Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter or Magic The Gathering. (Put up because some of the storyline parallels a story from that universe)
Chapter 3 Uneasy
The next day, the gleaming sun found the young man asleep, the madness having left him and left him lying in near drying sand, wet from the water he regurgitated the night before.
The water had come too fast, too much.
He had spent an hour, heaving and hurling as his stomach rejected the water he created. Still, it had been a day of revelations, a day to learn. There would be more days such as that, with this strange new power.
His oasis glittered nearby, a gemstone sentinel, a marker of his creation. It glistened and gleamed, real, if only in the mind's eye of that young man.
He awoke slowly, feeling his limbs more awake and refreshed, but his bowels now clamored for something else. They hungered. He hungered for food.
The young man got up slowly, feeling his hunger tearing into him, his stomach demanding food, but ignored it for a moment. He could stand that pain for a few more minutes.
He spotted the oasis, and remembered how he created it. He smiled softly, a creator admiring his creation.
He moved closer to the glittering water, and for the first time, he looked himself in the eye, his reflection in the water.
When he looked into his own reflection for the first time since he arrived, he noticed he was a young man, with very distinct emerald green eyes and ebony hair, and a curious red mark in the shape of a lightning bolt seared into his forehead.
The boy stared at the mark for a moment, brow furrowed in concentration. Something about that mark was important…
Something flashed. A serpent man, with terrible red eyes and skin like bleached bone, with a high, cold laugh, and then all that was there was a flash of green light.
And then he blinked, and once more, he was staring himself in the face.
"Who am I?" He whispered, once more lost and afraid beside his creation.
The voice from before did not answer. It couldn't.
But as he struggled, fought his blank mind for answers, something drifted to him.
His name, or perhaps another's.
Sirius.
The name triggered a memory from his dream. The black haired man with a gaunt face and haunted eyes falling through a black veil, a veil of death…
A feeling of grief welled up within him, and he fell to his knees. He had only a name for the man, the name Sirius, but the name scratched edges of more memories, memories he could not or would not touch. Memories of times before the man, before Sirius, fell into the veil and was lost.
But it wasn't his name. What was his name?
He tried again, fighting for a memory.
Again, a name drifted into his thoughts, but this time, it was his. Somehow, he knew it.
Harry. The word, the name, seemed to be a drop of water, leaking out behind the dam that held back a stream, a tide, an ocean of memories of something both wonderful and terrible, waiting to drown the boy in it. But for now, all he had was his name.
"My name is Harry." He whispered softly. He touched his arm, where a welt had healed recently, wincing as his body ached with unconscious recollection of agony.
Another flash. A cold, sneering voice, "Potter… you are weak."
The red-eyed serpent man flashed with the voice. Then a new scene. A bald, portly man with frightened eyes and a silver hand holding his hand shakily, leading him somewhere, somewhere where he would experience nothing but endless pain.
The view of the merciless ocean, a better fate to die at the hands and furious power of nature than the fury of the red-eyed man. He was looking into that blue-green abyss of swirling darkness…
And then he was falling, falling, falling, and then blackness took him and he was once more staring into his own reflection, on his knees and paled in horror, his skin seemingly bleached by the fear that encroached across his mind.
As he struggled to stand up, he knew something more than the name Sirius and his own name, Harry. He knew something very important.
When he landed on this island, this purgatory, he had escaped from Hell, he knew.
Now it was time to find heaven.
Hunger took him first, however, on his quest to find heaven, and he stopped, looking around the barren island for food, and finding nothing.
All there was on the island was the solitary tree he slept under, and the oasis. No more life. The island was large, but everywhere, his view was mostly rocks past the soft yet steaming sand. Should he leave the sand, he'd die.
The tree was the only life so far, living off of something Harry could not tell what. A small plot of dirt was around the sand, where the tree lived.
The coarse sand strangled everything else, and from the looks of the withered tree, the last bit of life on the island was dying.
But now there was an oasis, an impossibility, yet it existed.
However it came to be, Harry knew one thing.
He could make more.
The voice told him so, that same voice that helped him create the oasis.
His muse of Creation.
He needed a meal, and so he began focusing, willing a spark of life into being. Unlike the oasis, it was much more difficult, having to light the spark of life.
Harry imagined a fish, swimming and living, into the oasis. It was very basic, an auburn color with curtain like fins and a tail, with small black eyes and a mouth. It was small, but all creators start small.
He willed it to be, to live.
And his will was done, as a fish took shape within the pond, slowly, much slower than the appearance of the oasis, but it took shape.
It was a goldfish. He flashed back to a memory of one, in a room filled with luxuries, a room that was not his.
It's not that gold, Harry thought to himself.
His muse said nothing.
Reaching out slowly, he grabbed at the fish.
But the fish had other plans, and darted away. Harry growled and launched himself at it, intent on a meal. The fish easily avoided it with the relatively large area it had to swim in.
He sputtered in disbelief. He created something, willed it to live. And so it did.
Harry laughed. "I was a fool. I told it to live." He muttered.
He focused again. Not a fish this time, he thought to himself.
His muse danced in his mind, bringing forth a new memory and name. A flightless bird with a tail that was useless and wings that was also useless, brownish with white-black feathers and a red apparatus hanging from its yellow beak and small head. An pink object was the head. A turkey.
A stupid animal, Harry remembered, another flash of a room and his comment. "It's even more stupid than Dudley."
He grinned at the memory despite not having a context for it, and let his will flow once more, withholding the command to live but giving the command to be.
And so it became real, a turkey appearing, first in outline, and then in shape, like painting in an outline on paper. The turkey squawked, and waited for nothing.
Harry moved close to it, a primal instinct taking over. This was a primal game. Taking life to live. Hunt or be hunted. Kill or be killed. The only new addition to the ancient game was the power of Creation.
He grabbed it and broke its neck quickly, slightly remorseful but assuring himself it was okay, as it was his creation, and after he tore off the feathers wildly, hungrily, he tore into the soft flesh underneath the feathers, picking some off the meat in gobbets, as he lifted the raw flesh to his mouth and bit down hungrily.
The gory juices splattered, and the meat tasted foul, but primal instinct demanded him to take more, to eat, and he complied, devouring the meat and going for more, a flesh eater.
The madness returned, demanding him to devour, to eat. It was, after all, his own creation. It was created to serve him, to feed him.
And so Harry devoured his own creation, a primal situation created by divine means.
Hundreds of miles away, Lord Voldemort seethed above the dead corpse of Peter Pettigrew, alias Wormtail.
He was not angry that Wormtail was dead.
He was angry because he had killed Wormtail too fast.
When he had learned of Harry Potter's escape, right under his clutches, plummeting into the sea, he had been in a wrath alike to the rage of a god, or more accurately, a devil.
The man once known as Tom Riddle burned, brimming with untold anger and no outlet. He wanted to call a random servant in and torture them to death, just to let out this anger. But he wouldn't yet.
Voldemort did not want to see one of his servants yet, did not want to have to make them fear him so they would not question him, for they would know. If Lord Voldemort was not waving around the severed head of Harry Potter on a pike or any other vision of victory, then Harry Potter had bested the dark Lord once more.
How could anyone possibly lose hold of a boy that had just gone through a private torture session with Lord Voldemort personally!
The boy could barely walk. Voldemort had told Wormtail to take him out and let him relieve himself, he didn't want to smell any of it, and the boy had managed to escape!
The boy was wily, the Dark lord acknowledged.
But he was also content with the knowledge that the boy was dead. No mortal could have survived the pernicious descent into the storming rage of the ocean. Especially not a recently tortured boy not even sixteen years of age.
But if the Boy-Who-Lived lived, which, despite his hopes, he knew would happen by the luck bordering on divine intervention that the blasted child had, Lord Voldemort was also satisfied that the boy would have to have drowned or severely maimed if he had been rescued.
Besides, the Dark Lord remembered, a deadly smile flitting across his features, his wand his broken. He smiled at the memory of the breaking the wand in front of the Boy-Who-Lived, the look of shock and horror on the face of the Boy-Who-Lived as the pieces of holly fell to the floor and a single phoenix feather drifted down.
There was no magical way that the boy had to save himself, and that cut off the best solutions.
And yet, Lord Voldemort felt uneasy.
At the same time, unknown to Lord Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore felt uneasy as well, but for a different reason than whether or not the Boy-Who-Lived had lived.
His feelings on that reason were downright in mourning.
No, his uneasiness came from the report on his desk. His close friend, Liam Mackwell had given him a report. Liam Mackwell was head of the Department of Mysteries, and one of two men in the world who knew what kind of power was hidden within his department.
The other was he.
The hidden item in question was why Albus Dumbledore was uneasy about the report. Liam had never been so urgent or agitated before, always being a rock of calm and stability. Liam made sure his department was independent, almost completely autonomous from the rest of the Ministry, concerned with the mysteries of magic.
One mystery, one secret, buried within, was a secret that was critical to defeating Voldemort.
And now it had been activated, or destroyed, or-
A trill from Fawkes broke his thoughts. Merlin bless that bird, Dumbledore muttered inwardly, chuckling.
No. He dared not believe it was stolen. His wards had been destroyed, not activated. No force on earth could have ripped through those wards but himself with such force. And Dumbledore could only rip them away like that because they were his. Even Tom would have trouble defeating the wards.
He opened the folder, and gasped. The pictures and the tiny bag attached told more than a written report could. The powerstone, that rare pale amber crystal Dumbledore used to contain the power he had hidden away, was in shattered pieces within the plastic bag.
The pictures showed the very room he had been riding his hopes for the war effort on in shambles that were burnt and broken into pieces.
He sighed and put his head in his hands. Dumbledore knew what had happened, but he didn't know how or why.
Did the power escape because Harry needed it?
Did the power fade away violently, in its master's final hour?
The former question was his preferred one, but it seemed likely that what little he knew about the power he had sealed, it would most likely depart from the world if it could not be wielded.
And so the Headmaster of Hogwarts shifted in his seat and burned the document by tossing it into the fire, destroying the evidence as the crystals melted, relieved of their power and duty, the paper and pictures crumpling and blackening.
Uneasy, he got up, and even the concerned trill of Fawkes could not soothe his nerves this night.
Harry felt uneasy as well. He felt guilty too.
He created a creature, and killed it. The voice telling him it was his right to do so as creator was gone now. It was recognized as what it was.
The ancient adage was true. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
And there was no greater power, no greater intoxication, than the power to give and take life.
The power to Create, the power to Destroy.
He had both. He was both the Life-Giver, and the Avatar of Death. What he had done was a terrible crime. He had created a creature to die. He gave life to kill it. What was the sense in that?
What was the purpose of this power? Was there a reason he was given the endless power to create, but the mental and spiritual capacity of a mortal? Was there something more to do with it than live?
Yes, there is. The muse, or perhaps he himself answered. You can create, you can make something truly beautiful, true life.
He did not know if he could do such a grand thing. Harry was unsure of himself, whether or not a mere boy such as himself had the mind to create beauty. Although his stomach and mortal needs were filled, his spirit hungered for answers.
Harry's muse sat silently within the shadows of his mind, giving him no answers.
The emerald-eyed boy felt sleepy, hunger sated and, after a quick gulp of water, his thirst was as well. Now all he wanted to do was sleep.
But tomorrow, he would do more, he promised his muse. Tomorrow, he would begin to truly Create, not simply fulfill his needs. Tomorrow he would see what he could change.
His muse nodded, and danced within his mind, awaiting the next rising of the gleaming orb of light known as the sun, when it would help him create again.
Thanks to azntgr01, Diamond Phoenix, Zeromaru: Chaos Mode, Alan Quicksilver, Hunter101, Pleione, PinkyTheSnowman, Ciupacapra, moonfyre, FroBoy, Cattatra, Tanydwr, Harrie, Emma Barrows, skittles-07, and Lady of Masbolle for reviewing!
Q&A
Alan Quicksilver- In the original authors note for chapter 1, I put up that this was inspired by the Onslaught book and specifically Ixidor. On the other hand, you and I are probably the only people reading this that would know what I was talking about (if there is anyone else, please, tell me!), so I decided not to. Now don't spoil it for everyone else, but between you and me, this is going to be quite a lot like Onslaught, until I put my spin on it. Perhaps even a little angel might show up… you know which one. (grins) As for Harry playing the field, I like the idea, and it is quite realistic, but I really can't write that kind of stuff. (You know, like I can't write fluff.)
Hunter101- Well, Harry kind of has moral bounds for a while, but later, he might not.
PinkyTheSnowman- (Bows) Thanks! Oh, and would you mind checking out Shattered Reality, my other story? I'm currently putting Harry and Ginny in Hyrule, within the Ocarina of Time storyline. It said in your profile you like the Legend of Zelda. Zelink forever! (Yes, I do shamelessly self-plug.)
moonfyre- Harry's going to… well, even I'm not fully sure yet. Harry getting on the island is mentioned above, if you put the pieces together. The next two questions I'm afraid can't be answered, simply because it would totally ruin the story. For your last question, maybe Harry won't come to them.
Cattatra- There you go. I'm glad you liked me showing where Harry got his power, that whole room that is always locked thing just came to me.
Tanydwr- My sense of fun includes feeling good when I think up of character deaths in storylines. It's definitely twisted.
skittles-07- Still up in the air.
AN: Thanks for reading and please review!