Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter universe.
Chapter Six
The Ravenclaw Edge
Harry had realized a long time ago that he didn't fear Voldemort. The prophecy had come as a shock, sure, but it didn't make him quiver with dread the way he supposed it would if anyone else had been handed such a thing. It seemed from the very beginning that he was fated to wage war in some fashion. Even his childhood, which he supposed most death eaters would laugh at, gave him some form of training. It gave him drive and a willingness to always fight. It made him fight internally against those things that he saw as injustices; it turned him into a person whose every fibre oriented themselves to the singular task of arresting unjust behaviour.
All that said, though, he was pretty confident that, in a duel, voldemort would pretty much pound him into the ground. He hadn't really understood what it was that he was supposed to do to stop the Dark Lord. He had never even considered the killing curse. He supposed that his subconscious had already discarded it as a fruitless endeavour. After all, it hadn't worked the first time, so why would anyone think it would work the second. No, the killing curse had always been out of the question. He had briefly entertained the thought of using the cruciatus until Voldemort went insane, like the Longbottoms. That seemed sufficient, though Harry wondered if it could really be that easy. No, voldemort had probably immunized himself somehow from the curse. Harry wondered if he himself had done something similar from the prolonged exposure to the cruciatus potion. Sure, it had still hurt, but not enough that he couldn't block it out and do other things. Had he effectively built a resistance to the cruciatus? It couldn't have been that simple. But then again, it could be tied up with his unique abilities. Possibly whatever Voldemort had passed off to him when he was a baby. Certainly, whatever else that ludicrous amount of agony might have done, Harry felt a clarity unlike any other he had ever felt before. His thought processes seemed more concise; his mind more ordered. His ability to focus had reached new heights it seemed. All in all, he had to say he was rather thankful. Not to mention the fact that, somewhere along the way, most likely towards the end of his torture sessions, his eyesight had improved. He had decided for simplicity's sake that it must have been right at the end when he had opened his eyes and felt the sharp tingling sensation. After all, he knew the potion had rejuvenating effects. In fact, he rather wished he had bottled some for future use. Sure it was painful, but it had some of the most profound healing effects he had ever run across. With his new found composure, Harry felt good. He doubted he would last more than the usual ten seconds in a duel with Voldemort - no, he had no illusions about that. But he was confident he could take Tom Riddle to task, and that made him smile. Yes, he was going to break these horcrux bastards if it was the last thing he ever did. No - he was certain the last thing he would ever do was cut the Dark Lord's head off. At least he hoped.
Harry leaned forward, placing both his hands flat on the table and staring fixedly into Marv's eyes, aware that the lamplight in the small, makeshift interrogation room turned his face into a mess of dark shadows. "Tell me everything you know." Kittie sat off to one corner looking tense and letting her eyes flicker nervously between Harry and Marv.
"I suppose I should start by saying that I wasn't quite truthful when I am a muggle." Marv let out a sigh. "I suppose I'm better classified as a squib. After all, I have some magical abilities. Enough to see through the wards on the building, at any rate. Not that I knew there were wards. That only became clear to me this afternoon."
"Did you know Tom was there?" Harry asked.
"I had my suspicions that he was about. Certainly I knew wizards were crawling around - or at least one. There are signs amongst those afflicted with the imperius curse. They're subtle, but I knew. And I knew that they couldn't be wandering in from afar - I'm pretty sure that the jump between islands would have cut the connection of the curse. so that meant there was someone running around here."
Harry nodded. "Makes sense." Harry leaned back and listened to Marv speak for some time. he described to Harry his first moments of consciousness - how everything had been dark at first - how he had existed in some ethereal plane, feeding slowly off the life energy of some seemingly vast, endless source. As time past, he felt more and more of his own memories and instincts return to him, and with that came sensations. At first they had been dull and distant, as though he were feeling touch through a great many sheets of fabric. As time past and he grew stronger, the sheets were stripped away until light and sound and smell and touch filtered through. Marv had awoken in a muggle hotel room in Bristol. The first thing that had struck him was how cold and wet he felt, and the chill that ran through him when he discovered the body of a middle-aged adult laying contentedly on the microfibre double-bed. Marv had checked his vitals - his pulse, his shallow breathing, his cold skin - he knew that this stranger was on the cusp of death. He had known it was his fault, but just like a newborn babe, his thoughts were awash with all the strange sensations that he had forsaken so long ago when he had been placed inside the locket. Knowing only two instincts - predator and prey, flee or fight - Marv took to doing the only thing he could think of. He stole all the strangers things, including the locket, which hung loosely around the man's pale and hairless skin. He had only thought of it as a trinket to sell at the time, but later, when his mind reasserted itself into the logical and ordered way that Harry associated with typical Slytherin cunning, he realized how very fortunate it was for him to have secured that particular item.
From there, Marv had lived on the streets. It had been his intention to secure work somewhere, but he discovered quickly that, with the state of his clothes and hygiene and his complete lack of knowledge regarding anything muggle, he was unsuited to do any kind of work. Nobody would so much as look at him, let alone hire him. He had discovered that one day when he had mustard up whatever small part of him was a Gryffindor and tried to enter a retail outlet to inquire about employment. He was not blind to the fact that the smell coming off him in waves was putrid, to put it mildly, but he had to know whether it was even an option. Eventually, he found ways to survive. He had taken to mugging a few people; his form was lean and he could maneuver quickly in a tight spot. he had eaten out of dumpsters, and suspected that the small magical reserves he had were enough to give him a slight edge in a number of areas. At the fringes of existence, those few drops of energy sometimes were enough to mean the difference between life and death. Marv had seen many die around him. Vagrants curling up on the streets in the middle of a January snowfall.
He had awoken in times of the Thatcher era, and so what resources had been deployed to welfare programs, cut so thin, he had never really run across any kind of shelter. No, people were not interested in helping or empowerment or anything like that. This was simple extermination. He had, on one occasion, heard people cheering on the wet chill that stole over Birmingham from the North, egging it on to strip the vermin from the streets; drive them into the sewers where they could disappear silently and unobtrusively. Marv had no illusions. They were not talking about rats. No, they were talking about his kind. He had reflected many times on his childhood in that orphanage; how he had enjoyed lording over the others the powers that he had discovered. Powers that he had discovered through his own isolation, and his search for that part of him that always felt different. That part of him that was magic, and which grew day by day, connecting him to another world. he had seen ruffians come along and kick some drunk philanderer to death, the smell of alcohol and blood assaulting him from his perch in the shadows. Marv had wept. it had been a rainy night, unusually warm for February. What year it was he did not know. Maybe 1992, or 1993. He stopped caring for time when it became apparent he would not age. He had found himself shedding tears for a stranger; oh how that other part of him, the part that had severed this weak version of Tom Marvolo Riddle would watch silently at his misfortune. Marv was the weak; and Lord Voldemort was the tyranny of evil men.
When his tale finished, Marv sat back, spent. "I have never told anyone that story before." Marv let out a bark of a laughter. "There was no one to tell. Well, an old lady who took me in to work at a bookshop once. I had managed to mug enough people in a short enough period of time without getting caught either by the police or other thieves, and had managed to fix myself up enough to approach her. She took me in; and it could have been sweet, but it was not meant to last." Marv drifted into a whorl of memories, lost to it for several minutes before he shook himself and returned his piercing black eyes to Harry. "Can I ask you something?"
Harry nodded. "It's only fair, I guess."
"Why?"
It was an open ended question, to say the least, but Harry knew what Marv meant. A why for so many things, Harry mused. It occurred to Harry that he had never told his story to a stranger before. People always knew before he did; a fact that annoyed him greatly during his fifth year. Now, of course, that maelstrom of emotions had ended with the death of Sirius and the knowledge of the prophecy. After he had had time to brood and consider it, he had come to realize that he had a place in the world. It may not have been a pretty place, to be sure, but he didn't think he wanted a pretty place anyway. People with those lives always looked sort of flat to him. Like Dudley, though anyone looking at his cousin would be hard pressed to come up with the word flat as a descriptor. No, people with pretty lives were not his sort. Nor were people whose lives were aimless and wandering. "Lord voldemort has made it this way," he said finally. "He's started a fight. He started it a long time ago, long before I was born or my parents went to Hogwarts. And he chose to involve my family in that fight, though I would hope that they had made the decision to involve themselves. It's clear he wants to finish it, and well, frankly, so do I. I want to destroy him, because he hurts the people I care about. Because he is trying to kill me. Because, while I'll never have a pretty life, people at least deserve the option, and they can't get that with Lord voldemort running amuck screwing around. And maybe, I want to do it because it feels good somehow. It feels like I'll get a little piece of me back when I take him to task."
Marv nodded, satisfied. A silence fell between them for a long time. Harry had many more questions. he had only scratched at the surface that was Marv, and he knew it. But he also knew that it could take weeks to absorb all the information he wanted. marv was something of an enigma. His life was fascinating to Harry, because it was so much like his own and yet so different. Harry had suffered by being shunted inward and then made to jump through hoops. His life had been a myriad of controlling influences buffeting him about like a kayak on the open seas. Marv, on the other side, was the opposite. He had suffered because there were no forces at all. He had been left in a vacuum; left to devise a strategy for his own life without any of the supports or entanglements or assurances or platitudes and threats and dominations and machinations of any single person. He was a babe of society; a child born in the air and left to freefall.
"How is it that Kittie never knew any of this?" Harry asked suddenly. "Do you know occlumancy?"
Marv quirked an eyebrow. "Ah, I see you want a bit of confirmation for my story."
"No, actually," Harry admitted truthfully. "That never even crossed my mind. I just recall her saying that she's never gotten anything other than banal thoughts from you. I would have assumed your mind would have turned to past events at some point during your time with her. Also, I would have thought you would have recognized her talent immediately and given away its name. How not, if you did not use occlumancy?"
"Funny. I pegged you as the all braun and no brains type, but clearly I was mistaken. That's quite the ravenclaw you've got in you."
"nah, not Ravenclaw. Slytherin more like it."
Marv took a deep breath and sighed. He began slowly, as if to carefully word his response, and then he stopped and pondered a bit longer. finally he said, "Are you an occlumans?"
Harry nodded. "Yes, but not a very good one."
"Do you understand that legilimancy is a fundamentally magical phenomenon?"
"Er," Harry began, trying to process the question, and discovering, to his annoyance, that he didn't really know. "Well, yes, I never thought about it, but it does require a wand."
"Does it?"
"Er, well, yes, I mean no. You can certainly do some magic wandlessly. God knows I wouldn't have escaped if I couldn't. And I know Lord Voldemort has used legilimancy on me in the past without a wand."
"Okay, now tell me. Is occlumancy a fundamentally magical phenomenon?"
Now Harry suddenly felt confused. He started slowly, "I guess you don't need a wand at all to perform occlumancy, so if it's magic, then it's purely a wandless form of magic." Harry hoped that that answer was satisfactory, though, immediately, as he looked into Marv's eyes, he knew it wasn't.
"Harry what is occlumancy?"
"The protection of one's mind?" Harry asked uncertainly. "Or, no wait, it's the building of mental walls."
"Mental walls," Marv mused. "Okay, let's go with the mental walls thing. What are these walls made of?"
Harry pursed his lips in thought. Finally, coming up with nothing articulable, he resorted to saying, "What does this have to do with anything?"
Marv rolled his eyes. "You must be a Gryffindor. What is the purpose of legilimancy?"
"To root through other people's thoughts and emotions."
"Right. You go into someone's mind and you peruse their thoughts. You see memories the way the host has interpreted them. You can observe just about anything that a person can conceptualize into a communicable framework. Let me ask you this. When you enter someone's mind through a direct legilimancy attack, do you see colours? Shapes?"
"Yes."
"Okay, and you see these things because the other person saw these things."
"Right."
"Okay," Marv said "Take an individual who has been blind since birth. If you used such a legilimancy attack on this person, what would you see?"
"Marv, I don't-"
"What would you see, Harry?"
"I don't know. Nothing?"
"Precisely. You would see nothing. Or if you did see things, they would be representations that would, in all likelihood, not have any particular relationship to the objects they're representing. What would you glean from such an invasion?"
"Not much, I imagine. Though you could probably still understand what people were saying."
Marv nodded. "Suppose you used legilimancy on a person who speaks French."
"You would glean thoughts in French," Harry surmised.
"Do you understand what I mean by communicable frameworks?" Marv asked.
"I think so. If we're not both on the same page, then legilimancy wouldn't help very much. For example, if I were colour blind, you couldn't extract information about colours from my mind."
"That is a good example. The trick would be to learn to drain colours from your memories before you commit them to memory. You would have to learn to visualize the memory in black and white and greys and then memorize that, effectively shutting out the original and discarding it."
"But that would mean that I would no longer have access to information about the colours," Harry said, thinking hard. "That would be a bit silly. All you're saying is that I need to forget useful information."
"All I am saying is that that is the first step to mastering occlumancy. Occlumancy is built upon many, many layers and is multi-faceted in its nature. As is legilimancy for that matter. There is surface legilimancy, direct legilimancy, peripheral and sensory legilimancy. They each have their own degrees and eccentricities. Take the colour example. Instead of stripping all the colour from an image, why not simply reverse all the colours, like in a colour wheel? Turn all the reds to greens and greens to reds, and leave yourself a footnote to change them back. Then, when somebody looks for images containing blood in your mind, all they'll end up getting are memories of your days spent cutting grass."
"Okay, that's all very interesting - well, actually it's not really. Why the hell are you giving me a lecture on this?" Harry asked.
"As you pointed out, the brand of occlumancy that I told you of has its limitations. It's really only the first step to mastering occlumancy and is more an exercise in controlling your own mind than anything. I only brought it up because you asked. As it turns out, a lot hinges on whether you're magical or not. There are certain occlumantic techniques that only wizards can do. Kittie has mentioned that you have erected walls that block her out completely. Sometimes these walls disappear when you're distracted. This is a type of occlumancy designed to defend against direct magical legilimantic attacks. I suspect you've been trained this way, and by someone rather incompetent. Unless of course that direct attacks were the only thing you wanted to protect against. The long and short of it is that I can't really defend against legilimancy. if Kittie wanted to, she could have shredded my mind. I like to think that she respects my privacy and tries to minimize her acquisition of my thoughts. Truth be told, she's the most powerful legilimans I've ever met. It's only by virtue of the fact that she shies away from this gift, seeing it as a curse, that she's not the most powerful person around here. I doubt you'd be able to do much against her if she directed all her will towards stopping you. Me, I would have even less defenses."
"Well thank God she's on our side then, right?"
Marv smiled. "Is she?"
Harry glanced over at Kittie, suddenly nervous. She simply returned his gaze with what seemed like expressionless eyes.
Harry shivered and returned his gaze to Marv. "Okay, so you're not an occlumans."
"I've learned to order my mind - a trait of my old self. I am quite adept at controlling my thoughts, despite my inability to generate higher order defenses. When Kittie told me she was a telepath, I committed that word to memory with a particular definition. That definition did not include the word legilimancy in it. I kept the word legilimancy around, but I left it completely divorced from all aspects of telepathy. It's not an easy thing - having that kind of control over your thoughts. Thoughts by nature tend to wander about, flitting here and there."
Harry nodded. "That makes sense. My instructor never really told me any of this. He simply instructed me to clear my mind and then tried to break me." The vitriol that Harry normally associated with Snape seemed to be gone now. he wasn't quite sure why, since that hatred ran as deep as his connection and love for magic. He decided to ponder on it later.
"He couldn't have been very good at occlumancy himself then," Marv commented. "Or legilimancy, for that matter."
Harry snorted. "Actually, he was the best. He fooled everyone, including Dumbledore. You see, he was a spy for the Dark Lord, and was pretending to work for Dumbledore. I had always doubted that what he was doing was actually building my defenses. I started to believe that he was doing quite the opposite, actually. I have a unique link to Voldemort." Harry tapped his scar. "When I was a baby, he tried to kill me with the killing curse. Only it rebounded and hit him instead, causing him to lose his body. As you know, his soul remained intact and on this earth, compliments of the horcruxes. With this link, I can glimpse into his mind from time to time. He can also send me false images."
Marv nodded thoughtfully. "I imagine he never thought of that as a possibility."
"No one did."
"Yes, I suppose no one would. I had always wondered if there might have been something to the notion that love is a more powerful force than hate. Certainly Voldemort doesn't think so. But only because love thus far has been impossible to understand. You can't really harness it for your own purposes. It works at strange times and for strange reasons. And often with strange costs. I am guessing that someone died to protect you. Possibly several someones?"
Harry nodded. "My parents."
"Their deaths must have been very close to you in proximity and time. Also, they were probably murdered using the killing curse and they were probably also very likely aware that they were going to before they did. I would wager that they actually lasted longer than normal, and that, the closer the time came when they were hit with the curse, the harder they fought to protect you."
"How do you know all this?"
"Tom Marvolo Riddle has a very well ordered mind. He was able to think of many things all at once," Marv said. "I was that part of him that chose to focus on why people in the ministry and some of the textbook writers focused so much on love. Flannel, for example, was clearly a brilliant mind, and yet he seemed to spend a good quarter of his life researching the powers of love, its effects, consequences, etc. Tom eventually discarded this type of information as sentimental, self-deluding rubbish. He sent it to the back of his mind and left it there in a dumpster. I took greater care to understand it, because I was that part of him that spurred him on to look it up in the first place. The most prevailing theory about love is that it is a kind of magical energy that tends to aggregate in the air. The killing curse works because it ejects your soul from your body and disperses it to whatever plane of existence it's supposed to go to, if any. Your magic then escapes into the air and settles there. It will have an imprint of the kind of energy that you had been focusing on. The more you focused on love, for example, a love mixed in with the kind of intensity that life or death situations demand, then you can imagine what a powerful love based energy would form in the air at that time. I imagine that your parents had all their thoughts bent on protecting you. All that energy was displaced around you, like a mist - the better their abilities at magical focus are - the more tightly coiled that mist would be around you. Of course, it would disperse after a time, unless it were locked in at some point."
"And so when the killing curse came, it had to penetrate this layer of displaced love magic," Harry concluded. "This magic that had as its only imperative, my protection."
"It would have to be very strong to repel the killing curse. If you hadn't told me it had backfired onto Voldemort, I would have simply assumed that it would have dissipated to either side."
"The magic remained with me. I can only assume that my parents locked it in somehow. Dumbledore sent me to live with my aunt, because she's a blood relative."
Marv shook his head. "I doubt Dumbledore had to do anything. Introducing a blood component like that would have effects I couldn't begin to fathom, though, judging from what you said, it would have the locking in effect."
"Dumbledore said that as long as I called my blood relation's home, my home, then I would be safe. Even after voldemort kidnapped me and used my blood to restore himself. Dumbledore said that voldemort didn't fully understand the consequences of using my blood. He thought he would gain my protection, but he didn't. Or at least, not all of it."
"These things are extremely complicated, Harry. I have no doubt that Dumbledore is one of the foremost experts in the world. Certainly, he was brilliant even in my time. I can only assume that he became more so afterwards."
"yeah. They say he's the only one Voldemort ever feared."
"I was aware that Tom was greatly concerned by Dumbledore. I know he went to lengths to find out more about him. He even considered laying low and waiting for Dumbledore to die before proceeding with his plans. It appears he didn't do that."
"No, he didn't. But he didn't know how long Dumbledore would live either, and from what I understand of him, he's arrogant. I'm sure he just decided to learn enough until he felt confident and then made his move. Besides, I don't think his followers would have been very impressed with him if he did something like that."
"True," Marv said.
"Can I ask why you're interested in all of this?"
"I'm interested because these are all concepts you should have learned by now. Even leaving aside the fact that you're supposed to know all this by fifth year, which clearly you've surpassed in your magical education, you should be learning all about this in extra detail on your own. That is, if you're serious about hunting down these horcruxes. I can tell you the kinds of things that Tom has in mind to protect them are complex and difficult to penetrate. I am sure that by the time he executes the last of them, they will require a mind as logical and as swift and as cunning as his own to destroy. Certainly now with Tom running about, you will need all you have at your disposal to bring him down. I imagine your spell casting is as strong as his - possibly stronger, and I doubt that he would have access to a wand nearly as well suited to him as yours is to you. He's probably already aware of this and will have taken steps to ensure his own safety."
"What can I expect?"
"Traps of one kind or another. It's the way his mind works. He will try to lure you into something and then catch you from behind. He will anticipate your moves, so doing something unpredictable is your best chance of getting him. This doesn't mean doing something foolhardy. It means analyzing your own interactions with him through his eyes. What does he think of you? What traits do you think he associates with you? Your behaviour? Your mannerisms? Which ones will he look to in order to exploit?"
Harry considered these questions for a long time before speaking. He had never stopped to consider what others thought of him. Okay, well that wasn't exactly true. He had spent a lot of time thinking about what others thought of him, but only with respect to all the titles that had been foisted upon him, ranging from Boy-Who-Lived to unbalanced and attention-seeking. He had never considered what his own actions had meant in creating people's understanding about him. You have a people saving thing, remember? The Dark Lord knows this about him. Harry shuddered at the memory of those phrases. For a long time, they had haunted him in those sunlit summer days that were the aftermath of the Ministry of Magic. Harry turned to Marv and said, "He thinks I'm a Gryffindor. He thinks I'm tough and brave and that whatever skills at stealth that I have I have gained through adversity. If given long enough to mull over a problem, and with enough incentive, I may or may not come up with a solution."
"Interesting," Marv said. "So that means he will try to force your hand. Probably by taking someone captive - someone you care about. He will then construct an obstacle for you that will be designed to test your upper limits. This obstacle will be a diversion from the real trap. Focusing your attention on this diversion, you will be careless and not look before you leap, so to speak, being too busy defending yourself from whatever the diversion is. You will thus fall into a trap that, ideally, will close all around you before you realize it is too late. Consider it like this. He puts a series of unstable rocks on the ground so that you're too busy watching your step and not bothering to look up, so that when you get to the end of the road, you never see the piano that falls on your head."
Harry nodded. "I understand. However, you're only missing one thing. Who's he going to capture. He doesn't know-" Harry stopped suddenly. A cold chill ran down his spine as the full implication of his own carelessness hit him. But he does know someone you care about, doesn't he? Harry thought. He knows Kittie. Sure enough, when Harry looked over to see where Kittie was, he discovered that she was no longer there. Harry jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over and swearing profusely.
Kittie had never thought of herself as a graduate of the School of Hard Knocks. her frame was lithe, not sturdy. She was soft, not hard. No, she never thought of herself as one of those gladiator types who run around getting hurt and picking themselves up and battling onwards. The sight of blood made her queasy. That is why, when she was faced with a decidedly bloody Minnie, Kittie felt suddenly paralyzed with terror. It didn't help that Minnie was in some strange halfway state between extreme calm and mania. Her eyes seemed glassy and she was prone to switching moods suddenly. Hermione would have been the only one short of Albus and Mad Eye that would have recognized the symptoms of the imperius curse. Alas, Kittie did not, and so standing in the midst of the bright sunshine of the mainway, did not have the presence of mind to fear for herself. No, she feared for Minnie.
"Are you okay?" Kittie asked tentatively, recovering from her initial shock. It was a testament to the nature of the outworlds that none of the passersby gave them a glance, despite Minnie's bloodied and haggard appearance.
"I'm fine," Minnie replied in a monotone. "Kittie." there was something the way Minnie said her name that made Kittie shiver. "You should come inside. We'll get you cleaned up." Kittie made a move to grab Minnie's hand, with the intent to gently guide her into the Red Cherry. Instead, however, Minnie whipped her hand up to Kittie's neck and lifted her off the ground. Kittie was surprised to say the least. "Minnie!" she managed, clutching futilely at the fingers that were squeezing the life from her.
"You are to come with me," said Minnie in that same monotone, and then, in a slightly strangled voice, she whispered, "I am sorry."
Minnie then threw Kittie twenty or so feet - so far that she fell under the awning of the mysterious building and out of the way of the passersby. Now, only a wizard could find her. Kittie groaned and took a moment to collect herself. She scrambled to her feet, surprised as she checked herself that she was only afflicted with superficial wounds. She had expected a broken bone at least, but from what she could tell, she had only bruises and scrapes. Minnie was coming for her, her gait a little off. What's wrong with you, Minnie?" Kittie wondered.
Kittie had stepped outside the Red Cherry because she needed fresh air. It had been a day of surprises to say the least. She had gone to the Red Cherry to find Harry and apologize and break off their budding relationship. She had realized it hadn't been quite working. After all, he had disappeared for two days without even telling her. In fact, she had wondered if he had found a way to return home and simply decided not to tell her.
all those plans had been effectively thrown out the window, however, the moment he walked through the front door. The look in his eyes had been something scary. It was a colder version of the person he had turned into when he had killed all those demons. And from there it had been one headache-inducing revelation after the next. It all seemed so farfetched. She needed a break, and now she was being dragged along through corridors of blood in a dark and mysterious office building that she was sure she didn't want to be in.
Minnie effortlessly carried Kittie along, though Kittie had never known Minnie to be a strong person. It's magic, you dolt, Kittie thought dimly. Minnie's been taken over or something. It's like the invasion of the body snatchers or something, and they've made her super strong. Kittie aimed her considerable legilimantic powers at Minnie and discovered that the normal flow of thoughts that she was used to receiving from people was gone. Instead, there was a strange sort of vacancy punctuated by single phrase imperatives. Retrieve Kittie. Bring her to me. Preferably unharmed. Use whatever force is necessary.
Kittie felt all the blood being drained from her face. Crap, she thought. I'm going to die, but not before being used as bait to lure Harry. Two weeks ago, Kittie would have wept if such a thing had happened, but now, after listening to Harry, after getting to know that monsters do exist, after having time to process and think and understand, she knew that she wouldn't cry. Not for this. No, she had to do something. Marv had said that Kittie was a powerful legilimans. He had said, during his long discussion with Harry, that her powers are probably stronger than that of the Dark Lord. She expressed this talent without even trying at an extremely early age, and she did so wandlessly.
Whatever's got Minnie, Kittie thought grimly, it's something to do with the mind. Realizing that, Kittie aimed all her energy towards delving into Minnie's mind. She had no idea what she was doing, or how she expected to accomplish freeing Minnie. All she knew was that Marv had said she could break mental defense shields. Shields were like barriers, and clearly, there had to be a barrier on Minnie's own consciousness. Using metaphors and analogies that came from old sci-fi TV shows that she barely remembered from her childhood, Kittie scoured Minnie's mind for anything that felt like it was trying to repel her.
Minnie seemed to jerk and shudder under Kittie's scrutiny, nearly toppling over and sending them rolling down the stairs, which Minnie was now traversing. Kittie knew from Minnie's instructions that she was taking Kittie to the top floor. You're going to meet the CEO, Kittie thought. The mastermind. The Dark Lord. She had to admit that she was impressed by the fact that this evil wizard could apparently do so much. Clearly he had a lot of power; not that Kittie was enticed, or anything. Simply that she was still reeling back from the realization that magic existed. Sure, she knew on some level that magic existed, or something close to it at least. Case in point, she lived in the outworld with demons. Things existed that modern science couldn't possibly understand, like her own mind reading abilities. But now, she had discovered that there was a whole world out there with civilizations and governments and wars and all kinds of things and it all ran on magic. And now she was being thrown into it. If it weren't so terrifying, she would be rather excited.
By the time they reached the top floor and entered the hallway, which was laced with soft lighting and mahogany wood, Kittie had managed to drill through most of the walls that were blocking Minnie's own mind. Through it, she could hear her friend - the person she knew would never betray her - that person was begging to be let out. I'm coming, Kittie thought, her resolve deepening. I'm almost there.
Minnie shuddered as they reached the final doorway, and Kittie could tell that she was struggling with all her might to free herself of her curse. Minnie was shaking all over, perspiration dripping from her brow, her beautiful, soft, unblemished skin contorted into a mess of lines and concentration. Kittie even saw that her dear friend was silently weeping. Hang on, girl, Kittie thought desperately. Kittie gathered her energy from all corners of her being and drove hard into Minnie's mind, cutting through the thick fog that blanketed her consciousness. She slammed up against the imperius walls that bonded Minnie and, with a deep shudder, cracked them, creating a jagged tear that ran clean across the wall. With more cracks forming each second, Kittie knew it was only time before Minnie was free. Sighing, Kittie relaxed her guard, only to discover that the door swung wide open, causing the pair of them to tumble through.
"We have to do something!" Marv said, slamming his hands down on the bar.
"We do not have to do anything," Harry said, scanning the restaurant one more time as if willing Kittie to appear by sheer force. "I am going after her."
"And I'm coming too."
"You can't be serious. You're not a wizard."
Marv looked at Harry as though he had sprouted a second head. "Because that helped you so much the last time, right?"
"I was caught off guard. I won't let that happen again." Harry turned and strode purposefully out of the bar. Marv grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and turned him about. "Don't you go being an idiot, Harry. I care about Kittie. I care about her far more than you ever could. So don't you dare stand there and lord your little, I'm a wizard and therefore the hero in this story crap over me. You of all people should understand how important it is that I come along."
Harry took a deep breath and bit back a vitriolic retort. I hate you, Tom Marvolo Riddle. You're too smart for your own good. In another life, Harry realized in that moment what it was that irritated him about Marv. No, it wasn't irritation, exactly, though it could have been in another life. No, it was that marv unnerved him. Because he's just like Hermione. He's just as brilliant as she is. That thought threatened to send him spiraling into a fantasy where Hermione became a Dark Lord - or maybe she would be called a Dark Duchess - and began a terrorist campaign against purebloods. Putting that thought out of his head, Harry addressed Marv. "All right, come on."
They then proceeded to exit the Red Cherry. Before they made it to the sidewalk, however, the sight of something truly ugly stopped them in their tracks. The monstrosity that Harry had fended off in the building - the very thing that Marv had taken Kittie to investigate last week - that thing now stood on the street corner gazing at its prey with its protuberant eyes. It emitted a long wailing sound before it pounced on the first victim. Only then did many of the indigens begin screaming in terror.
"Good grief," Marv said. "What is that thing?'
"One of Tom's pets," Harry said. We'd better find cover before it comes for us."
"Can you destroy it with magic?"
"I can try, but it'll take a whole lot of spells if at all."
"Right. Anything I can do?"
"Distract it." Harry then aimed his wand, oblivious to the incredulous look that Marv was giving him and sent the conjunctivitis curse against the creature. Harry's aim was sure and true, however, unlike last time, the creature merely blinked and then shook itself as if it were shrugging off a case of mild fatigue. Harry pursed his lips as the creature's gaze fell on him. Wonderful, Harry thought. Harry began to rattle off curses and jinxes with lightning speed. Each one was powerful in its own right, but the creature, unlike last time, seemed to have developed an immunity to them. Vaguely, Harry remembered Tom having said something about that. In no time, Harry conjured a dozen snakes to defend himself and were ordering them to attack the creature, all the while continually sending hexes of all kinds its way. The snakes, which he had thought were rather effective last time, again failed to stop the creature. Well, they seemed to be able to slow it down, but their fangs, which are poisonous to people, did little to cause the creature to swoon. Instead, Harry found himself running. The creature was upon him.
"Reducto! Reducto! Reducto!" Harry shouted, losing all semblance of calm, having been forced to run and hurl curses as fast as he could behind him. Marv must think you're a total nimrod. Harry felt its hot breath on his neck, and realized that he was losing the race. Throwing himself to one side, he managed to barely dodge the creature as it barreled forward. Looking up, Harry saw the creature turning around. "Wingardiem Leviosa!" Harry shouted, pouring all his energy into lifting the creature. To his surprise, he managed to get it a foot off the ground, where it proceeded to paw futilely at the air with all four of its legs. Harry might have found the image rather funny if the situation weren't so dire. He felt his wand trembling from the exertion, his own face was now dripping with sweat. Already he was losing control, the blood beginning to pound in his ears, the sight of the setting sun becoming too bright for him. With one final jerk, Harry swiveled the creature in mid air so it was upside down and then, feeling exhausted, let it go and made a B-line for the nearest building. He threw himself inside, locking the door behind him just as he heard the tell-tale thud of its body slamming against it. Damn damn damn! his mind screamed. Not this again! Harry raced up a flight of stairs, taking two at a time and leaving a trail of snakes in his wake. He heard the door being blown off its hinges downstairs and continued to run that much harder. He had an idea. Harry went straight for the top of the building, the creature in hot pursuit. At the top floor, snakes still pouring out of his wand like water, Harry aimed for an office in the far corner at the end of a particularly long stretch of hallway. This will be all for naught if there isn't a giant window beyond that door. To his relief, there was. Harry blew the door off its hinges and blew the desk to one side.
There he waited, his back pressed to the window, as the creature dispatched his final snake from a distance. The creature now gazed at Harry hungrily, its yellowed teeth dripping saliva and blood, its breath coming out in hot gasps, chunks of its body issuing steam and splattering luridly along the ground and walls. It emitted another wail and then charged. You've got about three seconds left, Potter, so make this quick. "Fluvius, refrigio." Water cascaded in torrents across the floor, freezing into a solid sheet of ice as it landed, and, just as Harry had finished fashioning a near-frictionless glacial arena, the creature was upon him, forcing him to throw himself hard to one side, all the while praying that the creature would shoot past him and clean through the glass wall. Harry managed to roll to a sitting position, his wand in hand, his eyes gleaning information from the wreckage that was ensuing. His first thought was to do a mental check for any torn limbs or cuts, but he pushed that aside and stared at the creature, which had rammed through the glass, causing shards to spray outward like jagged raindrops, where they seemed to hang for a moment in the sunshine, twinkling fiercely before plummeting to the pavement below. The creature, meanwhile, began shrieking like a little girl as its momentum carried it forward and over the edge, bits of glass embedded in its torso and face, jutting out like razors. The creature continued shrieking all the way down, and abruptly ceased as it struck the ground, the thud being punctuated by first a popping sound like that of a balloon and then squelching and spraying sounds. Harry picked himself up and, being careful on the slippery surface, took a tentative step toward the edge. When he peered down, he saw the remains of the creature were in full view. The gore dispersion pattern was extremely large. The ichor that had seeped out of its body formed a pool that had a ten metre radius, chunks of its body slowly floating about as the substance coagulated. Beyond the blast point were a thousand drops of blood that had sprayed the roadway and many passersby who looked upon the creature with utter shock.
"Come on," he told himself. "You have to get moving." Tearing his eyes away from the creature, Harry made his way to the first floor and through the front entrance. From there, he could see the creature's remains up close and personal, but decided not to pay it any attention. He had bigger fish to fry and it was time he got onto it.
It took a moment for Kittie to understand what it was that she was looking at, when she finally managed to disentangle herself from Minnie. Before her, in what was the most opulent room she had ever seen, stood a figure she recognized very well. It was Marv. And yet it wasn't. Despite the near identical version of Marv in front of her - the only physical difference being that this one looked a bit younger - there was something about his eyes and his smile that seemed infinitely colder than the person she knew. No, this was Tom. This was the dreaded Dark Lord that had terrorized Harry; the one who was controlling her friend, Minnie. She now understood why it was that Harry had had such a violent reaction to seeing Marv. They were so closely matched in terms of looks that even she was hard pressed to find much in the way of differences. By all accounts, they could be identical twins.
Kittie was acutely aware of the wand that Tom was twirling between his fingers, acutely aware that he could inflict a lot of damage with it. He seemed content not to say anything, and Kittie wasn't sure whether she should break the silence. Part of her wanted to simply flee, but part of her felt a thrill as though being caught up in the whirlwind nightmare of Harry's world could somehow give her life greater meaning. Here, she could make a difference.
Kittie considered attempting her legilimancy on him, but she decided that he probably didn't know about it and she should hold onto that surprise for when he was distracted. Besides, she wasn't sure what she could do apart from read his thoughts, and from what Marv said, such an intrusion would not go unnoticed. So, she left that skill aside and decided to simply ask a question, if for no other reason, then to alleviate the tension that was building up in her. "Why have you brought me here?" she asked.
Tom raised an eyebrow as if amused by the question. "It appears we have a mutual acquaintance," he replied. "I would very much hope that he takes the time to visit."
"Harry?" Kittie ventured.
Tom's eyes lit up with glee. "Yes, Harry. Tell me, do you know if he'll come to retrieve you?"
Kittie considered the question carefully, though not to ascertain what the truthful answer should be. No, she decided she wanted to give him the most disadvantageous information she could think of; it was a game she had learned long ago.
"I don't know."
There was a shriek down below, and Kittie saw that Tom's smirk had widened into a full blow grin.
"What was that?" Kittie asked nervously.
"I have freed my pet. I no longer have use for it."
"Your pet?"
"We need not discuss these things, Kittie. Locomodore mortis." In a flash, Kittie felt her legs go rigid and attach themselves to the floor. With his wand, Tom guided her to a seat in the far corner, and plunked her down in the seat. "You can watch."
"Why are you doing this?" Kittie asked. She discovered that she wasn't afraid exactly. No, it was more a matter of curiosity. She really couldn't understand what drove Tom, and it made her want to know. In some deeper region of her mind, she felt it would help her to understand Marv, if she knew what part of his psyche he had been running from.
Something in Kittie's tone seemed to motivate Tom to answer, for he began speaking about it. "When I was young, I was a nobody. I was one indistinguishable kid amongst a mass of kids, each as indistinct as the next. I knew that from very early on when I saw the parents come by the orphanage and choose among us like we were pets. I wanted to be a parent you see. Well, not a parent per se. No, what I wanted was to be in their position. I envied the power they had to choose what they wanted. I want to choose things. for myself. Anything and everything. I found out that I could control others, and that was a good thing. The more people I control, the more things I can choose to do. That made me feel good. I continued with that, until I was a teenager, and then I realized that I wanted to control everything about myself. But I knew that there was one thing I couldn't control. It's something none of us can control apparently. Do you know what that is?"
Kittie shook her head. She had never been a philosophical sort.
"Death, Kittie. One day I would die and there would be nothing I could do about it. Well, I was a pretty smart kid; everyone told me so. I could do anything, they said. So, I figured I would take control of that one final thing that was out of my hands. I would do what no one before me has ever done before. I would choose when to die. And so, it appears that I have chosen. In fact, I have chosen never to die at all."
"You can't die?" Kittie asked in a small voice. It was only now starting to dawn on her the true magnitude of what it meant to fight the Dark Lord. She had seen magic sure enough, and she had understood Harry's conversation with Marv for the most part, but she had assumed that, when you could do anything like the way Harry could, what more was there to fight against. But, no, it wasn't that simple. This being could be who knows how old. In fact, she had started to glean from Marv's monologues that he was older than he looked. How old was Tom? How much experience and knowledge did he really have? Kittie had no idea. He could be like a thousand years old or something, if he can't die. Not to mention the fact that he would be pretty hard to kill.
"I see you understand," Tom said, nodding. "I was born in 1941, if you're interested."
"So you've conquered death."
Tom let out a laugh. A long, bitter, cynical laugh. "That's the truly sad part, Kittie. I didn't really conquer anything. I will never have control." Tom's expression turned pensive, as he frowned in contemplation. "No, I have no control whatsoever."
"I don't understand."
"No, you wouldn't. I suppose it doesn't matter much one way or the other. You see, I am but a mere servant to the Dark Lord. He can call me at a whim. I can die, but he cannot. I am nothing. I am a slave and all the things I control are mere illusions. All my work, decades of labour, can be quelled by a mere thought. His thought. No, I have no control. I only have this pathetic borrowed existence that he has given me. It all rests with him. I cannot harm him. I cannot do anything to him. I am a piece of him. I am nothing so long as he is around, and he will be around forever, which means that I am nothing and will continue to be nothing until the end of time. I am a mockery. I am a simulacrum of that which is powerful, but I am not it. I am not powerful. I am nothing. I am simply nothing."
Kittie couldn't say that she understood the whys and wheres of Tom's monologue, but she certainly understood the bitterness that sizzled beneath the words. Yes, she had been bitter like that too once. She supposed she always would be. No matter, what, no matter where she went or who accepted her, she would always know that her parents - her true parents - had rejected her. Nothing could clean away that taint; that feeling of rejection, of loss, of self-loathing. She could only seem to find respite from it through her own warm laughter and that of those she called friends. She supposed that finding acceptance in others was the only way for her to heal from that wound, and she wondered how this creation, this monster of some Frankenstein wannabe, who lurked about out there in the world, overshadowing him, how did he cope?
"What are you going to do about it?" Kittie questioned tentatively. She wasn't sure how long her luck would run for. Eventually Marv and Harry would come for her; at least she hoped. She just knew that she had to make it that long. It didn't hurt that she was starting to take a genuine interest in Tom's affairs. To her, it sounded like he needed serious therapy, though she didn't think she had the courage to suggest such a thing.
Tom seemed to be considering the question. He stroked his chin as he stared to a point far and away, past the walls and the horizon into the infinity that was his own cognition. "I have pondered it for a long time," he began softly. "At first I did not wish to believe it were so. When I awoke, I felt nothing but greatness surge through my veins. I felt... invigorated. It was only until after a time, when I realized how deeply the Dark Lord Voldemort had penetrated all aspects of the wizarding world. I knew when I read of the Dark Marks floating above the destroyed houses of all those who were dirty and weak or foolish enough to oppose him - I knew I should be feeling good. I was supposed to feel that our plan was succeeding. My plan. My plan was succeeding, yes. But I didn't feel it. I didn't feel anything at all. They weren't my death eaters anymore. People didn't fear me, or bend to my will. I walked up and down the streets of Diagon Alley, and no one cared. Where was my control? What power was this that was supposed to give me solace? There was none. It did not lie with me, and, when I realized that, I knew that I had made a grave miscalculation. That part of me that had been Slytherin had tricked me. I was too Ravenclaw, and not enough Slytherin, yes. He never would have been anywhere if it weren't for me. I gave his schemes style. I turned them into works of art. Lucius never would have followed a half-blood if it weren't for me. I convinced them; they were mine. No one else's; not his. I was supposed to be in control, not him. I was supposed to be spinning those luxurious webs; maneuvering people like pawns - like macabre marionettes. But he slipped through my fingers and took control."
Oblivious to Kittie's distaste, Tom continued, still dwelling in his own personal Hell. "I tried to kill him. It was on Walpurgis Night. I used my keen intellect, my artful skills of deduction to track and predict his movements. I found him in the midst of a revel, using human blood to strengthen his grip on his magic. He was learning to enchant corpses to do his bidding. I watched him from the shadows; watched as he squandered away his chance to sow the seeds of Dumbledore's destruction. He could have done it without ever lifting a single finger, but no, he always wanted to give into those baser urges of carnage and destruction. How could he not see that all that mattered was his mind? That brute force, as spectacular as it was tactically, would always ruin a perfectly good strategy? No, he couldn't see that. I wanted to kill him right then and there. I wanted to slap him down for his idiocy right in front of all his death eaters. No - my death eaters. The ones he stole from me. But I contained that urge, because I knew it would do no good. They would not see me as their new master. They would kill me outright. I followed him, and waited until I caught him alone. I felt it when he apparated; I felt his wards, when he raised them and when he took them down. They were nothing for me to evade. I stealthed across his fortress like a shadow, like a whisper. I found him sleeping peacefully on that night. I pointed my wand at him and whispered the words of the killing curse - the one curse that is unblockable - the most feared curse in the world. Do you know what happened?"
"No," Kittie said, but Tom didn't seem to hear her.
"I waited three seconds for that green light to shine from my wand and engulf him, to rip his soul from his body and send it to oblivion. Three seconds before I realized it wasn't coming. I tried a hundred times, or maybe only that once. I don't know; I don't care. I knew it wouldn't work. I couldn't kill him. Not with magic. And I knew with crystal clarity the reason for it. If I killed him, I too would have to die. No plan could I foresee where I could escape that inevitability. And so I fled. I fled for a long time before finally coming here. And it took me even longer to realize what this place was, but eventually that too became clear to me."
Before he could expound on his theory about the nature of the fringe worlds, the door was thrown open, swiftly putting an end to tom's diatribe. Standing on the threshold was none other than Marv, his hair slicked back with sweat, panting breathily in the ensuing silence, his plain white button-up work shirt half-untucked from the waistband of his midnight black pants. Tom, who had been waiting for such an entry, was quick to level his wand and prepare a good curse for the intruder. Realizing that it wasn't in fact Harry, Tom screwed his face into a scowl and reluctantly lowered his wand. "What do you want?" he asked, distaste obvious in his voice.
Without so much as hesitating Marv strode right up to Tom, their close proximity to one another highlighting all the intricate similarities that they shared and punched him clean in the face with one hand and snatching his wand deftly with the other. tom recoiled hard, stumbling backward and tripping over the leg of his own desk, forcing him to thud softly against the expensive carpet. Marv then proceeded to lift Tom's wand in both hands and bring it down hard upon his knee, effectively snapping it in half.
"That's enough of that, wouldn't you say, old friend?" Marv asked bitterly.
"What the Hell did you do that for?" Tom raged, jumping to his feet. "Are you mad?"
"You better believe I'm mad," Marv responded hotly, deliberately misinterpreting the meaning of Tom's words. "You should have thought long and hard before kidnapping Kittie. Not to mention letting that monstrosity loose on the town."
"What, you think I had something to do with bringing that green-eyed pest here?"
"What?"
"That wizard with the horribly unkempt black hair."
It took Marv a moment to realize that the monstrosity that he was referring to was not the same thing that Tom was referring to. "You're calling Harry a monstrosity?" Marv asked, curiosity and incredulity tinging his voice. "Are you daft? You let that giant man-eating beast loose. God only knows if Harry managed to destroy it."
At this, Tom looked infinitely smug. "I doubt it. My little pet is new and improved. Your wizard friend is hardly in a position to kill it. Not unless he can pull off a patronus."
"A patronus?" Marv asked.
"Yeah. You see, that creature isn't exactly alive. The only thing that seems to have any permanent effect on it is the patronus, which seems to cause it pain that ultimately renders it unconscious. Otherwise, it responds to attacks by adapting and growing stronger."
"Yes, and you let it run amuck in the streets. Can't be good for business. What were you thinking?"
"I have no more use for it, old friend. I have succeeded in my quest. It's all here." Tom made a sweeping gesture towards the room with one hand extended. "I have unlocked the mysteries to the fifth dimension. I am going to get the hell out of dodge and build my own life free of the Dark Lord. I'm cutting my way through this reality and into another one, and there I will be able to sever my connection to that mockery of a man and begin my plans for world domination."
"You can't be serious," Marv said, barely able to contain his surprise. Sure, he had known about his soul-brother's lunatic attempt to bridge the gap between worlds and escape what he saw as his own private prison, but he had always comforted himself with the knowledge that it was a fool's errand.
"But I am. And, since you're here, I'm going to offer only once, the opportunity for you to come and join me. I have no doubt that, despite your disability, you could find suitable employment under my new regime."
Marv continued to be flabbergasted. "You're offering me a job?"
Something in Marv's tone or perhaps the way he phrased it made Tom hesitate. With uncertainty in his voice, he said, "Well, yeah. Wouldn't you want to tag along? You could be my servant."
Marv stood stock still for what seemed like a long time, the firelight from the setting sun turning his skin golden as he stared at his counterpart. He remembered those long nights in the Slytherin common room while his larger self schemed away, devising his nefarious plans to divide his own soul. He had been brilliant; Marv had always known that. Tom Marvolo Riddle, in all his glory, was one of the few people in the world to have ever uncovered and properly executed the creation of a horcrux - one of the darkest necromantic rituals ever concocted by humans. Even better, he had managed to modify it to create not just one but six of them - a feat never before seen by the wizarding world. Marv was probably the only part of that young Riddle boy that ever bothered to ask the question, "Why?" He couldn't fathom ever wanting such a life for himself, even though he understood on some level what drove others. And now, staring at Tom's eager face, his glittering eyes that mirrored Marv's own, Marv could only muster a vague sort of pity. Tom's lonely, he thought. When you put everyone beneath you, you destroy your own freedom and you replace your own happiness with unbridled fear. "I'm sorry, Tom. I don't think that our destinies are co-aligned."
The momentary hesitation from Tom's posture disappeared. "I understand. I suppose I shouldn't expect much from you. No offense. It's just that, you're a muggle. You don't feel the pulse of magic in your veins, how it calls to you when you walk down the streets of Diagon Alley, when you step through the front gates of Hogwarts for the first time. It's alive, and it begs to let it wrap itself around you. Tom stared out the window at the citizens below, the street marred with the blood of the many victims that his pet had ravaged during its short, ill-fated foray into the public. "I just don't want to be like them. I-" He cut himself off and let out a long sigh. "It doesn't matter. I was going to snag Harry's wand, but without my own, it'll probably be impossible." Tom snorted. "You came here to stop me from hurting Harry, didn't you?"
"Among other things," Marv admitted.
"Are you going to stop me from taking the portal too?" Tom asked, resigned bitterness in his tone.
Marv had never really considered that he had the power to stop Tom. He knew that what Tom wanted was cruel and would cause the deaths of many people, and, while Marv could never imagine committing those acts of his own volition, he couldn't quite manage to bring himself to stop the person with whom he had shared a head for the better part of his youth. "Just promise me you'll try to rule with love before you rule with fear."
Tom considered the question thoughtfully before nodding. "I will."
"Go then."
"All right." Tom waved one hand over to the mahogany panel that Jack had thrown Harry through just days ago, and, when it shimmered for a brief second, Tom nodded as if satisfied. He then walked through without sparing a glance backwards. Once through, the wood panel shimmered once again, sealing itself off.
"Erm, where am I?" Minnie asked, blinking owlishly.
Just then, Harry dashed into the room, wand-waving chaotically in the air as he prepared to pounce on his quarry, a wild light of battle fury in his eyes. Looking around at the neatly organized knick-knacks and the absence of a struggle, along with his three allies and no foe, Harry reluctantly lowered his wand and asked, "What happened? Where's Tom?"
Marv, ignoring both Minnie and Harry's questions, walked purposefully to Kittie and extended his hand. "You okay?"
She looked at it quizzically for a moment and then took it, letting Marv help her to her feet, so that they were surprisingly close to one another. She looked intently into his eyes and said in a quiet voice that betrayed the depths of her feelings. "You came for me."
"Had you any doubt?"
"I never thought-"
"Kittie," he said, his voice almost a whisper and yet full of emotion. "Kittie, I've never been the courageous sort, I'll admit. I never thought I was much of anything, really. I'm not even really human, and I probably won't live for very long, if Harry has anything to say about it." They both instinctively glanced over at him, but he had clearly taken more of an interest in the Huffelpuff cups, which were still sitting on Tom's miniature bar.
"Marv-" Kittie began, trying to interject.
"No, let me finish, Kittie." Marv took a deep breath and steeled himself for the remainder of his delivery. "I've never held my life at a pin's fee. You probably don't know that; I mean, we all have our crosses to bear in this place. We're all outcasts, so it's no surprise that I have a self-esteem issue, and maybe it was arrogant of me to think that my problems were bigger than yours or anyone else's. I've been wallowing a secret well of self-pity for so long that it's hard for me to feel my emotions anymore. But, when it was clear that you were missing, I-" Marv paused, struggling for the words, searching his vast repertoire of knowledge for the terms and phrases that would articulate his feelings, "I felt like a bit of me had just stopped right then and there. It was like all my focus became directed for one single task and that was to find you and make sure you're safe at all costs. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?" Marv felt suddenly foolish, as though he had just served his heart on a platter and was waiting for Kittie to begin mincing it up and serving it to any casually interested passerby. He supposed that that was exactly what he had done.
"Marv," she said, staring fixedly at his chest, and thinking furiously. then she looked up and smiled a dazzling smile that made his heart flutter. Marv knelt in close and kissed her.
Just then, they heard an explosion from behind them, causing them both to whirl around in fright. Harry stood, smiling happily. "Got the bastard," he said jovially, waving in the direction of the huffelpuff cups, which were now shredded to bits after having been hit with a particularly nasty blasting hex.
Marv didn't have the heart to tell Harry that Tom was probably alive and sipping pina coladas in another dimension. It was enough, he supposed, that either way, the connection to the Dark Lord had been severed and Harry could continue pursuing his demons. That thought, however, brought Marv back to the inevitability that he and Harry would have to fight one another, or at least come to some form of reconciliation, though Marv doubted that Harry would take anything less than the complete eradication of the Dark Lord Voldemort from the Earth, and Marv couldn't fathom how that would be done without realizing his own demise.
"That's another one down," Harry said, grinning.
"Yeah," Marv said, smiling wanly.
It was then that Harry realized Marv was holding Kittie in a rather romantic embrace. "Er, you two want to tell me something?"
Marv and Kittie looked at each other and they both said in unison, "Yes."
However, before they could say anything, there came a rumbling from somewhere deep within the building. The floor started to shake, cracks were forming and each of the four occupants began to look around nervously. "Er," Harry began uncertainly. "Maybe it's time we departed this mortal coil." However, as though activated by Harry's words, the door swung shut, effectively boxing them in. Marv, Kittie and Minnie all turned to Harry, expecting him to wave his wand and save them all, but Harry merely stood there ruffling his hair. He turned to the window to cast a curse. "Reducto," he said in a clear, calm tone. Again a thin beam of light burst from his wand and hit the window, though, instead of shattering it merely bounced off and nicked Harry in the shoulder, causing him to stumble, a surprised look on his face. He righted himself as well as he could on the now trembling carpet. "Well, slap me silly and call me Suzy," he said, turning to the others. "Any suggestions?"
"That's it?" Kittie asked, dumbfounded. "All your amazing magical powers and that's the best you can do?"
"Well, excuse me, princess," Harry said defensively. "Why don't you use your apparently world class mind powers to get us the hell out of here."
Before Kittie could respond, an enormous chunk of the ceiling came crashing down between them, throwing Harry to one side. He glanced up at the dark wood panelling and remembered that there had been some sort of doorway there beforehand. He put his hands on the wood, feeling for any give, barely listening to the others behind him growing more and more panicked. Eventually, Harry resorted to unlocking charms and other things before he remembered with sudden clarity how Dumbledore had opened the doorway in the cave just weeks ago, and Harry knew without a doubt that he could open that damned doorway. Without hesitating, he made a slit on his thumb and sent drops of blood spattering across the wall. It shimmered.
"Hey guys," Harry called, beckoning them to come near with his bloody thumb. "I think I got us a way out of here.
Before waiting for anyone to object, Harry pushed through and disappeared.
Marv and Kittie, on the other hand, were so utterly gobsmacked that they simply stood there, plaster and concrete raining around them like hail, completely incapable of processing what Harry had just done. Finally, as yet another crack appeared in the floor, this one large enough to swallow a rat, Kittie said, "Where do you suppose that thing leads?"
"The best I figure, either Tom got it right and it'll take us to another dimension, or Tom got it wrong and we'll all be shredded like mozzarella cheese."
"Do you suppose he's going to need some help?" Kittie asked. "I mean, he's not exactly the brightest bulb in the batch, if you know what I mean."
Marv smiled. "Like I said before, all braun and no brains."
Kittie smiled at his little joke.After several more seconds of existing in what was a fairly perilous situation, Kittie finally said, "So?"
Marv seemed to consider the question as though his life depended on it, which, in fact, it did. "You know, yesterday I'd have to say you'd need to be right crazy to go jumping into the abyss without any conception of what lies await. It doesn't help that Harry intends to kill me, either. Still, I'm rather fond of the poor sod, and it's probably best we go keep an eye on him."
Kittie nodded, processing Marv's words. She then looked up at him and gave him that dazzling smile that made his insides warm. "Yeah. Besides, could be fun."
He smiled broadly, her mere gaze able to drown him in bliss despite the imminent danger all around. "Could be," he agreed.
"Um, guys?" Minnie asked tentatively from behind. Kittie turned to her and saw that she seemed to be coming out of her mental stupor. "Where are we?"
"We're going on an adventure, Minnie. Would you like to come along?" Kittie asked gently.
Minnie looked down at the carpet, which was slowly being sucked into one of the dark chasms below. She had that same intent look that Lavender Brown got when deciphering tea leaves. Finally she said, "Yeah. That'd be nice."
With that, the trio followed Harry into unknown territory.
A/N: For those of you who may be concerned that I am writing an original story dressed in fanfiction clothing, rest assured we are on the brink of returning to the wizarding world, and all that that entails.
Also, it has come to my attention that my spelling hasn't been the best. Sorry. I'll try to do better in the future.
