Chapter 4: Dog Stars and Death Flights
Age 14 Wednesday May 22, 1995
"He's got a bloody snake wrapped around his throat, and you have the audacity to tell me everything is all right? His english is worse than Voldemort's for Merlin's sake!"
Harry sat their, twiddling his thumbs, and listening to Sirius Black rant at the Headmaster, torn between cheering him on and pointing out that he was bloody well right here and could hear what the man was saying!
"What is the mutt shouting about?" Blanche was watching the rather one ended fight with amused red eyes.
"Sirius is angry because I can speak to you, among other things."
"Why?" Blanche asked, rather bewildered.
"Because, apparently in the Wizarding World, they think it's evil to be able to speak with snakes."
"Humans."
"My thoughts exactly."
"--he even smells like Voldemort!" Harry snorted. Sirius seemed to have finally remembered he was in the room, and turned on him. "What? What do you think is so goddamn funny?"
"Of coursse I ssmell like Voldemort. We're bothh ssnake amangi, or haven't you made that connection yet?" Harry paused for effect, watching the gears turn as he pieced it together. "If you really cannot sstand me, I haven't known of a godfather for fourteen yearss, I'm ssure a few more will not kill me." And the tiniest bit of bitterness tinged his voice, because even for those few short moments when this man had embraced him, he had felt a spark of something that might have been hope.
Sirius dropped to his knees in front of Harry, and took the small face in his hands, not seeming to notice where the tips of his fingers settled through the layer of glamor.
"Harry, I'm not mad at you," And the spark flared back to life, "I'm mad at that barking old codger over there. In fact, I was planing on offering you a place to live, if you'll have me." And now Harry gapped. He had only know the man for what, twenty minutes, and he was already offering up his home?
"I- I don't know what to ssay."
"Say yes, it's the least I can do to make up not being there for you for the last thirteen years." Harry pulled his face back and glanced at Dumbledore, who was smiling benevolently. Harry gestured to his face.
"Take it off. I want him to know what he'ss assking for. Everythhing."
"Harry-"
"No Ssiriuss, If you sstill want me after you ssee the true me, then we'll talk." He glared at the Headmaster more firmly, when the man seemed to pause. "Now!" He snapped, getting tired of Dumbledore's games.
Dumbledore sighed and waved his wand, and Harry felt a cool trickling as the glamor melted off of him. Sirius sat back, eyes wide. He turned and growled at Dumbledore, having yet anther thing to add to the supposed wrongs against his godson.
Slitted eyes made of poison studied his godfather, waiting for him to turn back around. Eventually he did, but seemed just a tad reluctant.
"I knew about the effects of staying in animagus for too long, other wise I would have--" Harry sensed a wave of bitter sadness and deeply ingrained pain float to the surface before it was ruthlessly squashed. "Well that's another story. You must have kept that shape for a good three years to have altered you appearance to that extent." Harry nodded, keeping his eyes firmly on the shaggy black head in front of him.
"Ssomething like that." And Harry saw the repressed shudder, suddenly feeling ashamed of his appearance for the first time he could remember. He turned his face away, pretending to be studying the portraits that adorned the walls, when he was really trying to keep his already blurry vision from blurring any further with tears.
Sirius seemed to see through his act, and he felt gentle callused hands grasp his face and tilt it back his direction. As though to prove that it wasn't disgusted by Harry, he pressed his forehead against his godson's.
"It's not your fault Harry. I'm sorry. You can't imagine how very sorry I am. I still want you to stay with me, don't worry. It's just going to take some getting use to, that's all." Harry nodded, and hastily dashed away the few salty drops that managed to spill down his face. Once again, he found himself tugged into the man's embrace, and the heady canine scent was swirling about him, and he felt the dam break and he sobbed, clutching the black folds for dear life. Sirius engulfed him in the warmth, rubbing soothing circles on his back.
Harry didn't even know why he was crying, he hadn't had that horrible of a life, except for a few vague memories of a small dingy dark space filled with spiders and dust, angry hateful relative, and green fire. For the most part, he had been raised by Nagini, who had been as kind an loving as any mother.
Sirius continued to rock him back and forth, whispering about how it would be all right because Uncle Padfoot was here, everything would be fine. Finally, Harry managed to quiet his sobs, hiccoughing a few times. He glared halfheartedly at the soaked spot he had left, before giving Sirius an apologetic glance.
"S- ssorry." He hissed softly.
"No need to be sorry, pup." Harry wondered if 'pup' was really a good term for him. He wasn't going to argue, at least not right now.
Harry moved back to the chair, feeling rather awkward, but happy. Dumbledore cleared his throat, and both Harry and Sirius scowled at him. The man replaced the glamor, and this time Harry took care to listen to the muttered spell, 'Peau Fausse.'
The strong dislike he had harbored for Dumbledore burst like a rotten overripe fruit, poisoning his mind with an angry simmering fury. Just that small thing, his need to make sure that Harry was in no way related to or otherwise associated with Voldemort because he had so little trust in him, (Rightfully so, but after leaving him to die with hateful Muggles, and then ripping him from his home when he found it convenient, he didn't really deserve it in Harry's opinion.) sprouted the first seeds that would later lead to the man's demise. At Harry's hands of course, if he could help it.
A frigid smile stretched his face, chilling Sirius and dulling the Headmaster's twinkle.
"If that iss all?" Dumbledore sighed, and nodded. Harry swept past Sirius, who gave him a reassuring smile. Harry returned it with a much warmer version of the expression his face had held moments earlier.
Harry descended the stairs, remembering the look Hermione had given him at lunch, and set off to find the first human friend he had ever made.
Voldemort sat in his office, feet propped up on his desk, rereading the report he had just received from Lucius while rolling the memory sphere that had been attached in his spidery fingers. It held some disturbing information, but it also held a few shreds of hope.
Harry Potter had been found, it seemed. He wasn't sure how Dumbledore had made it to the boy first, as by all rights the Dark Lord should have found him long ago if any of the information in Malfoy's report was to be believed.
Draco, having met the boy had instantly written to his father, including a copy of his memory of the event in a memory sphere for Lucius' and Voldemort's benefit.
Voldemort tapped the sphere, activating it before being pulled in.
Draco was bent over his Charm's homework at a secluded table in the Hogwart's library, adding the last few sentences to the scroll before a barefoot black haired boy strode in, glancing about with barely hidden amazement. Voldemort instantly recognized the telltale shimmer that accompanied glamor charms stretched over the boy's face like a shiny mask. Draco glanced up, studying the boy with a calculating gaze.
The black haired boy met his stare, and came to sit across from the blond, feet barely making a whisper of sound as he walked.
"Harry Potter." The boy nodded. "You're wearing a glamor. Why?" Now that he was closer, Voldemort was able to lean in and see through it completely. What he saw made him almost stumble in shock. This boy could be his twin, his face held the same triangular shape that accompanied most venous snakes and suggested Harry Potter had poison of his own. His nose wasn't quite as flat as Voldemort's, but that was due to the fact that long drawn out animagus transformations hadn't been the only thing that he had done to alter his body. His eyes were slitted, and a brilliant Avada green that rivaled his own at that age. The hair was much longer, but that was a trivial thing.
And the voice...
"Dumbledore ssays I have to. Ssays my appearancsse will cause fear in the general sstudent population. How can you tell?" Voldemort barely noticed Draco start, so enraptured he was with Harry.
"Father taught me how to recognize one, but I can't see through them yet like he can." Came the aristocratic voice.
Draco leaned forward, squinting harder at Harry and slowly raising his hand towards Harry's face. Harry caught his wrist swiftly, with lighting fast reflexes.
"What are you doing?" Reptilian eyes narrowed.
"I want to know what your real face is like." After a moment, Harry seemed to be satisfied with this answer, and allowed Draco's careful exploration of his face.
"Good Gods." The boy whispered.
"I didn't catchh your name." Harry replied.
"Draco Malfoy." The darker haired boy nodded.
"What iss thiss placsse called?" Harry asked, gesturing to the room around them. Draco gave him a rather strange look.
"It's called a library." And only now did the Dark Lord realize just how much Harry had missed, being left with those horrid muggles. He inwardly snarled, feeling a strange sort of kinship with this boy, something he had not expected.
"Hmm." The green eyed boy hummed absently in acknowledgment.
"You're a very strange person, Potter." Harry just nodded.
"Do you by chancsse know how to braid?" The blond gave him a weird look.
"That's generally what hair does, Potter." Harry gave him a withering glare.
"It growss back within the ssame day to the ssame lengthh."
"Strange." Walking around the table to get a better view of the boy, Voldemort noticed just how much hair was tucked into the hood.
"Why?" Draco asked, and Harry tugged a seething mass of thick luscious hair from where it was collected. It cascaded to the floor and pooled about his feet.
"Becausse I don't, and thiss sstuff iss bothering me."
"Why don't you cut it?"
"I've tried. It growss back." Draco moved to sit behind him, running deft fingers through his ebony locks. It only took him a few minutes, and soon Harry had a braid coiled at his feet.
"Thankss." Draco nodded "You're probably tired of this question, but why do you speak like that?" Harry stared at him.
"I was dumped by my muggle Uncle in a foresst when I wass four. N-" Harry paused, probably assessing the risk of telling Draco the name of the snake who had raised him, "Nagini raissed me. Sshe'ss a King Cobra. The only language I sspoke for ten yearss was Parssel." And now Voldemort was furious, rage bubbling and beating his thoughts into an angry incensed outrage. He barely heard the Malfoy heir's next words, already busy plotting a certain muggle's messy painful demise.
"And how did you come to speak Parseltongue in the first place, Potter? Only the Dark Lord can speak to snakes."
"Dumbledore believess that the night he tried to kill me he transsferred ssome of hiss power into me." Draco looked thoughtful.
"That sounds plausible, I guess." Suddenly a smirk tugged at the boy's mouth. "I can't imagine Dumbledore was too pleased with your situation or your many similarities to the Dark Lord."
"No, he wass not." What about you, Harry, are you displeased with your situation?
"I noticed you were sitting at the Gryffindor's table for dinner last night. Have you been sorted into that house?" And Voldemort certainly couldn't see this boy in Gryffindor. This boy who he had to keep reminding himself was Harry Potter, darling of the wizarding world, Boy-Who-Lived, prophesied savior. This boy who would most certainly not end up anywhere else if Dumbledore had any say in things.
"What do you mean, ssorted?"
"Ah, I guess it was just Dumbledork's wishful thinking then. There are four houses. Have they explained this to you yet?" Harry shook his head.
Draco went on to explain about the houses and how the sorting worked, and what year they would be in. Then Dumbledore had to make his appearance.
"Harry, my boy!" Harry visibly winced, and both Draco and Voldemort gave him a sympathetic glance. The old coot was dressed in robes a god awful garish yellow-orange that most likely would glow in the dark, given the chance. Harry seemed to sigh.
"Have you had breakfast today, Harry?" Harry shook his head.
"I ate lasst night." Dumbledore looked confused.
"Surely you're hungry again this morning?"
"I only need to eat onssce a week." And Voldemort had to keep himself from gaping like an idiot.Interesting that my appearance is farther along, but that Harry's internal functions seemed more advanced.
"You didn't eat all that much last night, Harry. I don't really see how that's possible." How daft can this man be? Did I over estimate him? Has his mental stability plunged even further from the last time we met?
"I had a rabbit after dinner." Draco snicker behind him and Voldemort couldn't help but chuckle a bit himself at the Headmaster's rather priceless expression. The bunny rabbits that decorated the hems of Dumbledore's robes seemed to hide in the folds of the garment at this pronouncement.
"Ah..." Now Harry snickered.
"Ssnake got your tongue, Headmasster?" Dumbledore ignored the comment.
"Well, come on then. Mustn't waste any time, we've got to be off to get your wand."
"Good bye, Draco." Harry stood, nodding at his companion.
"Nice meeting you, Potter." Harry followed Dumbledore out, leaving Draco and Voldemort to their thoughts. The Dark Lord found himself once more seated in his office, mind churning with more questions than when he had started.
Voldemort fingered his own face, much prettier than it could have been, he had to admit. No telling what he would have looked like if he had been forced to create a completely new body. Two years ago, he had walked away from the Chamber of Secrets, young, whole, and ready to give the world another taste of Lord Voldemort.
His appearance had begun to alter during those years, his soul manipulating it to a more comfortable and familiar fit. He looked eighteen, he felt eighteen, but his face (among other things) was that of Lord Voldemort, not an eighteen year old Tom Riddle.
Potter, Potter. And Harry was indeed an enigma, and Voldemort couldn't figure him out. Absently he prodded Lucius' report with thirteen inches of yew, making the vowels scuttle about, as the y's rather viciously chased them off the page.
And all that power. Even through Draco's memory he had been able to feel it, radiating off the boy. An animagus by at least eleven if his altered appearance was much to go on.
There was so much potential, which could be used against him... Or for him. Together, they could be unstoppable. A cold smile tugged at the corners of his lips, ideas whispering themselves into existence.
Finally taking notice of the now ruined report, he crumpled it up and tossed it into the fireplace.
Harry had made it an entire twenty metres before realizing he had absolutely no idea where he would find Hermione. He didn't know enough about her to even begin to know where to start.
He knew she was a Gryffindor. To his chagrin, he realized that was about the extent of his 'Hermione' knowledge. He didn't know where the Gryffindors lived, or even if they lived together.
Angry, depressed, and feeling rather muzzy for some reason, he decided to go seek out Nagini, as he hadn't spent all that much quality time with her lately, and he missed her.
He turned around and headed back to his room, finding Nagini still curled on his bed where he had left her. She stretched, giving him a contented sleepy look. He pulled off his robe and climbed back into bed, and she wrapped warm heavy coils around his human body. Oh how he wished he could just be a snake again. Life was so much simpler then.
And he would be one again, once he figured out how to get the damn binding spell off himself. And the anger festered a bit more, Old Bastard. He hated Dumbledore, that was for certain.
"What's on your mind, love? You seem troubled." Harry sighed, inhaling the smell of sun baked scales, overlaying something potent that spoke of dark spaces, damp rotting leaves, and tangy venom.
"Nagi--" He drew off, not really know how to express everything on his mind. "I'm tired of it here, Dumbledore has blatant ulterior motives, he seems to want me to save the world and yet he cannot even stand the sight of my face!" Harry scrubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "I can't transform, because of that bastard. I miss you, but you have to be confined to a room if you're to stay in Hogwarts and cannot follow me anywhere. I miss our home, where it was simple. I miss the eggs--" And a broken sob filtered up from Harry's throat, and Nagini tightened around him comfortingly. He harshly wiped them away; he had cried enough today. "H- He did something to them, didn't he? I was too frightened at the time, but I know something happened to them." Nagini gave him a sad look, but nodded her head. Harry found himself sobbing for the second time that day, clutching Nagini's thick black coils for dear life.
"Shhh, Harry dear. Everything will be just fine. We don't have to stay here if you don't want to, lovely."
And they didn't have to.
Harry sighed through the throbbing pain in his head and the choking hiccoughs that invaded his breathing. It was such a nice idea, just to up and leave. He could take his books with him, he had a wand. He knew about Diagon Alley now. There really wasn't much reason for him to stay.
But Hermione and Draco. What about them?
You haven't known them all that long. They'll be going home for the summer in a few weeks anyway.
And Sirius? The man offered you his home, and this is how you repay him?
I-
And how are you going to survive in the Forbidden Forest with out being able to transform?
I survived for ten years in a strange forest. Only a few of those was I able to become a snake. I'm sure I can do it again.
But this is the Forbidden Forest. It's forbidden for a reason.
Oh shut up.
You need to stop running away from your problems. Because that's all your doing: running away.
Harry shivered. That was all he had done his entire life, wasn't it? Run, Run, as fast as you can.
He would stay, for now. If only to prove he could. Dumbledore had probably done something to make sure he couldn't leave anyway. Scrubbing at his eyes, he sighed, allowing Nagini's warmth and the soft comforter and bed to lull him back to sleep.
Harry was sitting in a room made of stone. A raised dais was at the back, a large throne rising from it. The arms were made from snake backbones, the back was flared in an imitation of a cobra hood. A man sat completely cloaked in black robes, his hood shadowing his face except for the occasional glint of red, giving the eerie impression that that was all that was there.
A man with a tailored black robe stood in front of him. His hood was down, allowing a cascade of silvery hair down over his shoulders. The man held a white mask in one hand, and his wand in the other. As Harry watched the man moved closer tucking his wand away, and kneeling at the foot of the throne. He bowed his head, and Harry moved closer to hear what was happening.
"Rise, Lucius. Your information was very useful. You shall be rewarded, as shall your son." The man stood, nodding.
"Thank you, my Lord. You are most gracious."
"Is there anything else you wish to report?" Harry turned his serpentine eyes on the cloaked figure sitting on the throne. As he moved closer, a strange sensation filtered through his scar. Pain, yes, but not like it usually was. He'd had dreams before where his scar seared with a splitting agony, but they were always hazy, and tinged red. They were never this clear or real.
"No, my Lord." A thin long fingered hand appeared beneath a sleeve, waving a dismissal. Lucius bowed deeply once more before turning and leaving the room.
Harry was entranced by the glint of red under the hood. He was only about a metre away now. The man seemed to be lost in thought, fiddling with his wand. The tingling in Harry's scar increased, and it wasn't really unpleasant he decided. It was kind of like someone was massaging his brain with pins and needles, but not hard enough to hurt.
He was drawn closer by some unseen force, and suddenly red eyes snapped up to his face. Harry almost stumbled backwards, gasping. The man stood, and reached up to a hood that Harry hadn't even realized he'd had on. Slender pale fingers gently pushed Harry's hood back, and the red slitted eyes continued to stare at him, studying him closely. Harry wondered if his glamor followed him into his dreams; probably not if the intense burning stare was any indication.
And the man reached up and pushed back his own hood, reveling a thick head of black wavy hair, elegant arching brows, and a face that made Harry's eyes widen comically. It was like looking in a mirror that had been warped and bent. Staring at this man gave him a really strange feeling of déjà vu, as though he had met him before.
Obviously, this could be no one other than the infamous Lord Voldemort.
Voldemort placed either of his hands on the side of Harry's face and tears sprung to his eyes as a sizzling pain zinged down his spine, making him clench his eyes as the pins and needles in his brain began stabbing with much more vigor. Cool fingertips ghosted over his cheeks, brushing the salty tears away. The pain continued to increase, but at the same time, he couldn't find it in himself to pull away. His entire head throbbed, and he thought he might pass out, but lips were pressed against his scar, and it all stopped so abruptly it left him gasping.
Harry slowly glanced up into intense crimson eyes, and a whispered "Harry..."
Harry sat up so quickly he dislodged Nagini, and she hissed in annoyance. He pushed sweaty tangled sheets away. He needed to do something, he wasn't so sure he wanted to think about what he'd just dreamed.
This was the man that had killed his parents, for Hades' sake.
And Harry was his spitting image.
Shaking his head he clambered out of bed, and tugged open his trunk. Starting on his first year Charms book, he read long into the night.