Chapter Two
Oh God, Somebody Kill Me
Harry Potter was well aware that his learning curve was not so much a curve as it was a flat line. He was the kind of guy that learned under pressure, and, more importantly, not just any pressure but the kind of life-and-death pressure under which most ordinary folks would simply crack. On a good day, he might liken himself to a temperamental metal, but usually, he preferred to just stew in feelings of his own mediocrity.
That was why, on June 25, after ten days of religiously practising the most advanced curses he could think of, including the imperius, the killing curse, the obliviation curse, legilimancy, occlumancy, elemental spells, transfiguration, summoning, banishing and a slew of others, not the least of which was advanced apparation and other wandless techniques, he found himself sitting in his bedroom with five warnings for the use of underage magic use, a letter of expulsion, a letter with the date of his trial, a warrant for his immediate arrest for the use of unforgiveables, and, finally, a copy of his NEWT potion texts arrayed in front of him. It was probably this last item that was the most out of place amongst the list of documents that he chose to surround himself. The former were easy enough to understand. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't going to get jack all in terms of help from the Ministry. Fortunately, the blood wards insulated him from them as well as the death eaters, which meant that he should be ready to face the Ministry by the time his birthday rolled around. And hell, if he couldn't even handle a bunch of Percy-esque poindexter paper pusher types, then he was seriously fucked when the Dark Lord came a calling.
The potions texts, on the other hand, took a bit more explaining to understand, albeit not much. Despite Harry's obsessive and continuous use of magic in the Dursley home, for which the Dursleys themselves became the customary targets, Harry Potter, sadly, made very little progress, which resulted in him, in a desperate bid to not end up in Azkaban or dead, searching for an artificial means of enhancing his magic, stamina, strength, speed - anything that might give him an edge in surviving past his birthday. The irony was not lost on Harry that, for the entirety of his life, he looked upon the arrival of his age of majority as a point of freedom, a point at which he could begin living his life free of the shackles of his oppressors.
Idly, he wondered why it was that he hadn't received a letter from either Ron or Hermione. Weren't they supposed to be coming by and making sure he didn't fall into a depression? Or at least help brainstorm on a plan of attack?
As He flipped through the pages of his book, not really reading any single one, his eye managed to catch the sight of two words juxtaposed together: RAGE POTION.
Ooh, what's that? Harry wondered.
The book read: The Rage Potion is not a particularly difficult potion to brew, though it requires specific instructions to achieve the proper effects. Most notable of these is that the fluxweed that needs to be harvested on the morning after the full moon, which must be bathed during that very same morning in fresh blood of the eventual drinker. The ideal steeping time is approximately one hour, though different timeframes may be used for slightly varied effects. The Rage Potion is a Ministry controlled substance due mostly to the side effects, which include permanent psychosis, paranoia, irritability, mood swings and, possibly, dementia. Short term side effects may include: dizziness, nausea, bouts of uncontrolled magic and a sense of euphoria. The primary function of this potion is to, as the name implies, induce a deep sense of rage in the drinker. Expected effects of such a rage include heightened magical power, a command over wandless magic, an aptitude for performing gruesome acts of violence. For a more complete list of effects and the specifics on brewing this potion, please turn to page two hundred forty-six.
Instead of turning to page two hundred forty-six, however, Harry just slammed the book shut and threw it across his bedroom, where it impacted against Hedwig's cage, sending both objects flying into the wall, where they promptly bounced off and clattered noisily to the ground. "Gah," Harry grunted, drawing his wand and lighting the wretched book on fire. "Bloody useless."
He glanced at his alarm clock, which read two forty-six in the morning.
"Gah! Bloody coincidences," he added in a muttered undertone, extinguishing his desk lamp with a flick of his wand and turning to his window to stare out at the envelope of darkness, broken only by the occasional streetlamp. Funny, he thought as another streetlamp winked out of existence. Streetlamps seldom die out.
That thought, of course, made him wonder.
Peering out in the gloom, he watched to see if he could catch any sight of magical activity. Briefly, he thought he saw a ripple in the air as if there were a disillusioned person running about. But of course, there probably was, given that Order members were still watching him. Yeah, but don't they use invisibility cloaks?
From behind a nearby bush, Harry thought he saw a glow of green light around the bush's edges.
"Jesus fuck me," Harry breathed, wide eyed and staring at where he was certain someone had just been killed. And then, as if to confirm his suspicions, the streetlamps slowly began winking into existence.
"Whoa," Harry breathed. "That's even cooler than the instant darkness powder." As if realizing that he was gawking while staring out his window when his protectors were being murdered, Harry pulled back violently and threw himself onto his bed, his heart suddenly beating much harder as he tried to figure out what was going on.
Someone's out there, and they've killed whatever meager protections I had in this place. Probably Dung, given that whoever it was let himself get snuck up on. Harry shook his head to clear any rambling thoughts. Focus, Potter. You've got to start planning.
With that thought in mind, Harry spent the next few minutes contemplating as hard as he could, which led to him looking like Dudley on a rice binge and ending up with little more than a headache, which, in turn, fuelled a deepening melancholy. A melancholy that was transmuting into self-loathing, and, which, come morning, would drive Harry closer to his destiny than anyone could have ever predicted. Resigned, he went to sleep, his conscious defeated, his unconscious percolating.
When Harry awoke the next morning, he went about doing his chores as though he were in a trance. Somewhere between the time he went to bed and the time he woke up, his brain came to the sad realization that he was slowly being suffocated to death. All the people who wanted to protect him, who loved him, who would die for him - they were killing him as much as the death eaters, only in a way that was insidious and gruesomely painful. It seemed, as Harry served his uncle his proper portion of bacon, which meant over a pound of artery-clogging fat, that the only choice he really had left was whether to hide in his uncle's house until his departure date, or to go out there and fight. It reminded him distinctly of those brief, intense seconds as he sat, crouching behind a random tombstone, his wand in hand, sweat dripping down his face and back, Voldemort taunting him, the cool summer night air swirling around him. You knew what you had to do then, didn't you? a voice inside him spoke quietly but with the most severe determination he knew. And you know what to do now.
Harry snapped his head up to gaze in the direction of the bottle of Sunlight next to the sink. It was as though he was paralyzed for those brief moments - long enough for Dudley's bacon to burn, and, as his fat oaf of a cousin called out some derogatory turn to shake him from his reverie, he realized that none of the shit around him mattered. It was him and his wand and the Dark Lord, and, as for everything else... well, fuck it all.
Harry swept out of the kitchen, heedless of the protests of his so-called family.
Wand drawn, he stepped out into the morning sunshine that bathed him in its sweet, purifying light. He didn't know where the wards ended and where his foes began, but he found he didn't care. Nor did he care who saw the carnage that was about to unfold.
"Oy!" Harry called, his expression a blend of emotions that could only be described as stern. "Come out and play." Harry was distinctly aware of the loudness of his voice in the otherwise quiet street. He wasn't sure how, but he could sense his family watching him, fearful that he had gone and snapped, which, by their estimation, would have been the exact kind of thing that a freak would go and do. He expected that others were watching too, though he supposed it was more aptly described as spying. Peeking out from behind curtains, and from the edges of windows, or from around the sides of their houses.
"I know you're there," Harry called out. "And I know you can't harm me. I just want to talk."
Harry waited, confident that his quarry would reveal himself. After a moment, in which Harry suspected his foe was contemplating Harry's sudden and strange actions, Nagini shimmered into view.
"Potter," said Nagini in acknowledgement.
"Voldemort," replied Harry.
"There something you wish to say to me?"
"Yeah, actually, though I reckon you could say it's more of a question."
"And what's that?" Nagini asked, now curious. Her subtle legilimancy probes were not quite able to penetrate whatever occlumancy barriers Harry had managed to erect.
Harry, however, did not answer immediately. He was, for the moment, staring at Nagini in a perplexed fashion.
"What?" Nagini asked, suddenly a little more self-conscious. Harry's gaze seemed to be raking over her body as if studying her.
"Er, no offense, but - are you a girl?" Harry asked, a bit sheepishly and not without a blush creeping across his face.
Nagini simply replied stiffly, "Yes. Do you have a problem with that."
"Er, no," Harry said quickly. "There's so nothing wrong with that, I'm sure."
Nagini pursed her lips, not liking Harry's inquiry. "I trust there's something more relevant that you wanted to speak of?"
Now back on track, Harry returned to his earlier question, and, shaking his head to clear his mind of Voldemort's tits, he said, "Yeah, there is. How do I take these ruddy wards down?"
Nagini did not even blink, let alone change facial expressions at Harry's request. Instead, she merely said. "Kill the muggle aunt."
"Harry scowled. "Surely there's another way."
"Why?" Nagini asked. "Do you intend to take the wards down."
"Obviously," Harry responded, as though Nagini were stupid for even asking.
"Do you have a death wish?"
"No, I'm just terribly arrogant."
Nagini shrugged. "Suit yourself." She drew her wand and made a long arcing motion, like a golf swing. "Just say ensanguium dissolutio."
Harry nodded. "All right. And that will clear the lot of it away?"
"Should," Nagini responded. "The magical backwash should even wipe out the anti-apparation ward."
Harry nodded. "Good. Stand back."
Nagini complied, her curiosity outweighing her indignation at being ordered, though she supposed that if anybody had the right to order her about, it was the Potter brat, as mediocre as he was.
"Oh, and one final thing," Harry said, levelling his gaze at Nagini. "If you have the occasion and the inclination to kill my family, please have the courtesy to do it quickly and painlessly. They mean nothing to me, but I reckon it would satisfy some abstract principle of reciprocity."
Nagini nodded. "I would hardly waste my time torturing muggles, despite what you might think. I gain little pleasure from it. Eating them, on the other hand. Most luxurious."
"Ew," Harry said, scowling. "That's gross."
"To each his own," Nagini replied.
With his last words to Voldemort out of the way, Harry proceeded to take down the blood wards that had been protecting him for the last sixteen years. As he uttered the words and brought his wand down to form a large parabola, he felt for the first time the magnitude of the protections that surrounded him. He had never been what one would call sensitive to the feel of magic, but, right then and there, not even he could mistake the electric pulse of energy that filled him for the brief moment as he connected to the magic that protected him, as he violated the contract of love that was forged through blood sixteen years prior. As they crashed down around him, the ethereal bonds of energy that would curse any being that dared oppose him falling like waves, splashing against the asphalt and disappearing down the sewers, soaking him through to his very being with a now fading quietude.
Distantly, he heard Nagini issue the dreaded killing curse, and distantly, he felt himself duck and weave and reply with a fast, hard stunner. Is this me? he wondered, the pervasive feeling of disconnectedness persisting in the midst of what was a duel for his life.
Harry hit the cement sidewalk hard, four razorblades missing him by a hair's breadth. Wake up, you fool, he admonished himself, blearily gazing about as he saw yet another killing curse heading his way. Damn, the fucker's fast, he thought, willing himself to float off the ground and twirl in midair to level another stunner. Nagini was taken off guard at Harry's artful recovery from which she had expected there to be no escape. The red beam of his stunner, brighter this time, impacted squarely against Nagini's torso, and, to her surprise, sent her sprawling against the ground, her wand clattering from her fingers, only to be wandlessly summoned an instant later.
"Huh," Harry muttered, coming to his feet and eyeing Nagini speculatively. He was dismayed to see that his stunner did not actually stun his opponent, even though, if Hermione had been there, she would have been rather impressed by the power of his magic. After all, a stunner should not have affected a horcrux at all, not that Harry was even aware he was fighting a horcrux.
"Stupefy," Harry said again, and, this time, Nagini raised a wand shield to absorb it, all the while, her red eyes blazing with loathing. Harry also couldn't help but notice that the relaxed posture she had used before was now gone and instead, a wariness and coiled tightness had been adopted.
At least I'm being taken seriously, he thought. Take that, Snape.
"Petrificus totalis," Harry said, but this time, Nagini just waved the spell away, much like Snape had done on the night of Dumbledore's murder.
Hmm, Harry thought, dismayed. This is where your occlumancy, or lack thereof, is going to really hurt you.
Nagini sent a pair of silent stunners, one through her wand and one wandless.
Harry instantly raised a shield against one and turned his body sideways in order to let the wand stunner pass harmlessly by.
Nagini did not cast another spell immediately. Instead, she took towards walking in a slow circle around Harry, though, for the life of him he couldn't figure out why. After a moment, it became apparent. Harry heard the distinctive cry of his aunt, followed by the breaking of glass, as she came flying out through the front window and toward them.
What the fuck? Harry thought bewildered as he saw his aunt crash down at Nagini's feet. Only after a moment did it occur to him that Nagini had used a summoning charm, much like he himself had done during the Triwizard Tournament.
"Kill her quickly, you said," Nagini mused, Petunia's eyes wide with fright.
Fuck that shit, Harry thought irritably. He's looking for a weak point. Well, I'll show him a fucking weak point. He then, with all his might, silently summoned every kitchen knife he could think of. Fortunately, with the window already shattered, they flew out noiselessly, short of the high pitched whistle as they cut through the air en route to Nagini and Harry. Nagini, seeing the anticipation on Harry's face, turned around just in time to not be skewered. She disapparated with a pop, leaving Harry in the path of a dozen knives. Swiftly, Harry dove for his aunt, clutched one of her clammy, sweat-soaked hands and apparated the pair of them to the Dursley living room, though, not a second later, he sensed rather than saw Nagini apparate right behind him. Harry summoned Dudley's silver boxing trophy from the mantel piece just as Nagini was casting yet another killing curse. Harry only barely managed to apparate out of the way, but stayed long enough for Nagini to take the brunt of the heavy silver object right in the back of the head.
Unfortunately, Petunia remained in the path of the killing curse and was dead by the time Harry reappeared at Nagini's side. Already Harry was casting a body bind at his assailant, not even paying attention to the lifeless eyes of his aunt staring up at the ceiling.
If she could have, Nagini would have rolled her eyes at Harry's stupidity. Even as the body bind hit, she wandlessly conjured a dagger that embedded itself directly into Harry's stomach, though Harry hardly noticed for a good second as he hit Nagini with another stunner that only served to daze her.
"Oh fuck,' Harry said, staring down at his stomach, much like Molly had done not too long ago. "I'm gonna fucking die." Harry instinctively repelled the dagger from his stomach, which only served to send more streams of blood and other fluids the identities of which Harry could only guess at, coursing down his body, tickling the smooth skin around his waist. He staggered backwards and watched awestruck as Nagini rose once more to her feet.
"Imperio," Harry said desperately, but the spell just splashed uselessly against her skin. Nagini raised an admonishing finger at Harry, even as he staggered further backward and fell onto his butt. "Did you think a mere stunner would defeat Lord Voldemort?" Nagini hissed, and though Harry couldn't tell, he was fairly certain she was speaking in Parseltongue.
Harry raised his wand and desperately wish with all his might that a reductor curse barrel out of his wand. Somehow, he managed to achieve that pinnacle point of desperation that allowed him to tap into the powers of silent spell casting, for a blasting hex did in fact emerge, though by now, Nagini was ready for it and simply reflected it back at Harry, who had to raise a shield against not only the reductor, but also a second blasting hex, aimed directly for his heart. Knowing that he couldn't dodge and that his shield would only hold up against one of them, he let the first one impact against his shin and absorbed the second one with a shield. Fuck, he thought, blood drying around his stomach and bones grating around his ankle. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Goodbye, Harry Potter," Nagini hissed. "Avada kedavra."
"But Harry, still resisting, despite being at the shit end of the stick, simply summoned a couch pillow to intercept the curse. To both of their surprise, it did not explode in a fit of feathers. Harry banished it at Nagini who caught the pillow full on in the face. Harry proceeded to crawl away, leaving a trail of coagulating blood and bone fragments in his wake.
"Where in the world do you think you're going?" Nagini asked.
"You know," Harry managed. "I could just apparate."
"And I could just follow you."
Harry conceded, and then, with a great effort, apparated away, giving Nagini a glance in order to convey a silent challenge: Follow me, if you can.
Nagini was not one to back down.
Harry apparated to the roof of the Dursley home and immediately fired off reductors in every direction he could think of, hoping to get lucky by hitting Nagini as she was apparating in.
No such luck.
"Crucio," hissed Nagini, but Harry just summoned a shingle to intercept the curse, and then banished it right back at Nagini even as she was cursing the object. She didn't have time to move and the rectangular wooden block hit her squarely on her wand hand, forcing her to drop her wand. She immediately cast a wandless shield, but did not count on Harry hitting her wand with an incendiary hex. It exploded into flames just as she had her fingers around it. "ARGH," she yelped, pulling her hand back just as she felt a reductor impact against her shield. Harry began sending blasting hex after blasting hex in a hope to wear down his opponent. However, Nagini had other plans, and instead apparated five feet to one side and conjuring a dagger as she went.
Harry already had his wand trained on her and sent another blasting hex her way, only this time, she apparated with a dagger in hand, and came within inches of Harry's body. He widened his eyes and instinctively banished the dagger backwards, so that its handle was driven into Nagini's solar plexus.
Harry then banished her off the rooftop, only to see her apparate back on and with another dagger in hand. This one she banished in his direction, but he was ready, electing to apparate to one side and catching the dagger with a summoning charm. He redirected it at Nagini and, predictably, she disapparated once more, wherein Harry took a gamble and predicted that she would appear right behind him. With this in mind, he pointed his wand upward and aimed yet another blasting hex.
Paydirt.
Nagini took a face full of the hex and Harry was satisfied to hear the distinctive sound of bones breaking. he could not help but smile at the shriek that emanated from Nagini, followed by bloody teeth falling all around him.
Harry banished her off the roof once more. However, he did not count on his opponent's resilience. She returned immediately and managed to drive yet another dagger into Harry's body. This time, she sliced a deep gash across the bicep of his left arm as he defended his throat. Even as she was doing this, Harry jabbed his wand in her direction and whispered in a desperate bid for a moment's reprieve, "Sectumsempra."
Nagini had clearly never heard of the curse, as she did not react to its name. Instead, Harry saw with satisfaction the long, deep gash form across her chest, and blood immediately beginning to gush out. Unfortunately, it wasn't as deep as the one he managed with Draco. Nagini staggered about drunkenly before falling onto her butt, much like Harry had done in his living room. Harry aimed another blasting hex, but Nagini had the presence of mind to raise a shield.
"Die already," Harry hissed, throwing every hex and curse and jinx he could think of, even the trip jinx, which of course would have been useless since Nagini was sitting on the ground. To Harry's further irritation, the balding hex slipped through, which served only to make Nagini even uglier than before, but to do no real damage. Now with a bloody face, broken nose and missing teeth, she was also bald. It was at that moment that Harry had pause to think. Wait, he thought, Voldemort's already hairless. And a male, to boot, he thought, pondering the issue. Is this yet another freaky dark transformation, or is he just coming out?
Or is this something altogether different. Now having a chance to survey the Voldemort before him, Harry began to see peculiar differences. If I'm not mistaken, he thought, his mind working through each step carefully and slowly, this one's younger.
"It can't be," Harry breathed, still fixed on Nagini's form. "No way. You're a horcrux? That's... that's just fucked up. He sent horcruxes after me?" Harry just sat, in the process of swooning from blood loss even as his magic desperately tried to conjure more on an instinctual level to save his life. "I got my ass kicked by a Goddamned horcrux," Harry said, turning his gaze from Nagini to stare out into infinity. "A bloody horcrux." Once the realization worked its way through the entirety of his mind, Harry found he could do nothing less than toss his head back and laugh manically.
"What's so funny?" Nagini demanded, though her voice came out distorted due to her broken up face.
Harry just shook his head and wiped away his tears. "I just - it's - I -" However, he found he couldn't manage a coherent sentence and just let himself return to a fit of giggles. He wasn't even sure why he was laughing except that he hadn't slept very well the night before, and because of the ludicrousness of the situation he was in, and because he had been so desperate to find the horcruxes, and so afraid he would be incompetent and now, just having one in front of him, and with breasts, no less. It was all too much.
Once he managed to regain control of himself, Harry faced Nagini once more, though, to his dismay, she was no longer there. "Wha-?" Harry managed, whipping his head around in sudden terror.
And then, before he could react, he found a really big snake slithering around his torso, encircling him, to which he was only able to utter one word, "Nagini?" Harry continued to stare dumbfounded at the snake that he had seen in his nightmares, first at the Riddle home when Frank had been murdered and then at the graveyard where Voldemort had been resurrected, and, finally, the night Mr. Weasley was attacked, when Harry had apparently entered Voldemort's mind so deeply that he became aware of the connection to the Boy-Who-Lived.
And now, Nagini was coiled around him, poised to kill. already, she had her fangs buried deep into his wand arm, though he could hardly feel it. Whether that was because of the venom that was now entering his bloodstream or because of the shock of having so many severe injuries, he didn't know. In yet another bid for survival, Harry's magic apparated him away from the deadly snake and to a place Harry hadn't seen in about ten years. Namely, the roof of his primary school. He looked around dazedly, blue skies and sunshine raining down on him in all directions. Get a grip on yourself, he thought wearily. You need to get help. Harry proceeded to climb to his feet, however unsteady he might be, he wanted to know that at least he could still walk. He conjured a makeshift splint and eased his smashed up tibia back into a position that resembled a normal leg. Once he felt strong enough and able enough to hobble about, he took a good look at his surroundings and finally figured out where he was. Now it's a question of figuring out where to go. He wasn't sure he wanted to lead the horcrux anywhere particular. Nagini had already proven her superior magical strength.
Just then, he saw Nagini crawling towards him. Fuck, he thought. Thinking he might have an advantage with her in her serpent form, he sent a slicing curse at her, only to watch as a wandless protection shield appeared around her, deflecting the curse back at Harry, who apparated two feet to the side. Nagini pounced with lightning speed, but Harry already had a summoned chunk of roofing on hand to intercept her. To his dismay, she used magic to perform a zigzagging motion that looked distinctly like flying in order to avoid it.
Harry just threw his arms over his face as Nagini wrapped herself around him in one smooth stroke and bit down on his neck, causing more poison to seep into his body and blood to gush out. He staggered forward and fell into the depression he made where he had summoned the piece of the roof. Unfortunately, the material underneath the bricks was paper thin and gave way like tin foil, so that Harry found himself, with a snake still wrapped around his torso, crashing down onto some six year olds wooden desk, which promptly collapsed in a fit of wood shrapnel and sawdust, causing the little girl's legs to break as they were caught under him, and causing, unsurprisingly, a lot of gasps and cries of surprise from the various other children and the teacher. Harry, whose glasses were now broken, and who had a shard buried painfully into one eye, stared up at the primary school teacher as tears and blood and dust settled over his body. His only thought as he stared at her horror struck face, the sound of a little girl whimpering in the background was, Hey, her hair's still blue.
The sound of Nagini hissing his name broke him from his reverie. "What do you expect me to do about it?" Harry asked belligerently. He was oblivious to the further developing shocks on the children's faces as he conversed with Nagini in Parseltongue. The snake tried to bite him once more, but this time, Harry managed to wandlessly and silently apparate the snake into the air, while he fumbled around for his wand. Instead of crashing down next to him, Harry found that Nagini was just hovering in midair, its red eyes gazing at all the students. Harry rolled over onto his back, despite his protesting body. He was already certain that his makeshift splint was gone and that his leg was a total bust. Probably his other one too.
Just as Nagini dove down like a seagull hunting for fish, Harry raised his wand and picked her out of midair with a well placed blasting hex. A shield formed around Nagini in the nick of time, but it threw off her aim so that she ended up crashing into the side of the desk and not the boy that was sitting in it.
"Whoa!" exclaimed the boy, wide eyed. "That is so cool!"
"Everybody, out of this classroom this instant!" cried the teacher, her voice thick with fear.
However, none of the children moved. Instead, they watched mesmerized between the human combatant and that of the snake. It rose into the air once more and Harry sent another blasting hex at it.
"Good grief," Harry wheezed, the poison and blood loss getting to him, not to mention the pain. "Do what the old bag says, would you?" Nagini just managed to avoid a second blasting hex and landed gracefully atop little Jimmy's desk. She reared her head back to aim for a strike and avoid a vicious slicing curse that Harry sent her way. The curse managed to nick her on her throat, which sent a spurt of blood splattering against little Jimmy's face, to which all the other students gasped in unison. And then, in a flash, Nagini had her fangs buried deep into the boy's throat.
"Gurgh," little Jimmy spluttered weakly, his left arm coming up weakly to futilely bat away at the snake creature.
"Jimmy!' the blue haired elementary school teacher said pitifully, her eyes wide, her whole body trembling with fright. "Kids, she managed. Come, now. Get out." To her credit, she actually tried walking over to the snake in an attempt to hover menacingly about it. "Shoo!"
At first, Harry could only watch dumbstruck as he saw the little boy's blood gush out of his neck where a 'large gouge had formed. He wasn't sure what exactly horrified him about the boy's now imminent death. Harry had seen enough in his lifetime, had felt enough that he thought he was mostly over the romanticized elements of war. Maybe it was the suddenness, or the feeling of powerlessness that he had in stopping this from happening. That he had for stopping Nagini from murdering each and every one of the children in that classroom. In that dark place in his mind, where he drove himself to exhaustion, where he pushed himself again and again, without any regard for his own life, that place that drove him to always say, "Just one more time," even if that meant putting him in the path of another dementor-boggart to practice the Patronus charm past what might be considered healthy, in that dark place where rationality and articulability did not exist, one thread amongst many snapped.
"You bitch," Harry hissed in Parseltongue, his wand pointed at Nagini. Though he didn't utter an incantation, nor did he have a specific spell in mind, his magic seemed to understand and a spell made of sapphire blue light emerged from his wand.
Renewed by the fresh blood coursing in her veins, which had the side effect of healing parts of her most egregious injuries, Nagini turned to face Harry and the blue bolt of energy travelling her way. Immediately, she responded by raising a solid blue shield, which to her surprise, was shredded like tin foil by the force of Harry's magic. The unknown spell hit Nagini hard, going so far as to induce multiple cuts, puncture a hole right through her body like a hole puncher, and then pick her up and fling her with enough force into the concrete wall at the far end of the classroom such that the concrete sizzled and smoked and shattered so that Nagini flopped motionless onto the ground in the hallway beyond.
Harry, meanwhile, was wiping tears of dizziness and pain from his eyes with one bloodied hand, before he managed to clutch onto the side of a desk and drag himself to his feet. That is, until he realized he was missing one entirely. Looking down, he could do no less than grimace and sway a little. Fortunately, after little Jimmy's untimely demise, the kids had mostly fled, a few cowering in the corner. The teacher had just fainted and lay silently breathing on the ground, one hand over her chest. Harry was distinctly aware of the stink of sweat and ozone and blood in the air, but he tried to ignore it as he cauterized whatever wounds he could and cut away with the cutting curse excess flaps of flesh. Finally, he managed to sever all the useless parts of his leg, which meant he was legless on the left side from the knee downwards. Silently, he conjured himself a stick of wood, much like Mad Eye's and attached it with a simple sticking charm. He then tentatively stood, just as a group of adults were entering the classroom.
"My God," one of them breathed, staring at the preponderance of blood, at the center of which was Harry James Potter and an unconscious, blue-haired schoolteacher.
"Imperio," Harry muttered, thankful that he got it right. Silently, he told the principal what to say, and the balding man to his right and the various others were too much in shock to object. The lot of them quickly departed and not too soon, for when Harry went to go investigate Nagini's corpse, he discovered to his dismay that she in fact was not there at all.
Fortunately, she hadn't gotten to far, Harry suspected. A trail of blood led him to a nearby classroom that was unusually silent. He peered inside and saw that the window was fogged up. She's taken hostages, I reckon.
Well, there was only one thing to do. He stepped back, a few paces and gave his peg-leg the evil eye, as if to say, "If you fuck me over in the middle of this battle, I'm so going to use you for firewood." Then, with a quiet pop, Harry disappeared and reappeared towards what he hoped was the far wall. Immediately, he whirled around and spied for his quarry.
"AAH!" the teacher cried out.
The scene that Harry intruded upon was not one he would have expected. From what he could gather, a perfectly normal, perfectly calm and peaceful game of show and tell was taking place. There was a kid standing at the front of the class with a little green iguana. The child with blond hair was so nervous, he hadn't even noticed Harry until the instructor looked up and cried out in surprise. The little blond boy, Nathan, was so shocked he dropped Trevor, his iguana and stared dumbly at Harry Potter. Trevor scampered away and was promptly eaten by a disillusioned Nagini that was coiled at the back of the room and under a simple Notice-Me-Not field. Hmph, Nagini thought bitterly, still licking her now severe wounds. The boy doesn't even have the skill or presence of mind to conjure a portable Notice-Me-Not field, or to apparate with it.
Harry just stared dumbfounded at all the little wide-eyed children looking up at him as though he were the coolest thing they'd ever seen at show and tell, which, quite frankly, was probably true.
"Er, don't mind me," Harry said meekly, completely oblivious to the grim visage he presented with blood streaked across his body, an obvious stab wound in the stomach that should have been fatal, and his newly acquired prosthesis; not to mention that he was half standing in the morning sunshine that was streaming in through one of the windows, which only served to heighten his appearance with a golden halo around his body.
"It's a demonic angel," one of the kids whispered to one of the other kids. "Like Spawn."
"Cool," replied the other kid.
"Hmm," Harry said blandly, as if his showing up in the middle of show and tell were an everyday occurrence. "You wouldn't have happened to have seen a fifteen foot snake with red eyes slithering about anywhere? I seem to have misplaced her."
The children just shook their heads, while the schoolteacher tried to form a coherent sentence. Harry, seeing that the muggle was about to try and take control of the situation, which he was seriously ill-equipped for, just silently hit him with the first silent spell he knew. Levicorpus.
In a flash, Mr. Mathews was hanging upside down by his feet, his blazer falling about his head and his glasses clattering noisily to the ground.
"Whoa!" the kids cried out, their eyes now even wider than before. Harry then proceeded to obliviate the teacher and stun him and stick him to the wall somewhere out of the way.
"Authority figures," Harry said ruefully. "Never cared much for them, wouldn't you agree?"
The kids just nodded their heads.
"Excellent," Harry said, clapping his hands together. "Now, I'm only going to say this once, so I want you all to listen up very carefully." He paused to take a deep breath, and then, seeing that some of them were not quite paying attention, Harry asked in his best Snape impression, "Am I making myself clear, John?" Immediately, all the children whirled around to face some poor little kid named John. In truth, Harry had no clue what their names were, but he figured there had to be a John in the crowd, and, sure enough, there was, which only placed the kids in even greater awe and fear of him. Hmm, Harry pondered, so this is what it's like to be Lord Voldemort. Not too bad, actually.
"Yuh-uh-yes, sir," John managed in the girliest little voice Harry had ever heard.
"Good," Harry replied, sweeping the classroom with his gaze once more. "Now, listen up. There's a really big bad snake in here, somewhere, and I'm here to kill it. It's probably invisible, and it will probably start killing you when it shows."
There were gasps all around.
"That's right,' Harry affirmed. "And, to tell you the truth, I don't care very much right now if it kills you or not. Therefore, you can either pack up your things and quietly leave, or you can stay here and face certain doom."
Whatever answer the children were expecting, that apparently wasn't it. Still, they must have had some sense of self-preservation, because they all began quietly and in an orderly fashion, packing up their belongings and departing the classroom. Harry just watched, amused as the last one left and quietly closed the door behind her.
"Wow," Harry said aloud to no one in particular. "Who would've thought. They really can be mature if given half a chance." He gave an idle glance in the direction of Mr. Mathews, before turning back to the room and calling for Nagini to show herself.
"Come on" Harry said. "I know you're here somewhere. What's the deal, anyway? Ain't I the one who's supposed to be deathly afraid of you?" Harry could almost feel the scowl playing across her snake lips.
Harry shrugged. "Suit yourself. I don't know nothing about wards, but I reckon my dissipation charm'll do the trick." Harry began firing off finite incantanums in all directions, until, finally, he hit paydirt.
Nagini, seeing that the jig was up, transformed back into a human and glared at Harry. "So, you've caught me, then. What's stopping me from just disapparating?" Nagini asked.
"I'll just follow you," Harry replied, grinning cheekily. In truth, Harry had no clue how to follow an apparation signature, but he figured he'd pick it up along the way if it were really all that important. Besides, Nagini wasn't in much of a condition to apparate, with a fatal flesh wound and the multiple slashes that littered her body.
"I underestimated you," Nagini said shortly, her gaze falling to his wand.
"That you did," he agreed, his expression losing all trace of false joviality. "That you did, indeed."
"I do not understand how it is that you have not died from my venom," she stated, a question underlying her words.
Harry nodded, almost sagely. "Mmm, I admit I am at a bit of a loss, though I confess it is not the first time I have been bitten by a snake."
"Ah, the basilisk," Nagini agreed. "I had forgotten about her. It makes sense now."
Harry just shrugged. While it didn't make sense to him, he also found he didn't care very much. He wasn't about to go looking a gift horse in the mouth.
"Shall we duel one last time?" Harry asked. "For good?"
"I do not have a wand."
Harry shrugged once more. "That's hardly my problem. After all, you started out with one, and it was through your own miscalculation that you lost it." and then, in an uncharacteristically somber voice, Harry said just two words. "Avada kedavra."
A green bolt of energy issued fast and hard from his wand.
The pair dueled for several more minutes, burning most of the desks to ash, smashing apart many of the walls, including bringing the ceiling down upon them, twisting and melting whatever metal was there, not to mention conjuring various deadly items with which to dismember one another. They both earned their fair share of cuts, and, while Nagini had to remain mostly on the defensive, given that she did not have the breadth of magical spells available to her due to her lack of a wand, she had far more experience and two forms with which to move about. as a serpent she was deadly in her own right.
"Reducto."
"Disfugio."
"Evangelo."
"Razurro."
"Aiguio."
"Eviscero."
"Parrio."
"Exsanguio."
"Verouillo."
"Tourbillo."
Harry caught bits of shrapnel on his arm from the whirlwind hex, but, fighting through the pain, he managed to bounce back quickly enough to hit Nagini with a cutting curse on her knee. She stumbled and fell forward, but, just as Harry had done, managed to fire off a blasting hex just as she was falling, leaving Harry only a fraction of a second to get out of the way. The hex clipped him on his hip, where it managed to fracture his hip bone and send blood spurting out down his already shredded trousers and across the tile floor. Harry responded by summoning a jagged piece of the chalkboard, which slashed diagonally along her back as she tried to roll out of the way, only serving to smear blood across the ground. Harry limped over, his body propped up by the wall. Nagini was twitching uncontrollably now, her magic having spent the better part of five minutes in overdrive as it tried to continually heal the multitude of deep wounds that had been inflicted on her. Similarly, Harry found he was having trouble performing even the simplest functions like breathing now. Still, he pressed onward.
Nagini cast another spell at him, but it simply fizzled out before it left her fingertips. Harry's wand, which was sporting hairline fractures, meanwhile, was seeping smoke from the wood.
Harry fell to his knees right next to her and aimed his wand right at her left temple, a wild grin on his features. "You're tough, he rasped, "I'll give you that. But there ain't no way you're gonna survive a blasting hex to the head at point blank range, sugar."
Nagini's eyes widened as she tried to raise her one good arm to her defense. Still, Harry had picked the side where she couldn't quite maneuver her arm into place to defend herself, so instead, she just made muling noises and tried to bite at his arm futilely. She didn't even have enough energy to transform, not that it would have done her any good. Still, she wasn't the Dark Lord for nothing, and, in one final act of desperation, apparated with a pop, leaving Harry gawking at the vacant space that remained in her wake.
"No, no, no," he muttered to himself over and over again, his eyes suddenly and wildly searching the now warped classroom, where Mr. Mathews shredded flesh peppered the twisted hunks of metal that was were once parts of the various desks. Many of the walls had been warped inward from the heavy magic, giving the room a puckered look.
Goddammit, no, Harry wailed silently, his peg leg blackened and still issuing smoke from the two times it had been lit ablaze. Desperately and angrily and psychotically, he pointed his wand at himself and said, "Apparatio," all the while, blanking his mind of all possible destinations and hoping that he would just get lucky, as opposed to apparating to oblivion or limbo. He didn't even notice that his wand scorched his hand from the backlash that sent him away.
When he appeared, he found himself falling, while, all around him was a stinging brightness. Great, he thought. I'm going to die. But, just then, he impacted against what he could only assume to be a body, his arm cracking underneath him as he plunged past the body and into icy water. Being completely unprepared, he felt half his body go into shock, while the other half just drowned, all the while he flailed one arm uselessly in an attempt to break the surface.
Eventually, he managed to, the water not being as cold as he had feared it would be, and the sun beating down against his wet face, his glasses long gone, his pierced eyeball no longer leaking stringy fluid but not really functioning, the suddenly familiar sight of the Hogwarts castle looming in the distance. Under more normal circumstances, he might have been thrilled to see his only real home, but right now, his mind was too ravaged with the feral taste of battle. He recalled hitting something that he thought might have been a body when he first hit the water. Harry scoured about and saw that indeed, the squid was tossing a body onto the lake's shore, and Harry watched with more than a bit of satisfaction as its head lolled uselessly about. Maybe the fall killed her, he thought, before he found himself being hefted out of the water and squeezed to death by the squid. "Gah!" He managed, spluttering out water and blood as he hit the ground hard and rolled over to one side.
Determinedly ignoring the pain that raked across his body, he managed to roll onto his belly and begin crawling over to Nagini, who, meanwhile, was trying to crawl away to no avail. It looked as though both her legs had been broken as well as both her arms, which meant that Harry, who only had one broken arm and two broken legs, was at a distinct advantage.
"Gotcha, you fuckfaced little bitch," he wheezed, throwing himself on top of the female version of his mortal enemy and, with weeds and other gross things hanging out of his messy black hair, proceeding to strangle her with one hand, while both her arms twitched like chicken wings. "Die, die, die, die, die," Harry chanted as he thrust again and again with his thumb down on her neck. Something's gotta give.
Before long, Nagini's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she gurgled out a pool of blood. Still, she did not die, and, instead, managed to catch Harry's hand in her mouth and bite down cruelly and with all her strength so that she broke most of Harry's fingers. He shrieked in pain and fell off her, collapsing to her side and twitching spasmodically. Nagini, however was not finished and instead leaned into him, throwing one arm over his body to keep him from rolling down the gentle slope that they were on. She then leaned in while Harry struggled to fight through his pain and bit into his throat. Though she didn't have her razor sharp, serpent teeth, she had a strong enough jaw and the enthusiasm to rip apart Harry's throat widely, letting bouts of blood spill out and overwhelming his magical core's ability to replenish his vital fluids. Within seconds, Harry's body went limp and his eyes took on that vacant quality that indicated that all the life had been drained from him.
Sated, Nagini collapsed onto her back and stared unblinking into the mid-morning sky, while Harry's body rolled down the gentle slope and settled in a patch of fluxweed, his still warm blood continuing to flow in rivulets across their silky, green blades.
Soon, Nagini thought, her eyes wild, the taste of Harry's rich, vibrant, dark red blood on her tongue and lips, soon, my body will heal and I will return the victor. I am Lord Voldemort.
Nagini never noticed the small shadow that crept up behind her, silent as a breeze on the open seas.
Dobby wasn't exactly the most educated creature in the world. In all likelihood, he was even a little mentally retarded. Other elves sometimes made fun of him for wearing all those silly hats that threatened to topple over at any time. They whispered behind his back, pointed fingers, gave each other knowing looks and sometimes even made the circular finger motion for the universal sign of insanity, when Dobby wasn't looking. Unbeknownst to Dobby, this was exactly the kind of treatment that Huffelpuffs got from the rest of the school, and, if Dobby had been a human, he would have surely been sorted into that House. For, if Dobby were anything, he was loyal. Some would say even, that he was loyal to a fault.
It was not hard to figure out exactly to whom he was loyal, either. Harry Potter, had, after all, treated him with the basic kind of dignity that he treated all beings, and that had meant a lot to Dobby. Harry had gone out of his way to save Dobby from his cruel fate with the Malfoys, for which Dobby was eternally grateful and which cemented his long-standing belief that Harry Potter's life was more important than the lives of every other witch and wizard on the planet, including that of Dumbledore's.
And so, it shouldn't have been a surprise that Dobby felt the death of his one true friend - the one person who he would have been happy to have called a master. After all, loyalty, like love, breeds a magic unique unto itself. When Dobby saw what had become of his friend, he, surprisingly enough, did not go into shock, nor did he rush to his friend's aid, or commence the mourning process that sentient beings normally underwent at the sight of the death of a being with whom they had an emotional attachment.
Dobby, instead chose to assess the situation, and, like so many times before, executed a plan to save the Great Harry Potter's life. Glancing about, he first spotted a wand. He went and picked this up. It should be noted that Dobby was not completely without mental faculties. He knew, for example, that picking up a wand was a serious criminal offense for an elf. And he also knew that, what he was about to do next, would classify him in the category of dangerous, deranged and dark.
He went up to the strange female with the red eyes that made him shudder. Dobby wasn't exactly sure who she was, but she was really bad off, if his eyes were not deceiving him. Moreover, he got a funny vibe from her, like she were unclean, or maybe evil, or something. Regardless, she was a good candidate for the plan, and it didn't really matter whether she was good or evil. It didn't even matter if she were a saint. She simply could not be better than Harry Potter.
And so, creeping up behind her, Dobby pointed the Holly and phoenix feather wand at her unsuspecting head and said two words, giving the strange woman only enough time for her expression to go from jubilant to puzzled. "Avada kedavra."
In a flash of green light, she was dead. Dobby, having spent a long time in a house of dark wizards, was confident he could pull this one off, as daring as it was.
The wand, now rich with the backlash of soul energy from the properly executed killing curse, quivered as if in anticipation for the next part of the ritual. "Animus severo," said Dobby, pointing the tremulous wand at himself. A grey beam of energy coalesced around his torso and, with a sharp downward stroke, cleaved the shimmering silver light that emerged from his body partway. And, with half that shimmering silver light now oozing down his arm and towards his wand, Dobby said one final incantation, this time pointing the wand at Harry's body. "Encruxio."
That silver energy leapt from Dobby's body via the phoenix wand and coursed through Harry's battered corpse, feeding itself through his system from whatever orifice it could find, sweeping away the blood and the nesting flies in its attempt to integrate itself with his own soul, which of course, was not there precisely, but which had separated and drifted away to wherever souls go, leaving only an echo. Still, an echo was all that was needed, it seemed.
In the wake of Nagini's death, Harry Potter was reborn.