Night Terrors Chapter 13: The Chess Board, a harry potter fanfic

Lunarian: I have too many stories to cycle through when updating these days, sheesh. Thank you for reading this story and letting me know your opinions.

KEY

blah- Narration
blah Character Thoughts
blah Sound Effects
'Text' Sarcasm, Saying's, and/or so-called... quotes

- Night Terrors -

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Last Time

--- Chapter 13 ---

-- The Chess Board --

The time was late in the evening. The time of working parents returning from their jobs, of children sitting down to the dinner table, a time of relaxing and unwinding from the day for everyone. Everyone except a certain poor teenager named Harry Potter.

For Harry the day had been nothing short of an endless series of tasks designed to break his body and will. Lying down on the bare wooden floor, his bed and sheets taken away since they were 'too good for the likes of him', his taxed to exhaustion body was trying to gather a few minutes of rest. I'm gonna... gonna kill them... He thought viciously as he remembered everything he had to do all day long.

Vernon had left the house for his work immediately after finishing breakfast, loudly proclaiming how spending the day away from the freak would be great. Harry had heard it all clearly despite his best efforts to tune out anything his so-called relatives had to say. He should have taken it as his cue to find somewhere to hide, but before he could think to it was too late and his Aunt Petunia had found him. She grabbed him by his ear and with unnecessary force pulled him along into the kitchen, all the while grumbling rude things to him. What followed was the longest series of fruitless jobs his aunt could think up.

First he had to put on gloves, so as not to contaminate the clean kitchen with his abnormal germs, and take out every single last item in all of the pantries in the kitchen. The boxes of cereal, old bottles of spices, cake and pancake mixes, pots, pans, silverware, miscellaneous utensils, cups plates and bowls, everything. After every item was removed and the cabinets were bare Harry was made to clean every last inch of the insides and outsides thoroughly. When that was done he was ordered by his aunt, who was sitting in a chair relaxing with a cool drink and snacks watching him like his suffering was entertainment, to put back everything into alphabetical order. She would only correct him if he put something where she didn't want it after he already placed it, adding several of her usual degrading comments about his ancestry and overall person periodically.

Harry was never allowed to slow down or take a breather either, anytime he tried to his aunt would poke him hard with a long stick she managed to procure. Finally, after re-scrubbing the pantries several times to meet the reluctant approval of his overseer. Far from being finished however, his ogre of an Aunt then made him pick up every piece of trash and dirt on the floor with his bare hands. After he finished that totally dirty chore he was forced to wash the floor with a rag and soapy water, then mop the floor.

Harry had by that time been aching so bad to just lie down and forget the troubles of living for some time. Aunt Petunia on the other hand had no such inclination to let him and continued to push him through grueling chore after chore all day long. He had to vacuum every room in house, floor ceiling and walls, and dust everything. Then he was sent outside to: weed the garden, mow the lawn, water the lawn, pick up sticks and stones from yard. After that he had to take out all trash in house, then he was sent to the garage to: vacuum floor and ceiling, wash floor with rag, wash their cars, twice, and wax them.

As the evening was beginning at that time the overworked Harry was then brought in to make the Dursley's dinner, then sent back to work with only a small morsel. His days dragged on in this fashion bringing things to now the present where Harry had finally gotten to rest. He had only meant to rest his weary liquid muscles but his exhaustion was overpowering and soon he drifted off into sleep.

Once more Voldemort came to Harry in his dreams and removed his memory blocks quickly and efficiently, giving Harry access to his full memories once more.

With his thoughts once more working in a more normal order the torturous day he had endured was made all the more nefarious in his view. Here he, Harry, is struggling to survive against the abusive notions of the people laughably referred to as his relatives while those damn idiots that claim to be his friends were probably living it up. Ron the stupid lazy weasel was most likely complaining about doing a few light chores and stuffing his face full of home cooked meals, while that bitch Hermione would be lavishing upon herself her well to-do lifestyle having no hard labor or lack of food and debating moral issues with her parents as if she had any real clue as to true morality.

Finally here was the embodiment of every change he could feel in his life standing before him as a rescuer to a drowning victim. His thoughts concerning the Dark Lord were more and more conflicted, he was really close to saying to hell with the pretenders who call themselves the light and throwing his lot in with the dark. There was still a small glimmer of hope that maybe he was wrong and Dumbledore would save him from his hell, but it was dwindling all the more by the second.

"Damn you Voldemort, stop obliviating me already!" He yelled to the formidable dark wizard in a very vexed voice. It was bad enough he had to suffer through the darkening thoughts, but to be stripped of his reasoning's for his resolves each night and having them all thrusted back onto him the next time with no warning, it was really starting to shred at his patience, his soul, his sanity, whatever it was it was ready to unhinge.

Voldemort while highly amused at the child's plight ignored the question and instead said back to him in a soothing voice. "Harry, Harry harry... letting that muggle scum control you like that. Pathetic. Do you still think that muggle loving fool of a relic has your best interests at heart? He refuses your request for safety to be taken somewhere else almost anywhere, no matter how much you plead. He cares not for you but as a pawn." With a quick decisive wand movement he shouted. "Behold!"

Whereas on the other nights Harry had seen Voldemort create a portal and walk through, this time it felt as if he had been sent through a portkey. One moment he was alone in the endless void with Tom Riddle and the next suddenly he was elsewhere. He took a look around where he ended up this time.

The room appeared to be very similar to the great hall in Hogwarts where everyone eats and gathers for important events. Scattered all throughout the room was a multitude of obscure trinkets and faceless portraits reminiscent of the headmaster's office. Over the archways hung mirrors of Erised, a soft chamber music drifted unerringly through the room, and floating in the air like Halloween pumpkins were lemon drops. There was only a single long table set up in the center with a wizard's chess set placed upon it. On opposite ends of the grand table there was a magnificent high-backed throne, one a pure black color and the other white. Residing on the seats of power were swirling clouds of light and dark respectively, personifying the struggle between the opposing forces of light and dark.

Having gotten a good feel for the room so far Harry walked up to the chess set for a closer look. As he half expected to see already the pieces of the white side of the board resembled those he knew under Dumbledore's command while the black side had death eaters. The only pieces he could really see clearly were the king's of both sides and the white queen. The white king was a life like mini Dumbledore with Fawkes perched on his shoulder, and the black king was Voldemort with Nagini coiled around his body.

Looking further he saw there standing next to the dumbledore king piece, just as he suspected, a miniature of himself taking the place of the queen piece. It figures. Harry thought to himself with derision as he looked at the Harry Potter Golden-boy chess piece complete with Gryffindor robes and adoring gaze of absolute loyalty to the Headmaster.

Voldemort who had been continuing his practice of unobtrusively scanning the boy's thoughts chose now to interject with his own words of persuasion. "See Harry, how we are all ultimately chess pieces in life. This is how your precious Headmaster see's you, as the queen to his king. He values his own safety over yours and will send you anywhere to assure victory, disguising it as for your own good."

As usual when confronted by Voldemort's words in these visions Harry found himself seriously considering everything to be the truth. He could envision it within his own mind how Dumbledore would stay safe within his little office or miraculously not be around whenever something truly important came around, and how he would always do just what the old man wanted.

Excellent. Voldemort thought to himself. First I have cut Potter's ties to his friends and now any feeling of loyalty to Dumbledore is being questioned by his receptive mind. Furthering his plan he told the boy. "It is time that you stopped living your life passively Harry. If you are to survive you must take charge of your situation. Prove to those inferior creatures repugnantly called your family just how worthless they are before it's too late."

Harry's last shreds of hope for the light hung on desperately as he said without true conviction. "Dumbledore will send someone to get me away from here."

"You are without an owl, how would you contact that fool?" The Dark Lord pointed out to the boy reasonably as he began grasping at straws.

Silently acknowledging that problem, Harry replied heatedly. "Then I'll get away by myself."

"Without a wand and surrounded by filthy muggle trash that want to hurt you and keep you locked away?" Riddle answered back just as quickly.

Frustrated at the situation and angry from having his ideas shot down like that Harry said to the hyphenated wizard snidely. "Oh, and I suppose you have another way?"

Voldemort felt he had coddled the idiot boy long enough, if he couldn't even think of a way to use his resources to his advantage then he had no use for him. It would be a pity to have wasted all this effort for nothing so he tried to motivate Potter. "Use your brain ignorant child, there is power to be had all you must do is take it."

The child in question wasn't thinking quite clearly and didn't heed the unspoken warning just spoken. "And HOW THE HELL AM I TO DO ANYTHING WITHOUT MY WAND DAMMIT." He shouted belligerently.

Disappointed but not discouraged, He-Who-Makes-Intricate-Plans considered how to proceed. It's obvious the boy has been dealing with those idiots so long his intelligence is suffering. He has completely forgotten his abilities in Parseltongue. Maybe a gift is in order... Choice set he said to the boy. "Pitiful, if this is the demonstration of how you learn under that old fool's tutelage then the war is as good as over. We shall see if you are more receptive next time we meet, perhaps another day and you'll be ready to live." Not giving the young wizard a chance to object he quickly cast Obliviate and Crucio onto him once more to end the vision.

To Be Cont'd...

Omake : I couldn't resist opening this can of worms after re-reading what I wrote.

Harry had stopped paying attention to the Dark Lord's words after hearing the phrase 'queen to his king'. His mind was miles away dreaming of his secret love and how he could confess to him. Visions of a Harry in a wedding dress coyly accepting a kiss from the Headmaster in a resplendent robe flew through his mind as he let out a soft sigh. "Mrs Harry Dumbledore." He said dreamily.

For the first time in his long life Voldemort was cursing his powers of Leglimency. Now he would be forever haunted by those images. Looking at the deranged boy staring into the distance with a goofy smile more fitted to an eleveen year old girl, Voldemort realized that the Potter child was far more messed up then he had first thought. Leveling his wand at the boy's oblivious precense, before the images being transmitted delved even further into the perverted, Tom Marvolo Riddle said to Harry Potter. "Potter, I may hate you and have nothing but evil intentions, but even I can't bare to allow this. The world will thank me for this. Avada Kedavra!"

As he watched his nemesis fall dead at his feet Voldemort breathed out a sigh of relief. "This must never be allowed to be known, lest the old bastard reciprocates and tries to revive the boy." He said to himself. A moment later as his words penetrated his awareness he grew violently ill at the accompanying images.

Within the year Voldemort will have toppled the wizardry world and made all his desires made real, but for the next few days his Death Eaters all will be wondering how their Lord got so sick so fast. Fortunately for their souls Voldemort kept his promise to himself and never divulged the abomination.

Reviews -

Xenia Marvolo: Thank you. returns your kind smile. I have no plans to include any romance in the story for Harry, definitely not with Voldy. It's not that I have anything against that, it's just it is all too common to me. If I ever reach a conclusion (LOL) with this story then I may create an altraverse version with more common concepts.

Rais Majere: Hehe that gave me a small giggle, having the computer block you off because of vulgarity. Thanks you for reviewing, I'd love to hear your opinions on my latest chapters.

Twin Tails Speed: I like your name... thanks for reviewing.

Tenshi Youkai no Yugure: I apoligize if I wasn't clear enough back then. The first part of the story before the horizontal line and my lame author comments is in Voldemort's 3rd person POV yes. Then the next section is Laurance's 3rd person POV. Then I changed it back to Voldemort again for the last part. I'm only writing in 3rd person POV's, the only time a 1st person POV will appear is in a persons thoughts. I hope that makes it a little clearer. I hope you will read and review once more so I can hear your thoughts on what I've written, thanks.

GemmaRose9: Already talked to you... don't need to do it here, but I will adress the issue of the Omake to clear any confusion. An Omake is like an out take, its an extra piece of humor thrown in at the end not to be considered a part of the stories plot.