Author's Note: I do not own Harry Potter, that honor goes to J. K. Rowling.
Thank you for continuing to read my stories. There are plenty of mistakes in my previous books, and one day I may go back and correct them, but until then, I will continue to write. This project is as much a cathartic exercise as it is a learning experience. I've spent a considerable time re-reading my old works, both here on this site and others I've never published, to try and improve upon and grow. To those of you that have been waiting for this installment, I hope my self-reflection and hopeful improvement is some vindication against your wait.
That being said, the Mature Tag on these stories starts here, with this book. This interpretation of the Harry Potter Universe is darker than the original works. Harry is slowly moving toward becoming a 'man' as the Wizarding World sees it, and with that, comes revelations and responsibilities that any growing child learns around the wilder world around them.
Romance will, lightly, be touched upon during this and future books. I've received a few messages and reviews on which partner Harry should or shouldn't end up with. Harry will experience friendship, lust, love, and loss before the end of the series. While some may not like my eventual pairing, I hope you will come to understand and respect why my Harry Potter chose the one he did. Strong, lasting relationships, in my opinion, are the meeting of two individuals who agree to work together toward a sum greater than each could achieve on their own. Achieved through communication, friendship, and mutual understanding of their partners.
As of this book, I am attempting to write from multiple perspectives, both males and females, good and bad. I've attempted writing a female perspective before with limited success, in my opinion, and never from a young female's viewpoint. I hope I do not mangle it too badly.
As always, if you have time, please let me know what you think of the story, either by leaving a review or messaging me. I take creative license to the Harry Potter Universe and, on occasion, like the way the movies portrayed the books. I welcome criticism and encouragement to my writing. It helps me grow as a writer. I learn a lot from critiques and take every one of them seriously by taking time to self-reflect on ways I could have better told my story.
Over the next several weeks, I will post chapters as I finish editing and reviewing them. Thank you for reading so far, and please enjoy Harry Potter and the Ties that Bind.
Prologue
Breath of Life
Tall gray-washed oak trees, twisted and distorted as if seen through curved glass, waved their thick branches in an invisible breeze. Bright spears of pulsating gray bars descended from the dense canopy, stabbing into the forested earth, as two figures descended the mountain range toward a sleepy little village nestled in the valley below. The compact, potbellied man, blading and stooped, wearing torn, travel-stained dark robes, limped over a jagged rock formation with a sour expression. He looked back and bobbed his head in deference, pointing to the red brick roofs of a cluster of modest two-story homes in the distance. His mouth moved, but no sound disturbed the tranquil morning.
The greatest of all dark wizards, Heir of Salazar Slytherin himself, Lord Voldemort, focused his considerable will and altered reality around him. The world seemed to dim for a moment, and he knew his ghostly form waned with the strain. Faded, distant noise around his being filled his mind. He didn't have ears, not anymore, but that would change, soon.
"...will be ready for us. I've followed your instructions, Dark Lord," Wormtail promised, his pronounced eyes bulged as he watched his Master's transformation. The wizard dry-washed his hands as he licked chapped lips. His beady, rat-like eyes darted left and right as if the shadows cast by the trees hid enemies lurking out of sight.
"Forward," Voldemort acknowledged and focused his will on moving the air currents to force his speech. He knew his voice would sound like a whisper in the wind. The effort made the world around him warp into a gray blur, no one object standing out from another. It took him a moment to reorient his being once more and follow the stumbling fool.
Gliding across the ground, he dismissed his will to bend sound into a pattern he could understand. It had taken him far longer than he would ever admit to another for him to hear again after he was ripped from his body. A distant, familiar pain wracked his being as the memory of that night flitted across his thoughts. The damage to his spirit had been too great for him to remember much more than the ritual he'd intended to cast with the boy's death.
That boy, that supposed genius, Harry Potter. How he burned to make Potter beg for death. Make him feel one-tenth of the pain he'd endured and deny him the pleasure of death by his wand after the boy had gone mad. A creeping, savage hunger suffused his being as he imagined the pain he would bring upon everything the boy held dear. Thoughts of death and pain pressed him forward, to follow his servant toward the ritual he knew awaited him.
Wormtail led him out of the forested mountains and into rich tilled farmland. The pace, for him, was slow but he had to make allowances for his wretched servant. For, without Wormtail, he wouldn't be able to return to power. A faint pulse on his servant's right forearm sent pleasurable vibrations through his being. It was how he found his servant again. The Dark Mark was a simple tattoo of conjured ink on the surface of his servant's forearm. Only he knew that the mark he'd carved into his servant's body was a complex series of spells that engraved his will and domination over their own. It always called to him, even in his diminished form.
Time had little meaning to him, he now lived forever, but his impatience to move faster tugged at the corners of his mind. The lapse in concentration sent the world into a gray haze until he focused again. Wormtail turned back, his mouth moving, but he didn't want to hear what his servant had to say, it was nearly time. He could feel the pulse of magic coming from the second floor of the unassuming house ahead of him. A ripple of Dark Magic pulsed against the pure morning. If he had a mouth, he knew he would be smiling.
The first story, encased in mortared stone, looked weathered but maintained. Looking up, he saw crumbling, gray-washed stucco around the second floor drew his eye as a tendril of darkness seemed to escape from the large window at one end of the house. Manicured flower beds bracketed the cobblestone path to the back door. The thick wooden beam to the left of the heavy door had numerous deep knife marks with dates etched into the aged timber. Wormtail entered the house without knocking and left the door open as he limped through the simple, tiled kitchen.
Voldemort knew about the family that lived in the house from his servant's scouting. The Agani Family, Muggle sympathizing Half-bloods, lived in a small community of wizarding families. They traded their produce and goods with a small filthy Muggle town mere fifteen miles away. Two of their number, impure Muggle-borns, worked for the Albanian Ministry of Magic. He felt like smiling again as he pictured the horrors he would inflict on the little community.
Wormtail's heavy footfalls, vibrations in the air, drew his attention away from a picture of a beaming, dark-robed couple in the moving black-and-white photograph on the plastered walls. A light-colored bassinet sat between two large chairs in front of a brick fireplace in the living room. He glided up the stairs after his servant, excitement coursing through his being. The happy faces of four different families accompanied him as he ascended the polished stairs. Their friendly smiles gave off the feeling that they were encouraging him on.
In the master bedroom, Wormtail stood by the door waiting for his master. A large green snake, thick around as a man's thigh, slithered into the hallway to meet her master. "Nagini," he hissed to her, a crooning greeting in Parselmouth, the serpent's tongue.
Wormtail shivered and hunched his shoulders, drawing in on himself as he watched the great snake brush the tip of her tail around his injured foot. Voldemort wanted to sneer at the pathetic worm, and soon he would be able to. Moving down the darkened hallway, he brushed past Wormtail's shivering form and entered the inviting bedroom.
One wizard and three witches waited for him, each bound by thick ropes. The man, an olive-skinned wizard with a long beard, tried to shout something, but the gag prevented him from making too much noise. Focusing his will, Voldemort spread his senses out in a mist to cover the room. He could feel the ritualistic sigils engraved into the wallpaper of the walls and the wooden floor. A feeling of pure ecstasy, something he'd long forgotten, ran through his being.
"It is time," he declared and waved his spectral hand toward the window. "The window," he ordered to Wormtail before turning to the witches in the room. The young witch bound to the queen-sized bed, her arms and legs tied to the bedpost, stared at him with fear-filled eyes. Tears fell from her eyes as he drew closer to the bed. Her bulging stomach moved as the child she carried seemed to respond to her terror. A raven-haired witch with a vacant expression sat on the only chair in the room, her arms and legs bound in tight knots. Her head lolled to one side as drool dribbled down her slack-jawed mouth. The last witch, a plump, aging healer with deep azure eyes, stared at him with abject fear.
"Begin," he hissed to Wormtail and turned to look at the wizard.
With a flash of bright green light that hit him in the chest, the life in the wizard's eyes faded. Wormtail levitated the dead man's body and carved runic sigils into his naked chest with a small silver dagger. Voldemort knew when it was time. With an enormous effort of will, he pushed himself into the runes over the man's heart.
By nightfall, the ritual was complete. Voldemort struggled to hold his head up as he stared at the infantile fingers he couldn't see with his eyes. The healthy baby boy's body he inhabited felt like a heavy weight he had to endure. Not everything had gone to plan. Wormtail's middling magical skill hadn't been able to make up for his knowledge and understanding of the ritual. It had taken the healer's life force and blood to ensure he remained housed within the boy's body.
A soft moan drew his attention to the young witch still tied to the bed. Wormtail, in a moment of weakness, had obliviated the mother's mind. Voldemort suspected it was that action that prevented the full power of the ritual to complete, but no matter. It was done, he had a magical body once more. Nagini, her body bulging in human-shaped bumps, brushed up against him.
"Bite... her...feed...me," Voldemort ordered in a croaking rasp. His body's undeveloped vocal cords strained with each gasped word. The pain did not hurt him, for he was eternal, but the body he used seemed to feel the pain. Wormtail shook his head as if trying to tell him he didn't understand what he'd said. Nagini understood because a moment later, she sunk one fang into the naked breast of the witch.
Time seemed to stretch and compress as Wormtail took care of his weakened body. He became aware that they now resided in a different house within the small town, as per their plan before the ritual began. Nagini kept the young mother alive for him to feed from as Wormtail supplemented his unnatural growth with potions he'd told him how to concoct.
"Master, this won't be enough to sustain you," Wormtail pleaded as he pulled Voldemort's weak body out of the Body Strengthening Potion, created from the remains of an old Muggle down the lane.
"Long... enough," Voldemort answered, his voice stronger but still harsh and cracking.
"The witch will die soon, Nagini's venom is destroying her blood vessels. I'm not skilled enough to keep healing her, Master," Wormtail moaned in a reedy voice.
"Aware," Voldemort rasped and turned his head to the witch who stared into nothing, her mind having retreated into the sweet embrace of madness. He felt nothing for her and turned back to his servant. "Kill."
Wormtail rocked back but steeled himself and nodded. He drew, the British Auror, Proudfoot's wand that he'd stolen and cast the Killing Curse. "It is done," he said in a shaking voice and recoiled as Nagini slithered onto the bed and began to devour the corpse.
Voldemort couldn't see, not with his weak body's eyes, but his senses told him everything. "While... strength... must plan," he rasped, drawing Wormtail's eyes to him with his voice.
"Harry Potter," the servant muttered in a quiet voice.
"His... blood... must take," Voldemort demanded. The strain from speaking hurt his body but the pain did not reach the core of himself. "Jorkins, tell... again," he ordered. His memory had holes in it from before the incomplete ritual. He knew the broken witch lay in the next bedroom, near-catatonic for good from his and Peter's questioning. She had one last role to play for him before he disposed of her.
Wormtail bobbed his head. "Bertha Jorkins," he muttered as he scrunched up his pinched face. "She worked for the Daily Prophet for a short time after graduating Hogwarts. After she got fired, she went to work for the Ministry of Magic, as an aid that went back and forth between departments. Barty Crouch Senior placed a powerful memory charm on her after she'd accidentally discovered his son was removed from Azkaban. You remember me telling you he went to Azkaban with Bellatrix? They tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom into insanity."
Voldemort gave his best glare he could, making his servant reel back. He cursed the inept wizard's ability in failing part of the ritual, making him forget. With a shudder, Wormtail muttered, "apologies, Master," before continued his narrative with a gasp. "Barty Crouch Junior may still be at the Crouch Villa. I don't see how he can get to Harry Potter, Master," he whined.
"Cup... Tour... nament," Voldemort rasped with a glare.
Wormtail started to shake his head before he froze and gave a quick nod. "You know more than me, Great Lord, but I don't see how we can get Potter. Dumbledore has him locked away in Hogwarts or he's always with the Weasley family."
"Dumble... dore... fool," Voldemort spat. The body's throat felt strained and raw. "Tour... nament," he repeated.
Wormtail dry-washed his hands and hunched his shoulders. "Uh, uh, the Jorkins witch said the Triwizard Tournament would happen at Hogwarts. I don't know how we can get Potter from within the protections around the school." He gulped when Voldemort shot him another glare. "R-rr-right," he stuttered. "The Triwizard Tournament," he muttered to himself. "Three tasks of greater difficulty with one winner from one of the participating schools. Jorkins said Igor Karkaroff will be there with the Durmstrang Institute. Maybe we can use him to get to Potter."
"Karkaroff... die!" Voldemort hissed before coughing. Small flecks of blood splattered onto the white sheets of the bed.
Wormtail fussed over his weak body before setting back down in the chair, his face pinched with worry. After Voldemort waved his pudgy hand, he continued, "Durmstrang and Beaubxbatons, headed by Olympe Maxime, will again go to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. Jorkins didn't know anything useful about Maxime. The first trial has something to do with dragons, maybe we can kidnap Harry while everyone is focused on the tasks." When Voldemort glared at him, Wormtail flinched and drew in on himself. "Uh, uh, she said the 422nd Quidditch World Cup would be in England but half the entire Ministry had been working on the stadium and grounds for months. We can't get in there."
"Ministry," Voldemort rasped into another cough. "Who... runs... department?" He felt Nagini finish devouring the young witch and curl up on the bed.
"She knew little about Barty Crouch. He made sure to wipe every bit of her memory about him he could get away with, which wasn't much to begin with. Her boss, Ludo Bagman, was a famous Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps. They had a long-term illicit relationship that he was keen on keeping from his wife, Loretta. The Jorkins witch didn't like that much, but I think Crouch's spell kept most of her anger in check."
"Use... him? Details," Voldemort demanded.
Wormtail scratched the balding spot on the crown of his head and nodded. "No children of his own, but Bagman has a family. Half-bloods with little connection to the wizarding world if I remember right," he mused, his nose wrinkling.
"More," Voldemort coughed and glared at his servant. His patience was wearing thin with Wormtail. Nagini sensed his mood because she came over to his side and placed her large reptilian head beside his leg. Wormtail babbled everything he knew or thought he knew about the information they'd gathered. His servant's fear made the Dark Mark pulse with activity.
Two weeks later, when he had enough strength, he sent Wormtail out of the house to gather more goat's milk to mix with Nagini's venom. He needed his servant gone so he could perform the critical ritual only he could know about. Wormtail would die, but, it wasn't time yet and what he didn't know wouldn't be passed on to his true faithful servants. The faithful who sat in Azkaban, awaiting his return. He knew a cruel, misshapen sneer creased his face, just as he knew the infantile body, mere weeks old, now looked almost eight months old due to his potions. Part of the body's face had melted when Wormtail failed to brew the potion to his exact specifications.
Gripping the polished wood of the stolen wand in his tiny hand, he looked down at the barely breathing, emaciated body of Bertha Jorkins. All the preparations were complete and he was ready to complete his bond with Nagini. A bond that would be one more link, a living tether, to the living world. Their combined spirits would ensure Nagini lived for centuries, a true companion for the greatest Dark Lord in history.
