Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter.
Chapter 21 Curse of Memory
At Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a young woman paced irritably in front of a stone gargoyle, with her older brother trying desperately to calm her down.
"Ginny, please," Ronald Weasley began, but to his annoyance, his little sister didn't even spare him a glance, checking her watch compulsively instead.
Sighing, the redhead leaned against the wall, shaking his head.
"Hour's up."
Albus Dumbledore looked up, and nodded at Ginny Weasley. "Yes, it appears something has delayed Mister Potter's return."
"More like someone." The redhead retorted testily.
Nodding and praying silently she was wrong, the Headmaster motioned to the other Order members situated in the office, assembled to mount the rescue mission. Nearby, Ginny and her brother pulled their own wands free, determined to keep their friend from suffering the fate of Miss Granger.
Grim faced and determined, each and every one of them was ready for war.
Of course, if Miss Weasley was right, he considered, war might be a blessing.
"Well, just you and me now champ." Thanatos said, grinning insanely, his obsidian eyes shimmering with that same madness and power.
Harry Potter glared defiantly into the face of his twisted alter ego. The silvery spirit was bound by the chains of darkness, trapped with the purest incarnation of Evil in existence.
Nearby, another incarnation of Darkness, the late Lord Voldemort, lay dead, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling in utter horror. Stripped of all his power, the former Dark Lord was now just another body count for the eidolon.
"Aw... don't be like that Harry." The demon remarked casually, strolling nonchalantly towards the Boy-Who-Lived. "I'm not such a bad guy... once you get to know me."
"What's there to know?" the spirit replied sarcastically. "You're a monster bent on consuming all life on this earth."
Thanatos just kept smiling in that same insane manner. "But once you get past that, you'll find I'm just a lonely guy who wants a friend."
The Boy-Who-Lived snorted derisively. "Right... once I get past the fact that you aren't a guy, or a man, but a killing machine of pure Evil."
"Hm... touche." The fiend nodded, and then lashed out, backhanding Harry in the face, his Darkness allowing him to strike the defiant spirit. "I am what I am." He said simply.
Turning his head back, Harry only continued glaring, before his own, defiant and insane smile spread across his face. "But you can't kill me... you heard what Voldemort said. If you kill me, you die too."
For a moment, Thanatos looked stricken and indecisive, a moment of weakness in the normally calm demon. Then the insanity and hatred was back, and his eyes once more glimmered with some unholy light. "You're a bit too cocky for your own good, you know that Potter?" He asked, a slight anger in his tone.
"Pot, kettle, black." Harry replied cheekily.
The air around the room became arctic cold, and Thanatos looked murderous, absolute loathing etched into his every feature. "There are worse things than death Potter... surely the old man taught you that." He spat viciously, glaring at the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Like what?" the spirit asked, more to stall for time than interest.
An amused look settled itself on the eidolon's face, and a pit of fear festered in Harry's stomach. "I think you know... perhaps a little refresher course will help." Slowly, deliberately, he moved to placed his fingertip on the boy's head, which increased the light spirit's struggles. However, it was to no avail, as the deathly cold flesh of Thanatos made contact with the spirit's head.
And then everything went black.
It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch...
"SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"
"There's nothing you can do, Harry...nothing... He's gone."
"He hasn't gone!"
"SHE KILLED SIRIUS! SHE KILLED HIM-I'LL KILL HER!"
"Ah... did you love him, little baby Potter?
"CRUCIO!"
"Never used an unforgivable curse before, have you boy? You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain- to enjoy it- righteous anger won't hurt me for long- I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll give you a lesson-"
Gasping, Harry felt himself to return to reality, taking one labored, unnecessary breath after another.
"Was that worse than death, Potter?" Thanatos asked, his voice a disturbing mix of cold hatred and sadistic insanity. "Tell me... for I cannot feel such illusions as love, or grief, or sorrow..."
"Then you are weak." Harry replied, gasping for breath. "You're just a machine..."
The demon's eyes narrowed, and something unreadable passed through the abyss of his eyes. "You're still defiant..." He mused irritably, and then a slow, dark smile spread over his visage. "Perhaps we should try mix and match."
Harry managed only a small protest before Thanatos grabbed his skull, and the darkness overtook him again.
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now..."
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead- Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy..."
"Wands out, y'reckon?"
"Kill the spare."
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"Bow to death Harry."
And then the darkness receded once more, and memory faded again. This time, Harry slumped wearily against the chains, sucking in as much air as he could, but still, the dying screams of his mother and the cold, dead eyes of Cedric Diggory haunted him.
Thanatos seemed quite pleased that the defiance had dwindled, even just a little. "There are so very many things worse than death Harry... like life." He whispered softly, his face an inch away from the Boy-Who-Lived, boring into the silver shaded emerald with his jet black eyes.
"We both know that sometimes death can be a blessing... and I will make you beg for that blessing, that unreachable gift before we are through." The demon breathed, eyes glittering with malice.
Harry could only stare, the defiance in his eyes flickering and fading rapidly before the assault of memory.
"Well then..." Thanatos pulled back, smiling. "Shall we continue?"
And then Harry's scar burst open. He knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance-
He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature's began. They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape-
And when the creature spoke, it used Harry's mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move...
"Kill me now, Dumbledore..."
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again...
"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy..."
"CRUCIO!"
An immense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart...
White hot pain was spreading steadily from the wound.
"CRUCIO!"
Trapped in the bowels of Riddle Manor, being tortured by his Darkness, Harry Potter screamed.
Closing his eyes as if he were savoring some rare delicacy, Thanatos smiled, and released the Boy-Who-Lived from the memories. That had been a neat trick, mixing memories so intense that they would make him think he was in actual pain.
Sometimes, he was amazed at his own brilliance.
Others would probably have pissed themselves in fear of said brilliance.
The demon grabbed Harry's chin delicately, pushing his face up to force the pained emerald eyes to stare into his midnight ones. "That's better..." Thanatos whispered. "But I think we can do more."
"God..." Tonks breathed softly, glancing at the corpses of Death Eaters that were scattered about the entrance hall of the manor.
At least a score in this area alone, all of them scattered about, like debris in the wake of a tornado.
"No, I don't think God had anything to do with this one." Severus Snape remarked sardonically, waving his lighted wand over the bodies.
"Are they all dead?" Ginny asked quietly, glancing at the still form of one masked Death Eater.
Ron kicked at one of them, merely rolled over, lifeless. "I'd say so..." He muttered, a slight tremor in his voice.
"Come on... Harry needs our help, now more than ever, it seems." Dumbledore said quietly, already moving down the hallway.
"Ri-right..." Ron said shakily, following the Headmaster, with the others close behind.
Harry Potter had probably looked worse, but also looked better. Ashen, gasping for air as if he had been drowning, he looked like a man on his deathbed.
Which of course, was almost the situation.
Bile forced itself up from his stomach, causing him to heave slightly, his body shaking with pain. Unable to hold it in, the vomit hurled itself from his lips, landing in with a wet splat on the cold floor.
Thanatos glanced distastefully at the bile, and stepped aside. "Ready to beg yet?" He asked, his voice dangerously low.
Harry almost let out a groan of pain. His head felt so heavy, his mouth had that overpowering taste of vomit, and his whole body ached with the memories made real. Weakly, he struggled to pull his head up.
The demon's hands (or perhaps Harry's body's) clutched his chin again and pulled his head up all the way. "So... what's it gonna be?" the doppelganger questioned mercilessly.
Looking at him, drained and weary, the Boy-Who-Lived had only one response.
"Fuck you."
Immediately, all false pleasantries dropped from the demon's face and Harry caught a glimpse of what the demon's true visage, beneath the masks.
Thanatos' face was contorted in pure hatred, midnight eyes murderously narrowed. The very air dropped into deathly, arctic cold, the atmosphere twisted with malevolent power, and the darkness of the room swelled till it swallowed all light.
Raising his hand, the shadows coalesced around it, forming themselves into that same sword of Darkness that slew Voldemort. "I'LL KILL YOU!" he spat furiously, raising the blade into the air, ready to cut the spirit apart.
"Then do it." Harry replied quietly, glaring at the demon. "Do it and be done with it."
With an outraged roar, the sword swung downwards...
As they moved through the manor, the Headmaster paused in front of two massive, imposing oak doors. The sudden stop almost forced Ron to crash into the elderly man, but thankfully, Ginny managed to grab his shirt just in time.
"What is it Albus?" Snape asked quietly, raising his wand.
Eyes narrowing, Dumbledore replied, "There is a great Darkness within those doors..."
"Thanatos?" Ginny whispered, horrified.
Grimly, the professor nodded, raising his wand.
"Then what are we waiting for! He's probably got Harry!" Ron shouted, and reached for the doorknob.
"Wait-" The Headmaster warned, but it was too late.
The redhead was thrown backwards violently as his hand connected with the metal, a brutal blast of shadow striking his chest with a wet snap.
"RON!" Ginny screamed, and ran towards her brother, kneeling next to him, shaking him worriedly. "Are you okay?"
Instead of answering, Ron's head lolled over and went limp.
His sister nearly screamed, and reach for his neck, praying desperately for a pulse. Thankfully, there was still one, albeit a weak one.
"He's okay..." Ginny whispered, relieved. He didn't get you too...
The Order members glanced at each other uneasily. "What now?" Tonks asked, glancing nervously at the door.
Turning towards the door, Dumbledore pointed his wand at the door replied, "Now all we can do is pray that we can break through in time."
And stopped a hairbreadth from Harry's neck.
Thanatos looked frozen, torn between absolute loathing and true fear, as his obsidian blade shook. A single violent twitch would sever the spirit's neck from his body.
Desperately, the Boy-Who-Lived prayed that he would die... at least then, this nightmare would be over.
With great, reluctant effort, the demon pulled his arm backwards. For a moment, the utter loathing and desire to kill was etched in his face, and Harry thought for certain he would die anyway, regardless of any consequences.
And then the mask of cocky arrogance was back up, sealing up the pure, raw hatred that was buried within those abyss eyes. Without a word, the black blade dissolved into smoke.
"Almost got me there, sport." Thanatos grinned darkly, a hint of true amusement in his eyes. "A nice, classically Gryffindor move... kill you to save the world." The grin dropped for a moment and utter disgust was replaced in his twisted visage.
"Personally... I think it was a bit Slytherin... manipulating you and all." Harry responded weakly, still pained from the nightmarish attacks on his psyche.
Nodding, the demon replied, "True, true. Quiet a sneaky move there, regardless." He actually sounded somewhat impressed.
"Thanks..." Harry managed, feeling quite strange. This was not how most of his dangerous situations usually went... then again, facing a black eyed, evil replica of himself that was the embodiment of pure Darkness was another thing he hadn't anticipated.
"Hm... but, since you tricked me, I'm going to have to make you suffer, I'm afraid." Thanatos remarked, not really sounding the least bit contrite. He raised his hand into the air, and once more, the Darkness coalesced around his palm, only this time, it remained in a spherical shape, hovering just above his palm.
"This sphere here will do everything I just did, only a hell of a lot faster and a hell of a lot more painfully." The demon explained, sounding like an inventor explaining his latest invention. "Your worst nightmares, all packed into one neat, little package." He smiled perversely. "Quite impressive, if I do say so myself."
"You really are a sick bastard." Harry retorted, glaring.
"Ah, sticks and stones Harry." Thanatos replied, grinning.
"I won't beg..." The Boy-Who-Lived growled defiantly.
To his surprise, the demon threw his head back and laughed, finally subsiding after a few moments. "I don't doubt that Harry... and while I'm sure this would drive you completely insane, I know it wouldn't truly break you... not yet." Thanatos replied, smiling mercilessly.
Blinking in surprise, the spirit was about to ask what in the name of the nine spheres of hell the demon was talking about when the doors burst open with a slam.
It hit him then... the true plans of the incarnate Dark. Opening his mouth, he looked at the first one through the door.
It was Ginny, wand raised and eyes wide with concern.
"NO!" Harry screamed, but it was too late.
Smiling for another moment, Thanatos turned and hurled the black sphere of nightmares, straight at Ginny.
Her eyes widened with shock as the sphere struck her in the chest, making a low sucking noise as it vanished inside of her.
For a moment, time stood still, with Ginny's eyes wide and shocked, Harry's cries and shouts, Dumbledore's horrified look, and Thanatos' sadistic smirk.
Then Ginny screamed as if she was being brutally tortured... which she probably was.
No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket...
Dear Tom, I think I'm losing my memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and I don't know how they got there.
Dear Tom, I can't remember what I did on the night of Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got pain all down my front.
Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he suspects me...
There was another attack today and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!
"Stop... please... no Tom... don't..." Ginny sobbed, distraught and curled into a ball on the floor, nails cutting into her flesh, tears slashing hot tracks across her face, haunted by the curse of memory.
"GINNY!" Harry screamed, and struggled furiously against the binds of shadows. A feeling of desperation overtook him and he gave one final, violent thrash, which shattered the chains and the spirit flew aimlessly for a moment, before flying to the girl's side.
Thanatos' cold, mocking laughter made the chorus for the tragic moment. He continued laughing, even as he dodged a powerful elemental spell from Dumbledore.
"I think that'll do it for today champ..." The demon grinned in that same, insane, sadistic manner. "I think I broke your little girlfriend, but I promise you... there'll be so much worse for you later."
Harry's eyes blazed with vengeance and absolute hatred. "I'll kill you." He whispered softly.
The Darkness incarnate's eyes darkened, even as he continued laughing.
"I'll be waiting, Potter."
Black smoke wrapped itself around him, even as a cocoon of Darkness swallowed him up. And then the miasma of umbra collapsed upon itself, and Thanatos was gone, his mocking laughter still ringing in the air, coupled with Ginny's violent sobs.
Pressing the completely distraught girl's body to his chest, Harry said quietly, with an aura of terrifying conviction...
"I swear it..."
Review Response (Because it sounds better than Q&A)
Nippledora Tweaks-Right... there's no way you're a middle schooler. Because insults and threats are perfectly mature. I frankly don't give a damn what you think of my fic, since I know for certain its not that great. You're just being an ass, instead of beingconstructive. That's my problem with you.I don't normally go out of my way to make confrontations, you know, but you're just pushing it.
PinkyTheSnowman- He is, really, but hey, I like to have my villains with a sense of humor. And excellent, an update on Link You Idiot! I thought it just died or something.
GreyGranian- Dunno. Its an actual word, though.
Catnip070- I'm glad. And I have a very, very relentless muse.
Lady of Masbolle- Hey, there's no need to go off on Thanatos. I'm sure inside he's... well, if he had a heart, or soul, or anything like that, he'd be... passable. Maybe. Thanks for the link.
FireOpal- Nope, not Ginny. The answer will come, and when it does, I hope to hear a mass of foreheads being slapped.
Sweetistkiss- Mmm... sorry. Can't answer that. There are some plot points I'm not willing to share.
harrysmom- Pure, definitely. But the emotion pathway is not the way to go. Emotions are key, they're not the path. (Yes, I enjoy being cryptic)
Kyle Broflovski- More nefarious though. Definitely more nefarious... and Thanatos hasn't lost.
darkangelgep- Guy. And yes, I am quite the sadist.
And thanks to the rest for reviewing: Vegita43, Pleione, FroBoy, Zeromaru Chaos Mode, Night-Owl123, Oomahey, Emma Barrows, Discombobulatedperson, The Best wich of all, YamiClara, Sweetistkiss, Draco'sLovergirlever, moonlightpixie89, 3232, mashimaromadness, Dobbey, BellonaBellatrix.
AN: The lines from the memories are of course, from the first five Harry Potter books, which, as stated in the disclaimer, I do not own. Lastly, it'd be very, very good if you'd join my Yahoo group! There you can get updates a lot faster and discuss this and other of my stories.