Disclaimer: I don't own anything that belongs to Ms. Rowling, including any of the plot elements, characters, settings, etc. from the Harry Potter universe. There's also probably other little stuff in here that belongs to other works of art - such is the nature of narrative. As such, for the sake of safety, I will disclaim possession of all content below.
Chapter Two
Mosaics
When Harry awoke the next morning, he found himself reaching for his glasses, but found that, where his nighttable should have been, there was merely empty air. Thinking he must not be reaching far enough, he, continuing in his sleep-induced haze, reached out further and further and further until he found himself rolling off the edge of the bed and onto a hard stone floor. "Wha-?" he asked, absently brushing silverfish from his face as they tried to climb into his mouth. Harry blearily looked around, taking in that now familiar scent of urine and sawdust. "Huh?" he went on, trying to make sense of the impenetrably dark walls of his new room. It seemed like there should have been a poster up and probably white light from a window, and a cage? Yes, there should have been a cage and the distinct smell of an animal. Hedwig.
Harry climbed to his feet and took in a deep breath, shaking the fatigue from his skin. It wouldn't do to lounge around in bed all day in this foreign place. Not that he was a layabout; in fact, he had always gotten up rather early. It was a kind of an survival mechanism with the Dursleys, since it was always dangerous to be caught in bed. The kinds of lectures he had received when he was young still made him shiver. There had been that blinding white light from the one hundred twenty watt incadescent that managed to shine directly into the cupboard when the door was open. And there had been rough hands dragging him out, all the while the sounds of muttering and cursing from his uncle, all of it directed at him, full of venemous words. Yes, this room reminded him of that, with its dankness, its vacancy, its dark walls. You're just going to have to get used to it, he thought grimly. It's just another little trial for you. Toughen up.
Harry had decided at some point over the course of the last fifteen hours that it was probably safe to use his wand, though he was certain he should keep his powers hidden. He wasn't sure what kind of beings were out here; certainly it was the kind of place where people played things close to the vest. He wasn't entirely sure that Stu was on the level with him, though he couldn't be sure. Years of being in Gryffindor dulled his slytherin edge somewhat and Stu seemed like a first rate pro at the smooth talk. Opening with that bit about Kittie falling for Harry had been a very skillful way of gaining Harry's confidence, and taking the time to down a couple of drinks had made him seem so casual. But in retrospect, harry remembered Stu having a keening intelligence about him even after his third and fourth drink. It was all an act; maybe not even a conscious one or maybe Stu just did it for sport, he was so good. Regardless, harry decided to be cautious. All the same reasons why wizards lived in secret applied here as much as it did out there. Fear, jealousy, greed.
That said, Harry was not entirely averse to using his wand to do some quick cleaning charms and smoothing out his clothes. He also brushed his hair back, conjured a bit of water to drink and take away the dryness that accompanied the liquor. You had at least three glasses, including the two glasses of chardonnay, he told himself.
When Harry deemed himself presentable, he left his little room and wandered about the now deserted bar. All was quiet, both inside and outside. Sometime during the night, everything had been cleaned and put away; the dark oak of the bar was shining immaculately, all the chairs had been pushed in, the salt shakers and what not were neatly in line with one another. Harry folowed the sun slanting in through the large front windows, and, judging by its height in the sky, he guessed it was about eight in the morning. He pushed his way outside, not surprised to find the door unlocked. He suspected that the electric tingle had an added security function somewhere. If danger really were about, somebody somewhere would do something to rectify it.
The sun was out, and it was shaping up to be a warm day, but at that time in the morning, the brisk wind that swept down the street, gusting leaves and bits of dirt about made Harry chilly. He wished he had brought his jacket, and then decided maybe he could find a shop somewhere and pick something up on loan. It was a Friday, so he imagined that something should be open if not now then soon. No later than ten, though he briefly wondered what he should do in that time. he only had a range of eight blocks along the main street and three to the side. He hadn't bothered to ask Stu where the Red Cherry was on that map, but he decided that he should be able to sense something and at least a few blocks in either direction was probably safe. Stu would have mentioned it otherwise. With the sun shining down on the street, Harry could see that there were even more colours than before. The cement blocks that made up the sidewalk changed colours when he wasn't looking, which made them seem a bit shifty. What kind of a cement block refuses to change colour when you're looking? he wondered. Still, Harry marvelled at how different things were.
The buildings were all the same configuration as far as Harry could tell, though he had to admit he hadn't paid much attention wen he had been walking down the street the previous afternoon. Also surprising was the dense traffic that flitted about. It made him wonder where they came from if the island were so small. Were they all just travelling about from one island to another? Perhaps they're all in transit, he mused. Looking more closely at them, and doing so as surreptitiously as he could manage, Harry noticed that some of them appeared to be too thin to be normal and others had slight distortions that made him think they too had something else about them. One person had a particularly large overcoat on, and Harry had the distinct impression that there was an apendage he was hiding. Taking a gamble, he whispered a soft hex that Hermione had invented, which stripped off articles of clothing. Harry had to temper it so that it didn't strip the poor sod bare. "Vestirevesco," he whispered, thumbing his wand with one hand and aiming it at the man while keeping it in its holster.
The man, who looked aged with balding spots on his forehead, stopped in mid stride, tripping over his large coat as it fell to his feet. he went crashing to the ground face first, causing a number of people to stop and gawk as he struggled to get to his feet. Harry wasn't sure if they were staring, because he had fallen or if they were staring because he had giant wings folded up from his backside. Harry's jaw dropped at this as he saw them flex outward instinctively, as if they'd suddenly been freed. The man gurgled a cry of extreme rage, looking around with what Harry saw were horrible yellow eyes. His nose was too sharp to be human though otherwise you couldn't tell. He had a bulge in his stomach and his teeth were bared in a look of crazed malice. "Ye bustards!" he shrieked in a high-pitched, tinny voice that Harry did not expect to come from such a man. It was bird-like, he realized. The man was wearing a long sleeved white shirt over his torso, and harry saw that the wings protruded through them. slits had been made in the fabric to allow for his wings, which were a bright canary yellow with dark grey patches on the underside.
People began milling about, but Harry merely stood there in continued disbelief. he had seen enough things in the magical world that he had thought his senses had been dulled to the extraordinary, but it had apparently not been the case. The man fixed on harry, as if realizing that it had been he who had caused the prank. The sweat faced delirious visage of happy lunacy that the man projected seemed to ooze closer to Harry. The man had extended his wings and was now flying at him, decidedly intent upon letting Harry share in his anger. But Harry was not going to have any of it, despite the guilt that was welling up in him. He whipped his wand out of his makeshift holster swiftly and gracefully and aimed it at the creature. he didn't bother with the Stunning Curse, or even the full body bind. No, he knew what to do to repel objects that were hurtling at him at high velocity. "Reducto!" he cried out, and a jet of blue light arced toward the creature, whose face was hardly recognizable as human. Harry was barely aware that pincers had cut through the man's shirt and were now tittering happily in anticipation of his flesh. The curse hit the creature's left wing and blew it apart in a shower of bloodied feathers. The thing was sent careening to one side and crashed pitifully against a concrete garbage can, whimpering pitifully. The thing then burst into tears, crying uncontrollably so that its face became a series of crisscrossing waterways. It's wing had been stripped of much of its feathers, and there was parts of it that were bleeding, but otherwise it wasn't bent, and there didn't appear to be any deep lacerations. Harry mentally thanked himself for that. Others that were milling about to look at the spectacle seemed unsure of themselves.
One of them approached Harry, saying, "Don't worry about it. he'll right himself soon enough. Twasn't your fault."
But it was, harry thought, suddenly erecting his shields. He didn't want to get caught unawares again. The man shrugged and harry glanced his way. "Can I ask you something?" Harry said.
"You gonna ask if we're all a bit odd?" the man inquired.
Harry nodded, trying to avert his gaze from the man's violently pink lips and pig's snout.
"I'm a bit new to the place," Harry confessed."
"Understandable," said the stranger. "name's Derek."
"They shook hands. "Harry."
"Oh, I know," said Derek.
"Really?" Harry asked.
Derek glanced up at the scar. That one movement made Harry alert and exhilarated. He turned to face Derek and, instead of asking, merely raised an eyebrow. The winged creature howled mournfully for a moment and Harry, without thinking flicked a cheering charm his way, which immediately had the effect of quieting his sniffles.
"Cheering charm?" Derek asked.
Harry nodded. "yeah."
"Mmm, it's been a long time since I've seen a wand."
"You a wizard?" Harry asked.
Derek laughed ruefully. "Hardly. I'm what you assholes call a Muggle."
Harry was taken a bit aback by the man's bitterness, but, in the ensuing silence, as Harry had time to contemplate it, he realized what it must have been. "A wizard transfigured your nose," harry said.
Derek nodded. "Four long years ago," Derek said, his voice turning a little shaky. "Yeah."
Harry's first impulse was to offer to fix it, but he wasn't sure how to go about suggesting it, so he let the silence hang, and waited for Derek to continue.
"What the hell kind of people do things like that?" Derek asked.
"Mean ones," Harry said instantly. "Dark ones."
"Dark ones..." Derek mused. 'You a dark one."
Harry laughed aloud at the irony of that. "Dark ones murdered my whole family, Derek. It seems all I do is fight dark ones." And then, harry added as an afterthought, "Assuming I'm not getting lost in these interworld pockets."
"Ah, yes," Derek said. "After my little encounter with your kind, I was hardly in any shape to go home. They left me in the middle of the street, and I crawled into alleyways, lurking about eating whatever I could find. Soon, I realized that this-" he tapped his snout, "- this came in quite useful in finding things. Also, they must have changed something inside me too, because my constitution was a bit tougher too."
"Four years," harry said, gulping.
The man went on as though he didn't hear Harry, as though he were happy for the first time to have an audience, though he seemed not to quite notice that harry was there. "But soon, even the bums and hobos decided I was too much of a freak to be let around. They strung me up and tried to cook me. Thought it would be funny. Some do-gooder missionary types saw it and figuring I was a man, they decided to intervene. Well, once they got me down, I was hardly going to stay and let them crucify me. They would have thought me the devil or some such thing, so I pushed through them."
"Pushed through them?"
"Appears I was stronger than I'd realized, or maybe it was pent up adrenalin. I smashed one so hard in the face I heard something crunch and from the look in her eyes, I knew she was dead. I didn't need to stay to find out. I just knew it, and so I ran and there was only one place to go. The sewers. And there I stayed for a long time until one day, when I came topside, I discovered that the world wasn't the same anymore."
"Would you like me to reverse the transfiguration?" Harry asked tentatively.
The man laughed a deep, bitter laugh. "I left a wife, you know. Imagine what she must have thought of me, not coming home that day. How could I? How could I come home and show my face to her? She would have run away in terror."
Harry didn't have the heart to tell Derek that, if he had simply gone home and caused a great big fuss in the media, the Ministry of Magic would have intervened eventually and set things right and that they would have all been obliviated. It seemed like a tactless thing to point out at this stage, so harry merely let him go on about his parents and his sister who died of leukemia, and how they must have been horribly devastated at his disappearance. All in all it was not a happy tale.
"Do you know what it's like to have to leave your loved ones?" the man asked, and Harry detected a hint of accusation in his voice.
having already mentioned that his entire family had been murdered, he didn't think the question was meant to be answered. But the man had known who he was. Maybe others passing by had had similar fates. This was a fringe world, after all, and there must have been some crossover with the magical community. Maybe the winged creature had recognized him too.
Derek seemed to have lost steam and suddenly looked spent, as if all the energy that he had stored for the day's exertion had now run its course. "I can fix it for you," Harry said helplessly, though somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that it wasn't so easy. There were psychological scars too.
"You could, could you?" The tone in the man's voice confirmed Harry's suspicions. It wasn't going to be that easy.
"Er, if you wanted," Harry said, trying to sound appeasatory.
"Just like that," Derek mused.
Harry nodded. "Unless there's something special about it i don't know about."
"And what would I do then?" Derek asked.
"Excuse me?"
"What would I do if you fixed it?"
"Well, you would go about your day," harry knew the question was a bait for some argument Derek had already planned, but he didn't know what else to do except take it. Sometimes, venting was the only way to release one's venom.
"And where would I go? Could I go back to my old life? Could I show up on my wife's doorstep? Or my family's? How would I explain this to them?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't know. You don't have to go back to them if you don't want to. But you could go back to a similar life. Your time with them was cut short, but those ends are still loose and those wounds are still raw. Even if you can't make amends, you could give them the peace of knowing you're all right."
"Derek seemed to consider this. "You know, this change they did to me has given me certain powers. I have a keen sense of smell, a strong stomach, and enhanced stamina, speed and strength. If I lose that, I will go back to being weak. I suppose it's a trade that I could find love and belonging again, but I might always feel naked without those powers. they've come to be a part of me."
Harry nodded. "I understand that. I was always told I was a freak for these powers, but coming to understand them and work with them, I came to love them. I would never want my magic taken away."
It is such a price," Derek mused. "I wouldn't even know how to get back to that place from where I came. And without my cursed gifts, I doubt I would survive long enough to make it there."
"Have you ever gotten back since you left?" Harry asked, now curious. this question had relevance to his own life.
"Ah, you want to return yourself. This was an accident for you as much as it was for me," he said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand.
harry nodded.
"I think I have, but sometimes I don't know. I wonder if maybe there will be some detail that doesn't quite fit, and I won't know about it for years, or perhaps ever. There's a million worlds out there, all spinning to their own rhythm."
"Hmm," Harry said.
"good luck to you, and maybe we'll see each other again."
"Yeah, maybe."
The man tippped his hat to Harry and then walked off.
"Hey," harry called, not sure why he was doing it, but feeling that he needed to. "If you come by this way again, I'm staying at the Red Cherry, just a couple blocks that way." harry pointed down the street. "Stop in and say hi if you like. And if you change your mind about the transfiguration..." Harry didn't know how to finish that statement, but it didn't matter. Derek was nodding.
"I understand. The invitation's open."
"yeah."
And so Derek disappeared.
When harry looked down, he saw that the creature he had embarrassed and hurt had left, leaving only an inky mark of blood on the otherwise fucia sidewalk. His overcoat, however, remained strewn haphazardly on the asphalt, having been run over several times in the past few minutes. Well, Harry thought, I hope that Cheering Charm offsets all the damage I did. He resolved not to cast magic on unsuspecting muggles again; at least not without a good reason, like self-defense. People who learn the hard way about why laws are the way they are usually have to pay a price, a nasty voice said somewhere inside his head. What price are you going to pay, boy?
Harry tried to continue focusing on taking in the surroundings around him. He wanted to have a full appreciation of this world, in part because, over the years, his friendship with Hermione had inspired his academic curiosity to flourish, and in part because he was looking for clues that could help him get out of here.
Before long, however, he felt a rumbling in his stomach and knew he had to go find food. There was no lack of eateries, which would have been a good thing, except that Harry was hurting for money. He had about five pounds to his name, which was hardly enough to cover a breakfast. Worse even was the prospect that they didn't take Muggle money. A memory of a handful of galleons flashed across his mind, and he had to smile. He was pretty certain they wouldn't take that, so really, he was better off with five measly pounds than he would have been with a hundred galleons. Harry resolved to go into the nearest cafe, which was aptly named, Mosaics, and, at least, see what they had and maybe talk to a waitress.
The cafe was quaint, allowing the large single room to be flooded with sunlight through the east facing, floor-to-ceiling windows. The floor was made of checkered blue and white ceramic tiles, and all the chairs and tables were metal, giving the place a modernist art feel. Especially given the clientell, who seemed to be a younger sort, though they weren't quite on par with what Harry thought of as University students. These people were wearing leather and had rings of all kinds protruding from their ears and noses and eyes and probably other places that he couldn't see. Many of them had a roughened look, or, more precisely, a wannabe roughened look. It was as if a bunch of Calvin Klein models decided to dress up as Hell's Angels bikers.
Harry went to the counter, ignoring the cake counter and the coffee machines. He looked up at the menu, and, to his relief, saw that the place offered eggs and sausages and it was a mere four ninety. "I'll have the number 12 combo," Harry said, setting his five down and waiting patiently in front of the goth girl with violently pink hair who was guarding the till. She eyed him suspiciously, and Harry got the feeling that he was committing another inter-world faux pas, like he had done by walking into the vampire nightclub. What hornet's nest have I crawled into this time? he wondered, but he didn't have long to think about it, because he really was very hungry and danger didn't seem imminent.
The girl took his money, eyed it with the same distaste she was showing Harry and then said, "Go have a seat. I'll bring it by when it's ready."
"Thanks," Harry said and found a table for two that was adjacent to one of the giant windows, affording him a view of the street traffic. I wonder why all the cars are so old, he mused. If there really were a million different worlds and they were all different, what did that mean for his? And for his chances of getting back? He had thought that maybe he would have to try five or ten times if worse came to worse, but now it looked like he might never get back, or he might get back and discover after a long time that it wasn't his world after all. Maybe I'll return to a world that doesn't have a prophecy in it, he thought suddenly, and that idea seemed infinitely tantalizing. There could be a world out there where his parents never died and, maybe, where he could have a normal life. But wouldn't that mean there was another Harry as well? That thought sent a shiver through him; a shiver so deep that Harry didn't even feel hungry, which was unfortunate, because his food had arrived.
"Here, kid," said the girl.
Harry looked up at her face, and saw that her violently pink hair had taken on a purple streak. "Are you a metamorphagus?" he asked without thinking, but the girl merely looked at him quizzically.
"I've been called a lot of things, but that ain't one of 'em." She left abruptly, obviously not interested in pursuing more conversation with their resident stranger.
As Harry pushed down his first few bites, which he had to admit was rather good, the door swung open and a band of three hooligan-esque looking types sauntered in. "Eh, Jilly," said the leader of the pack, his spiked green hair jiggling somewhat as he seemed to shake his head to the beat of some unheard rhythm.
"Hi TNT," said Jilly in what sounded like a bored voice, though Harry wasn't fooled. He could tell that there was a bit of glee in her voice, and that she had relaxed a bit. He wondered if she fancied him.
"Put together a strong cup of java for me and the boys. We're going out to do a run in," TNT checked his watch with a stylized flourish that reminded Harry of Lockheart. "-in fifteen minutes." Then TNT looked up and gave Jilly a dazzling smile. "Say, love the hair."
Jilly blushed crimson. "Really?"
"Oh yeah."
One of the other two that accompanied TNT was prodding his partner and pointing in Harry's direction, which made Harry groan inwardly. The three of them seemed incredibly gawdy, all dressed up in shining leather, which looked as though it hadn't seen a day of hard work in its life and with all kinds of silver buttons and buckles that jangled as they moved. Come to think of it, he thought, with the green hair and the silver accessories, they were decked out in Slytherin colours. That thought put Harry further on edge.
Finally, the other two managed to get TNT's direction and orient him in Harry's direction. Their eyes locked for the briefest moment and Harry knew he was in trouble yet again. The look in TNT's eyes went from surprise to distaste to thoughtfulness to malignant joy. And so, with that, the thre advanced fast and hard, TNT's flunkies standing at the side of the table as if to occlude Harry from the rest of the cafe, while TNT sat across from harry, a stern expression infusing his features.
I suppose they think they're scary, Harry thought darkly, letting them scrutinize him. He kept his wand trained on TNT from under the table. If he so much as breathes wrong, I'll blow his crotch off.
"What's your name?" TNT asked.
"Draco," harry said without thinking.
TNT smirked at his two compatriots, who silently agreed that it was the dumbest name they'd ever heard.
"Where do you live?" asked TNT.
Harry raised an eyebrow. Were they trying to intimidate him? It had not slipped his mind that if he started sounding out curses, it would be very difficult to hide his powers, and they were close enough to turn the table over and expose his wand, and while he could get two of them, if he were lucky, the third would probably get him and then he'd be screwed. And they can't know about the wand, he thought. They'd break it without thinking twice.
"I asked you a question, kid. You deaf?"
Silencio, Harry thought, gripping his wand and focusing as hard as he could. Then, not knowing if the spell worked, he said, "No, are you?"
What? TNT mouthed, but after he had said it, the look of confusion that crossed his features was priceless. Harry stifled a laugh and merely stared evenly at TNT. TNT crossed his eyes as if to look down at the rest of his face. He mouthed some more words, trying to speak, but he couldn't manage it.
Harry gently repositioned his wand on his knee so that it was aimed directly at the other two. "Do you guys have a problem?" he inquired. "I'd like to eat my breakfast in peace."
The two standing glanced at each other and then stared down at TNT, who remained silently mouthing words. One of them ventured, "TNT? Dude, you okay?"
But TNT didn't seem to be listening. His ire had been provoked and now he was starting to shake with anger. His eyes fixated on Harry, and Harry could feel his anger being directed at him. While he couldn't speak, he very much had control of his other abilities, one of which was the ability to beat Harry to a bloody pulp.
"What are your names?" Harry asked the other two.
They glanced at each other for support, it seemed, because they hadn't expected this turn of events. Whether they were going to give Harry their names, he never found out, because TNT stood, his face purple with rage, his left index finger pointed accusingly at harry.
"What?" Harry asked. "Cat's got your tongue?"
"Not being able to order his goons to manhandle Harry, TNT began gesticulating wildly, mouthing words that none of them could understand.
"TNT, what's wrong?" one of them asked, but this was clearly not the right thing to say, because TNT's faced swelled to an even deeper shade of people, and he began railing off explicatives, to the best of Harry's mouth-reading ability. He decided to strip off the hex and let the cafe inhabitants find out what the fuss was all about.
"I CAN'T FUCKING SPEAK! YOU AIRHEADS! WHAT'S THE FUCKING WRONG WITH-" Tnt cut himself off, his face ashen with humiliation, his eyes wide and searching for the inexplicable return of his voice. He then whirled on Harry, shrieking in what Harry thought was the girliest voice he had ever heard. "You! You did this to me!"
Harry shrugged. "Don't know what you're talking about, mate."
The cafe, to Harry's amusement, had become silent as all eyes were fixed on the display. Even Jilly, who was a secret admirer of TNT's, was bewildered and frightened.
"Do you have any idea who you're messing with?" TNT hissed in what was probably his most dangerous voice. "Do you know why they call me TNT?"
"Because you're like dynamite, and when you get angry, you explode?" Harry ventured.
Having guessed correctly why the hooligan had taken on his apparently not so clever nickname was not by any means pacifying him. Instead, his eyes crossed and he began to bare fangs. Razor sharp fangs, and his eyes turned yellow just like the winged creature outside. "I'm going to eat you alive, you little runt!" he scowled.
His two compatriots were looking around nervously, and Harry saw that some of Mosaics clients were stealthily exiting.
"There's something wrong with your eyes, I think," Harry said calmly, still content to wind up his adversary. "And your teeth could do with some filing. A bit pointy, aren't they?"
Harry flicked and swished his wand, and said aloud, "Wingardiem Leviosa." He had never lifted an object as large as a human before, but he decided it was worth a try. To his relief, TNT was now floating in the air, a look of wild surprise and horror on his face. Harry flicked him to the far corner, where he went sailing into a table and two chairs. He then focused his attention on the two remaining foot soldiers and said pointedly, "Well? Aren't you going to go collect your friend?"
One of them scrutinized Harry curiously. "You know, kid. You might have some skill there, but you shouldn't get too cocky. Us demonoids like to stick together, and TNT over there's got friends."
TNT was just standing up, a look of murder in his eyes when the door to the cafe swung violently open. Harry jumped to his feet, his wand still in his hand as the new visitor presented herself. Kittie surveyed the room sternly, her eyes first falling on TNT and then on Harry. "What's going on here?" she asked in her crisp voice, a voice Harry knew meant she was not happy.
"I'm going to kill him, Kittie," growled TNT.
"You're going to get your ass kicked, demon-boy," Harry said. "Bring it on."
TNT charged, but there was too much of a distance for him to cover, even though he was incredibly fast. Harry hit him with the full body bind, which sent him sprawling to the floor, locked in position. The other two had backed away from Harry, not understanding where these powers were coming from. Harry noticed, but only as a soldier appraising his position. One of them, he noticed, was shaking his head. "We warned you, kid," the guy said. Jilly hopped over the counter and stared daggers at Harry, and, to Harry's dismay, the remaining clients joined her. Kittie suddenly looked very nervous, and she said, "Listen, harry, we better get out of here. We don't want trouble."
I'm so tired of this crap, he thought irritably. "Don't I? I can't even have a bloody breakfast without being attacked. These clowns want to mess with me. so be it." Harry cried out, "Serpento sortia! and, as the blast shot from his wand, he made an arcing gesture that caused the light to shatter into a shower of sparks that left twenty tiny snakes all hissing the same thing. Where are we?" they asked.
The clients, who had all looked human enough before, had now distended their features into something ugly and feral. They weren't vampires, Harry knew, because they didn't possess the tell-tale signs - fear of sunlight and pale skin. They were all baring their hideous teeth and now cracked and bleeding faces, exposing something darker and more sinister underneath. They were angry, and in particular, they seemed distinctly unhappy about the arrival of Harry's backup, though, to Harry's dismay, the fracturing augmentor he had learned about in sixth year Charms class had had the unfortunate side effect of making all his snakes much smaller and much less formidable looking. They still had a mean glare and a vicious bite though. harry was also aware that they were not the same type of snake that had come out of Malfoy's wand in second year. These ones looked meaner, to harry's relief. That's something, at least, he thought. As for their size, he considered just enlarging them, but that seemed like it would take too much time, but then it occurred to him that he could combine an engorgement charm with an area effects augmentor, which he then cast. All the snakes grew to about five feet in length, covering the floor with their sinewy bodies. Suddenly, the room seemed much more daunting and formidable, and the demons weren't entirely sure how to handel this new situation. "Obey me," Harry hissed in parseltongue, barely aware as he did it the shock that registered on Kittie's face. Indeed, all the demons were taken aback by what Harry was doing. S'pose they only know English, he thought. One of them decided to pounce, having had enough of Harry's antics, it seemed, and, while it could gain some serious vertical with its powerful legs, two snakes shot up into the air, catching it in mid-flight and sinking their teeth into its arms. The creature let out a hoarse whine of shock and pain and then fell motionless at Harry's feet. It was dead.
Pandemonium broke out as the demons began attacking the snakes. One went for Kittie, but Harry was hardly going to let one of them hurt her. A snake jumped up in front and caught it around the throat, squeezing its neck in its coils and biting it clean through the forehead. Another jumped at Kittie, now having its deceased colleague as a shield, but harry sent the strongest hex he knew, one he didn't think he should be practicing, exactly, but which his rage-flared instincts told him to send anyway. "Sectum sempra," he whispered, his eyes alight with battle fury.
The spell connected hard, slashing a deep wound across the creature's torso and blowing the skin apart to spray blood everywhere. Kittie shrieked as blood spattered her face and clothes. Harry took a moment to watch his children devour the demons, which, he realized were no match for them. The snakes were proving to be ultra-fast, though Harry was starting to suspect that they were actually anticipating the moves of the demons. They could also coil themselves and shoot very high into the air, and had perched on all manner of objects in order to secure better vantage points. It's like they're moving as one, he thought, awed by the sheer power of all the snakes. What they lacked in size they made up for in speed and agility, and, of course, deadly poison. They're cobras, he realized, recognizing the scent of their toxic venom from one of Slughorn's potions classes.
Within a few minutes, none of the demons were left standing, leaving only Harry and Kittie standing, Harry's eyes blazing with the force of his sixteen years of pain and war while Kittie's blazed with absolute fear. A fear directed at Harry himself. When he realized this, he felt as though his heart had stopped. Oh no, he bemoaned, she hates me. "Kittie," he began, starting to move toward her. This action, however, brought her out of whatever spell had paralyzed her, and she, instead of moving towards Harry, further into the nest of writhing snakes and dead or unconscious demons, pirouetted and bolted from the cafe.
Still marvelling at the efficiency with which he had dispatched his enemies, Harry burst into a sprint, leaving his breakfast behind and chasing after Kittie, calling out her name. "Kittie! Kittie! Stop, please!" But she did not, at least not at first. then, finally, she slowed, and harry caught up to her.
"Get away from me!" she said, panting too hard to draw enough breath to shout. "Please!" Kittie collapsed, leaning heavily against the side of a red and blue striped building. Harry did not listen to her and instead came very close, enfolding her in his arms. She began to cry openly.
"Don't," he said softly. "Don't push me away."
"Please," she whispered, an unmistakable pleading tone in her voice. "Please just let me go."
Harry recoiled suddenly, his own face ashen with pain. "Kittie, please," he began, his voice turning weak and shaky. "Please, don't be afraid of me."
Despite Harry's own plea, her continued fear was plainly written on her face. "I-I... I don't know who you are, Harry," she managed. "You're not like anything I've ever seen before."
"No, Kittie, it's not - I mean - well, I can do things, yes, but..." Harry trailed off, not sure what to say. Hadn't he just killed a bunch of people? And why? Because he was angry. Angry at the world, angry at his family and at Dumbledore and all the adults who were supposed to be there. Wasn't there a bitterness in him that was waiting to thrive, to satisfy itself on the precipitation of misery and pain in others? Yes, he was a soldier, and he was, to his credit, defending himself and nothing more, and he couldn't be faulted for that. But more importantly, he didn't care that much afterwards about them. If the demons died, he wouldn't really lose sleep over it, and that made him different from other sixteen year old boys. Other boys, who might be wanton, would feel horror at that carnage, but Harry only felt grim satisfaction. He was lashing out in a way that he wanted to and was denied the night he tried to inflict the Cruciatus on Snape.
But all those thoughts were blown away, because he had made Kittie cry, and he didn't want to do that. She still didn't seem to have the strength to move, so Harry took to using his wand to clean off the blood stains that had stained her face, her clothes, even her hair.
"Wha-what are you doing to me?" she asked in a timid voice.
"I'm just cleaning off the blood," Harry said softly. He moved close to her and held her tightly, feeling the warmth of her body mingle with the warmth of his. "Kittie, I wouldn't hurt you. Please believe me. I only attacked them out of self-defense. You saw that, didn't you? Please, believe me."
"I want to, Harry," she said, equally softly. "But, what you did. Those images. They were so horrible. I was so scared of you, all I wanted to do was get away. How could you have so much of that in you. It overwhelmed me. all I could think was, I don't know who I'm sitting with. I don't know you, and yet, you're such a force that it takes me by surprise. Sometimes, when strong people are put together, sometimes, one of them gets attached to the other and it... it makes me feel like I'm weak again. I feel so strong, and it makes me weak." Kittie's tears were still flowing, but the sobs that had been coming full throttle had now died down so she was merely hiccuping and sighing heavily into his shoulder. I have another girl crying on me, he thought. I'm the Boy Who Makes Girls Cry.
Kittie looked up at his face suddenly, staring at him curiously. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"What does what mean?" harry returned, not understanding her question.
"The Boy That Makes Girls Cry."
"Oh," Harry said, understanding. "I lowered my shields. I'm sorry. I've been keeping them up, but with the fight and you and..." Harry trailed off again.
"Shields?" she asked, tentatively.
Harry immediately resurrected his Occlumancy shields, which allowed him to mentally kick himself for saying that. "Yes, shields," he admitted. "I was trained to defend my mind from attack last year."
"Defend your mind from attack," Kittie said softly, in a musing tone. "That sounds so sad." Harry felt Kittie's weight shift, and he realized she was no longer clinging to him for physical support or to cry, but because she wanted to. he could feel that her posture had relaxed into his body, and he took a moment to silently enjoy that feeling.
"Yeah, I guess it is a little sad," he said, never having thought about it. Most people didn't learn Occlumancy, because, frankly it was a waste of time. How likely is it that someone's going to break into your head anyway, Harry thought.. What are the chances?
Harry's mind wandered back to some of the things that Kittie had said, and he tensed suddenly. "Kittie," he began slowly. "You weren't talking about just now. when you said you feared me. You were talking about last night."
Kittie sniffed and then looked up at him her eyes still shining, and she said, in a resigned tone, "yes. Last night."
"What happened?'
"You happened, Harry. You."
"I ddon't understand.
"When we met Marv, it was like... it was like you went from radiating nothing to going nuclear in about half a second. I was almost knocked out by all the things that were flowing from you. First it was shock, and then it was fear and horror and loathing and then, finally, rage. Harry, you were killing me."
She let those words hang in the mid-morning sun, a breeze coursing through the alleyway and blowing detritus around their feet, mirroring Harry's melancholy emotions that were now churning up inside him. He hadn't realized she had felt all that from him. He must have been a nuclear bomb of negativity.
"And you didn't understand where all that came from," Harry finished softly.
Kittie nodded.
"And it wouldn't do to be with someone like that, who could just shift to being so evil all of a sudden," harry mused. And then it hit him. 'You thought I was jealous, didn't you?"
Kittie looked up, pleading, and that fear returned in full force. She didn't say anything, but he heard her nervousness in the way he breathed.
"Oh Kittie," he said, his breathing turning fast, fast as his now racing heart. He stroked her hair and held her tightly, pressing his forehead against her scalp, letting the tips of her hairs brush his neck and make him shudder with sorrow and delight, all the while the rest of his exposed skin remained cool from the shadows of the alley in which they were ensconced. "I wasn't jealous, Kittie."
There was a long pause, and after a time, she said tentatively, "You weren't?"
"No, I wasn't."
"What was it then?"
Harry took a deep breath and sighed. "He reminded me of someone."
"Oh," she said, neither of them knowing how to proceed. They were like two stray leaves that had blown into a wasteland of barren rock, forced to flit about by the contesting winds, buffeted by all the forces that sought to control them, stiffly trying to refuse and failing.
Harry hadn't even thought about being jealous about Marv, the sight of him had taken Harry by such surprise. He doubted that it were actually Tom, for if it were, then he would be trying to usurp power and enslave. But then maybe he was trying to do that, Harry thought. After all, Tom waited decades to surface as the Dark Lord. He obviously has patience, in addition to cunning; a cunning Harry couldn't match. No, Harry wasn't going to beat Tom on his terms, or with any of the Slytherin skills with which he was so familiar. No, Harry would beat him with the things that made him a Gryffindor.
"Can I make a confession," Harry asked.
"Kittie glanced up at him warily. She furrowed her brow as if deciding how to respond to that question and then, apparently deciding, nodded.
"I would have been jealous if he flirted with you much longer." Harry smiled a playful, mischievous smile and then nuzzled his nose into her shoulder, causing her to giggle.
"Oh Harry!" she exclaimed, trying to pull away. "that tickles!" But harry would not be deterred. He gathered Kittie in his arms and held her tightly as if they would be separated by a great storm at any moment, and then leaned in close to kiss her. He let his shields down so she knew what he felt for her, and she gasped suddenly, whatever resistance she might have put up washing away in the torrent of his emotions. They kissed, an unseen energy billowing about the restless wind, carrying their intertwining scents through the air.
