoot had fallen asleep at the foot of Ron's
bed-- a ploy, so that no one realized the dog was really Harry's not
the second youngest Weasley's-- before slipping out of the Tower and
heading back towards their secret room.
The white-blonde haired teen was still laying on the couch where Harry
had set him down those long weeks prior. Harry pulled over the book,
staring at the words that made no sense to him. However, while they may
not have made sense of Harry Potter-- Weapon was well versed in the
language. Wolfos had wanted to cover all bases, and had thus instructed
the Living Weapon in how to speak, read and write in multiple
languages.
Harry passed the control over their shared body over to his other half.
And that other half read the words to himself. For an extra boost in
power, Weapon withdrew Harry's wand from the sleeve of his robe, and
whispered the magic words.
He waited, for a good seven minutes, wondering if he'd pronounced it
incorrectly. Just as he lifted his wand to try again-- maybe throw a
bad attempt at a Chinese accent, Draco's eyelids twitched.
Weapon released his control, and Harry's lips quirked.
"C'mon Draco, time to wake up."
The boy who'd spent a month comatose groaned, trying to pull himself
out of the muck and mire of his thoughts. They had spent four weeks
running around in circles, those thoughts, and he had long since become
frustrated with the constant argument between he and the Voice.
Although, the Voice had been dubbed 'Hak', simply because Draco was
getting tired of referring to it as 'the Voice', and had just randomly
chosen a name.
As he pulled himself out of his thoughts and back into reality, drawn
free by the smooth tones of his enemy/rival/teacher/friend, he felt
himself just a little bit more free of the responsibilities that had
been on his head since prior to his birth. What did he care about them?
He'd never made the decision to abide by them, after all.
"You going to sit there all night with your eyes shut, moron? Or will I
have to pry 'em open with my fingernails?"
"Keep your robe on," Draco growled; sounding like he'd just woken from
a two hour nap, and not a four week stint into the realm of the coma.
When they said suspended animation, they really meant suspended
animation. Draco seemed perfectly fine, health wise, despite not
moving, speaking, eating nor drinking for over twenty-eight days.
"Welcome back to Midgard," Potter drawled, rolling his eyes, "Have fun
in Nifilhelm?"
"If I knew what the hell you were talking about, I'd answer," was the
tart response, to which the son of James laughed.
"Norse legend, something I was reading up on since the book on Merlin's
Damned Squiggles happens to be in Old Norse."
Finally, one grey eye cracked open, staring out at the world, "You have
less of a live than the Mudblood, don't you?"
"I take it you're disappointed with the spell being broken?" taunted
Harry, smirking as emerald eyes danced mirthlessly. The partial veela
sat up with a grunt, not used to having a body after a month in the
dark recesses of his mind.
"Something wrong?"
"Yeah," Harry crossed his arms, "the Old Man cast the spell on you."
"Wolfos!?"
"Yeah, Wolfos," Harry's eyes darkened with fury, lips curling back with
a snarl, "Only two more weeks, Dragon. Two weeks and then I'm free of
these goddamned wards."
"Two weeks until you begin to set the Balance in motion?"
While still angry, the comment did do a bit to lighten his mood,
"Hardly. Daemon's spell put us back in our training. I'll be free to
change whenever I want, but I want you, Sirius and Virginia as full
fledged Living Weapons once I begin. You'd never survive otherwise."
"What you're saying is that we're not strong enough, then."
"No," he shook his head, leaning back against the wall to stare up at
the ceiling, "that's not it at all. What I'm saying is that you three
still have far to many morals to be able to do what we have to do."
"I've been groomed to become a Deatheater all my life, and you're
saying I have to many _morals_?" was the dry question.
Harry's lips quirked, "As a matter of fact, yes. We need to get rid of
that pesky thing known as love. Loyalty is alright, but love...?
Hardly. Love gets in the way of everything. No love, no problems."
"I don't love anyone," Draco growled angrily, although he was quite
happy to not have to be running through the argument he and Hak had
spent the last month going in circles for.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. You still care for Lucius and
Narcissa," Harry's eyes flashed, "and that's a big no-no."
---
End Chapter
I don't really like this chapter...
established the fact that I'm a gamefreak, yet?) and that eternal
question came back to haunt me.
How in God's name did Zieg ever put up with being called "Zieggy"?! And
has anyone else noticed that Zieg and Millions Knives have the same
train of thought? And dialogue for that matter. "Are you pointing a gun
at me?!"/"Are you pointing a sword at your father?!"
Uhm, yeah, pointless babble.
chibi - I really don't have any clue what bi xia translates to. Like I
said previously, it's the name of Raven's Legacy in EOE.
Fire-Mage - I do believe that was the _longest_ review I've ever
gotten. The party being the one I went to, correct? Oh, I've got tons
of those stories; you ever watch two drunks trying to speak the
dialogue of The Lord of the Ring while watching it?
I'm on a list of Dark!Harry fics? Really? What list is this? And yes, I
did enjoy reading it ^____^ Reading messages from the insane ones is
always fun.
Pothead and crew belong to no one but their creator, who is JK Rowling.
---
Blackened Sunrise
Chapter thirty-one: Waking
The Itch
---
Albus Dumbledore was worried.
Severus had just given him news that Voldemort was planning something--
what, neither knew, only that he was-- and a number of his students had
gone missing. Four, in fact, and no one knew where they were. Ginny
Weasley, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. If it had
been Ron Weasley in Draco's place, he'd have been able to understand
it; but it wasn't. What did three Gryffindors and a Slytherin have in
common, that would cause them all to vanish at once?
Perhaps Tom had them...? That would explain why he was plotting, but
not _how_ he had gotten the students.
The old wizard's mind slipped to Daemon Wolfos. The younger, yet still
old, Wizard had been on the staff of Hogwarts for many long years-- in
fact, he became the Potions Master less then a year after Albus himself
became Headmaster. Unfortunately, just his previous experience teaching
at the school did not disavow his fears that the DADA professor had
something to do with the disappearances.
Albus could well remember days spent watching the plotting pair of Tom
and Daemon, wondering what the two boys were up to this time. It would
be just like _both_ of them, to have kept their "friendship" all these
long years, if only to have access to someone who knew them inside and
out, and able to see flaws in each others' plans. There had been many a
day while he taught them, where he wondered why Wolfos had been placed
into Ravenclaw, and not Slytherin.
So the bearded wizard hesitated; he took no action to reveal nor
confirm his suspicions. As it was, it didn't really matter.
It wasn't what Riddle or Wolfos were planning that he should have been
concerned about.
It was the course of action Harry Potter had decided upon.
---
It was mid-way through December before they found any reference to a
Japanese-spoken spell that would bring about symptoms not unlike what
Draco was suffering through. Although, suffering was a bad word for it;
they had figured he was in a state of suspended animation. This because
he did not need anything to survive, he just... did.
It was called the Seikishin spell; Reborn Life, if Hermione had
translated it correctly. Essentially, the spell held one within
suspended animation, until such a time the caster releases them, or
dies. It had been designed originally to be used on members of the
nobility while during the Meiji Revolution in Japan; supposedly to
extend their lives until such a time as the war was over and their rule
was uncontested.
Unfortunately, there were side effects.
The mind did not shut down. It was fully active the entire time they
were in the slumber, and generally resulted in the being held within
the spell's grasp to be slowly driven insane. Hermione had been
absolutely stunned when none of the three that she was with seemed to
bat an eye, up until Virginia took her aside and explained that a side
effect of becoming and Living Weapon, was that the Power slowly drove
one insane.
When one is insane, one does not have nearly so many morals, and can
therefore be a proper Weapon.
Still, the thought that he could be driving himself mad sufficed to
spur her onwards, ever more quickly. Despite the fact that he was Draco
Malfoy, despite the fact that neither had ever appeared to have any
sort of compassion for one another, she wasn't about to let someone be
driven into St. Mungos just because she didn't want to find them a
cure.
Draco had been comatose since mid-November. He'd been under for nearly
a month. In a week, he was expected back at Malfoy Manor; not only
that, but in a week, he was supposed to be coming up with a feasible
excuse as to exactly _why_ he'd stopped communicating with Lucius, why
he'd stopped coming to his father for council on everything he did. He
was likely not to be capable of doing any such things if he remained in
this state.
So Hermione had joined them on skipping out of classes for the last
week-- only catching up on what they were supposed to be doing in class
by using a Time Turner, when Harry tried to force her to sleep. She
barely got three hours of rest per night. It was nerve wracking, and
more than once had she fallen asleep while researching.
She would always awaken back in her dorm room; unsure of who had
"delivered" her. Was it Sirius? Harry? Ginny? She had no idea, and she
was normally long gone by the time any of the other sixth year girls
awoke, perpetuating the idea that she was, indeed, missing.
"So how do we reverse the spell?" Sirius rubbed his eyes, his ears
flopping about as he shuffled across the floor. Both Virginia and
Sirius had shifted back into their natural forms, so as not to
uselessly expend the energy of forcing magic through their wards in
order to sustain the human appearance. After all, Hermione already
knew, so what did it matter?
The young genius covered a yawn, stretching, "We just have to use the
Japanese version of 'finite incantantum'."
"Which would be...?" prodded Potter, who was apparently the only one
not about to fall asleep. Not up for pronouncing the spell, Hermione
pushed the book in front of his face, and pointing to a line of kanji.
Harry sighed, "'Mione, I can't read this."
"Good," she mumbled, "Draco can survive another night, right? I really
need some sleep."
"You must be tired, to admit that," Ginny returned, equally as tiredly.
She'd had even less sleep than her. Draco was her training-partner,
after all. She'd be glad when things were back to normal-- when they
could finish training, and be "graduated" to a real Weapon status.
She'd just love to have a weapon name.
"We're all tired," Harry proclaimed suddenly, "Let's all get off to
bed, and we can finish up in the morning."
"Right," Sirius nodded, "G'Night Malfoy." they'd taken to calling him
goodnight when they'd read that he was fully aware the entire time he
was locked in his mind.
"Night Malfoy," Hermione yawned, stepping out of the room, after
Sirius, who had shifted into Padfoot.
"Later It," was Weasley's night time call, and she and Hermione
followed Padfoot back to Gryffindor Tower. Harry paused before moving
off after them.
"I'll be back," he promised, not feeling the least bit tired. They
hadn't forgotten to perform the counter runes once, although Hermione
had probably forgotten why she was preforming them, what with the
research they'd been doing into Draco's "condition". Fortunately, with
every time they were cast, Harry felt a bit more power seep through,
and it revitalized him.
He waited until after Padfoot had fallen asleep at the foot of Ron's
bed-- a ploy, so that no one realized the dog was really Harry's not
the second youngest Weasley's-- before slipping out of the Tower and
heading back towards their secret room.
The white-blonde haired teen was still laying on the couch where Harry
had set him down those long weeks prior. Harry pulled over the book,
staring at the words that made no sense to him. However, while they may
not have made sense of Harry Potter-- Weapon was well versed in the
language. Wolfos had wanted to cover all bases, and had thus instructed
the Living Weapon in how to speak, read and write in multiple
languages.
Harry passed the control over their shared body over to his other half.
And that other half read the words to himself. For an extra boost in
power, Weapon withdrew Harry's wand from the sleeve of his robe, and
whispered the magic words.
He waited, for a good seven minutes, wondering if he'd pronounced it
incorrectly. Just as he lifted his wand to try again-- maybe throw a
bad attempt at a Chinese accent, Draco's eyelids twitched.
Weapon released his control, and Harry's lips quirked.
"C'mon Draco, time to wake up."
The boy who'd spent a month comatose groaned, trying to pull himself
out of the muck and mire of his thoughts. They had spent four weeks
running around in circles, those thoughts, and he had long since become
frustrated with the constant argument between he and the Voice.
Although, the Voice had been dubbed 'Hak', simply because Draco was
getting tired of referring to it as 'the Voice', and had just randomly
chosen a name.
As he pulled himself out of his thoughts and back into reality, drawn
free by the smooth tones of his enemy/rival/teacher/friend, he felt
himself just a little bit more free of the responsibilities that had
been on his head since prior to his birth. What did he care about them?
He'd never made the decision to abide by them, after all.
"You going to sit there all night with your eyes shut, moron? Or will I
have to pry 'em open with my fingernails?"
"Keep your robe on," Draco growled; sounding like he'd just woken from
a two hour nap, and not a four week stint into the realm of the coma.
When they said suspended animation, they really meant suspended
animation. Draco seemed perfectly fine, health wise, despite not
moving, speaking, eating nor drinking for over twenty-eight days.
"Welcome back to Midgard," Potter drawled, rolling his eyes, "Have fun
in Nifilhelm?"
"If I knew what the hell you were talking about, I'd answer," was the
tart response, to which the son of James laughed.
"Norse legend, something I was reading up on since the book on Merlin's
Damned Squiggles happens to be in Old Norse."
Finally, one grey eye cracked open, staring out at the world, "You have
less of a live than the Mudblood, don't you?"
"I take it you're disappointed with the spell being broken?" taunted
Harry, smirking as emerald eyes danced mirthlessly. The partial veela
sat up with a grunt, not used to having a body after a month in the
dark recesses of his mind.
"Something wrong?"
"Yeah," Harry crossed his arms, "the Old Man cast the spell on you."
"Wolfos!?"
"Yeah, Wolfos," Harry's eyes darkened with fury, lips curling back with
a snarl, "Only two more weeks, Dragon. Two weeks and then I'm free of
these goddamned wards."
"Two weeks until you begin to set the Balance in motion?"
While still angry, the comment did do a bit to lighten his mood,
"Hardly. Daemon's spell put us back in our training. I'll be free to
change whenever I want, but I want you, Sirius and Virginia as full
fledged Living Weapons once I begin. You'd never survive otherwise."
"What you're saying is that we're not strong enough, then."
"No," he shook his head, leaning back against the wall to stare up at
the ceiling, "that's not it at all. What I'm saying is that you three
still have far to many morals to be able to do what we have to do."
"I've been groomed to become a Deatheater all my life, and you're
saying I have to many _morals_?" was the dry question.
Harry's lips quirked, "As a matter of fact, yes. We need to get rid of
that pesky thing known as love. Loyalty is alright, but love...?
Hardly. Love gets in the way of everything. No love, no problems."
"I don't love anyone," Draco growled angrily, although he was quite
happy to not have to be running through the argument he and Hak had
spent the last month going in circles for.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong. You still care for Lucius and
Narcissa," Harry's eyes flashed, "and that's a big no-no."
---
End Chapter
I don't really like this chapter...