know, some people have told me that they've spent an entire night
just reading this beast. Personally, I don't recommend it but...
*shrugs* Can't stop the massess. Heh, this thing just got out of
control; it further along than my novel, even though I know what I'm
going to do with The Living Weapon, and have since before I started
goofing around with Blackened Sunrise. Lots of people seem to adore
Nate, for some strange reason... wonder why... My madness is fun.
Cthulu...? Hey! He owes me money! He bet me I couldn't write a
psycho-fic! ¬_¬
wicchick - Gore is fun to write. Pain... ah, pain, I know thee well.
Cath... well, she is kinda mortally wounded, although you'll likely
have to wait until next chapter to find out anything about her end,
Sulnore, Helkaer and Harry...
lkoKennan - Hermi is... not doing so well, but that's probably
because she was taking lessons from Leigh in "How To Meet the
Ground". (Don't ask, long story, and it'll probably make sense by
the time you finish this chapter.) The super test from Echo-Lily.
*nods* Oh yeah... and once they finish their 'tests', what do you
think is going to happen? (My vote is on attempting to kill the
unkillable echo...)
mortal enemy of inanimate objects - Hmm, Drow in Hogwarts. *smiles
benevolently* Perhaps.
ccs rox - Yeah, Draco rocks, and Harry's wicked-cool, Ginny's psycho
and Sirius is a blast to write. Draco will... come back whenever he
comes back. Sev's been sent to retrieve him, though. (The Adventures
of Draco & Rosa are chronicled in Black Rose's Spin-Off"Blackened
Sunrise: An American Weapon"-- link's in my profile)
Scamber Dragon - *salutes* Off to see the other characters! I was
planning on it anyways, since nobody knows what's been going on with
them for the past little while. Oops!
Lady Darkmoon - Ah, lengthy load times. Although I don't recommend
spending all night reading BS, I suppose it's your decision to wait
for a slow-loading site... Like I told ccs rox, Draco's over with
Rosa in Black Rose's world. Why don't you go check it out? ^__^
Arizosa - *snickers* Glad you liked it. Dear Cath, we who knew you
not, will... probably not miss you. *grins*
HP is JKR's. TLW is the Itch's. Get it? Got it? Good. Live with it.
---
Blackened Sunrise
Chapter Fifty-Nine - Cutscenes
The Itch
---
It was with a gasp, that Ron Weasley jerked out of his trance, eyed
confused and blurry. Where...?
"You're in the Infirmary," came the dulcet tones of one Lavender
Brown, of whom had taken over the medical wing following Madam
Pomfrey's... unexpected leave of absence. Still confused, the second
youngest Weasley blinked the tears and crust from his eyes to see her
fretful visage staring down into his own, "Dean brought you here when
you passed out in the Great Hall four hours ago. I couldn't find any
physical reasons for you to ha--"
"It wasn't physical," the clairvoyant murmured, pulling himself up into a sitting position, "Although I wish it was. Good bloody Mer-- God, but I have a headache."
Lavender watched him curiously, "What do you mean?"
He sighed; his clairevoyency wasn't very well known-- Weapon and his
sister had wanted an ace up their proverbial sleeves, so they'd
tamped down on the information. Slowly, the redhead shook his head in
the negative, "Sorry Lavender; this is one of those things that only
the Weapons are supposed to know."
Besides, he'd rather _not_ freak her out with visions of war, death
and mayhem. Visions of which his sister and his best friend were at
the forefront of.
---
Remus Lupin rubbed a tired hand across equally as tired eyes as he
finally made it into magical civilization. He'd been traveling for
days, just trying to get back to Hogwarts and to throw deatheater and
auror alike off his trail. Stumbling his way to the small village's
local inn, he stifled a yawn; he had enough to pay for one night, and
then he'd be off, moving once again towards Hogwarts.
So tired was he, that he missed the front page of the Daily Prophet
that had laid upon his bed where a careless maid had dropped it. He
missed the bold letters, screaming a question, alongside a picture of
Hogwarts, in what seemed to be a lock down.
'What Happened??'
---
Lucius Malfoy winced as his lord threw another priceless vase at the
walls, watching the snake-like man rant and pace, pace and rant.
Although peace had seemed non-existent before, once old Daemon Wolfos
had died-- been killed, really-- the Deatheaters had soon learned the
folly of that assumption.
Tom Riddle was never happy anymore, not even during the midst of a
Dark Revel, not even when plotting the down fall of Harry Potter.
Malfoy's insane Master would jump from home to home, a different
Deatheater's place of rest every night. And he would rant and rave
and scream when he learned that his followers had yet to locate the
one who had killed his best friend.
Best friend. Not a word Lucius had ever considered to be a label to
go with the Dark Lord.
Insane, yes. Best friend...? No. He had always assumed that the
closest thing that Lord Voldemort had to a best friend was Nagini.
Not so, as was apparent by the fact that his luney master was carting
around a massive, pale-blue stuffed-snake. The toy-animal wasn't even
enchanted to act like a real snake; it was just fabric and stuffing,
the only charm upon it an ever-last charm.
It had been a present from Daemon, which made it one of the few
things Riddle had that he truly 'loved'-- as much as a creature the
likes of the snake-man could love.
Lucius settled back to watch the heirlooms from his wife's side of
the family get shattered to itty-bitty little pieces by the enraged
Tom Riddle, his stuffed snake Rilos wrapped around his neck.
Why had he gotten in with a lunatic again? Oh. Right. World
Domination, and extermination of Muggles.
---
Determination.
The one word to describe her with, at this particular moment, as she
dodged to the left, ducking and rolling. The massive stone fist of
the golem tore through the stone walls of the maze like it was toilet
paper.
Honestly, she'd never meant to wake the damned thing up-- she just
wasn't used to walking with the golden staff in her hand, and an
uneven patch in the flooring had tripped her. The golden bar had
flown from her finger-tips, clattering down the hall and coming to a
halt at the feet of the massive iron golem at the far end. Although
iron was the anti-thesis to magic, that didn't stop the golem from
bending the rules.
The staff had awoken it, and it lurched to it's feet, searching for a
target. Hermione had froze, praying under her breath that it would
ignore it. It had, and for that she had been grateful. Laying there
for an hour, waiting desperately for it to go back to sleep, she had
breathed a sigh of relief when it settled back down. Still, she had
waited another half hour before hoping to her feet and making a grab
for her staff.
Her fingers had barely curled around it's haft, when the golem first
belted her, sending her skidding across the stone, crying out with
pain, as back and side scraped the ground, leaving a trail of blood.
She had impacted roughly, pain charging through her arm. She didn't
know if it was dislocated or fractured, but the area up never her
shoulder screamed like a bitch with every movement.
She used that arm to hold her staff close to her body, and attempted
not to use it, just to avoid pain. Then she struggled to her feet,
wincing as a biting sting burned in her knees and side. She had only
just barely held back a scream as the golem came at her again, and
she dodged out of the way.
Hermione had been dodging attacks for nearly twenty-minutes now, eyes
darting frantically in an attempt to find escape. The only exit was
behind the golem, and the holes in the walls only lead to more
passages. She'd rather not try to get more and more lost as time went
on.
Backed against a wall, the Enchantress did the only thing she could
think of, to buy her time. She popped her staff into flail-mode, and
began to whip it about with her good hand. It made a satisfying
cracking noise every time a hit was landed, a metallic
ringing 'thwack'.
It was actually very therapeutic, and apparently it was managing to
hold the golem off long enough that she could search for the
animating figure somewhere on it's body. The face and head was free
of the symbols, as was the chest, and the back. That didn't mean
anything, as while those were the major areas to place the charms,
they were not, as most wizards and witches believed, the only place
to put a charm.
There. A glint of gold upon the iron; the animating rune was made to
appear as a tattoo on it's upper thigh. Her brown eyes narrowed
sharply, "Let's see you move without that..."
The flail moved from attacking the torso, to whipping across the
golden runes. Oh gods above and below she hoped this worked.
---
End Chapter