Blessed

by Erised Burning

A story about Harry growing up and killing things.

4. The Dobbstrosity

Chapter Four

The Dobbstrosity

It is a truth, universally assumed, that whenever Dobby tries to save Harry Potter's life, things never go according to plan.

Harry let out a long, suffering groan as his mind moved away from that peaceful oblivion and towards the fuzzy light that would eventually resolve itself into a crisp, summer sunset.

"Grr-bahh?" he gurgled throatily. A wad of coagulated blood-mucus mixture was expelled from his mouth as he tried to speak. Seconds ticked by as Harry's already frazzled nerves tried to reconnect to one another, misaligned synapses reorienting themselves as the familiar magic of a soul revitalized him with concurrent waves of life-giving energy. As he lay there, his toes and fingers still tingling from the unprecedented magic that had flowed through them in those brief hours of duelling Nagini, Harry tried to draw the mess of his memories back to him in a coherent way. After a minute, he felt the barriers that were keeping him from his life crack and fizzle and, in a snap, the events of his life, the experiences that made him who he was crashed over his consciousness like a tidal wave, and, more than anything, he was relieved. If there was one thing Harry Potter hated, it was not being in control of his own mind. Lord Voldemort had taught him that lesson rather clearly during his fifth year.

The thing that baffled him, however, was that it wasn't just his own memories he was seeing, or, at least, he was pretty sure that there was a bunch that wasn't his own. He couldn't quite tell, because of his disoriented state, and because he couldn't drum up a good response to the question, "Well, whose are they, then?"

Still, Harry was pretty sure he'd never seen the Malfoy drawing room, and certainly he'd never seen it from the vantage point of being two feet off the ground. And how do I even know that that's Malfoy's drawing room? he wondered.

Despite Harry not being the sharpest tool in the shed, he was able to piece together the strange collection of memories - is that the Hogwarts kitchen? he wondered idly - and his recent brush with death, and come to one resounding conclusion that made him want to bash his head against a concrete wall: Dobby. What. The. Fuck.

Harry picked his still mutilated corpse of a body off the ground and gazed about dejectedly as the golden light of sunset turned the surface of the lake into a crimson sheen and which forged a golden halo around the castle. Like sunshine blossoming out of a lake of blood.

It became quickly obvious to Harry that things were different now. Even leaving the copious memories of frying chips in lard aside, which were images he was certain he could do without, there were other differences. He wasn't entirely certain, but he thought he might have lost an inch or two in height. He instinctively wrinkled his nose at that thought, as though the idea itself was too putrid to contemplate. Like I wasn't bloody short enough to begin with, thanks to that whole, pesky malnutrition business during my precious childhood. Never mind that, another part of him ordered. Focus on the rest of it. Like, why is everything around here shimmering?

Everywhere that Harry looked, he could make out what he could only describe as a gentle swarm of Technicolor locusts winking in and out of existence, like television static. Somewhere in the back of his mind, that Dobby-esque part of him, he knew that what he was seeing was magic. It swarmed and meandered, ducked and wove about, shimmied and jigged and flew in all directions, exploding and imploding in a perpetual state of dynamic equilibrium. Still, Harry did not want to admit to this fact, for it would confirm a niggling little suspicion that he was not quite prepared to face. but when he turned to face the imposing sight of Hogwarts looming like a mountain and casting deep shadows across the Forbidden Forest, he could no longer deny it. The only place he ever called home, with its familiar twinkling lights, turrets and towers, that place was no more. Instead, there stood what he could only describe as an epicentrically moving swirl of diamonds all orbiting around a nest of prisms that sparkled benignly at him. Harry's mouth, understandably, was wide open. "Huh," he said, dazed by the awesome sight of Hogwarts. "Huh."

Only barely aware he was doing it, Harry lifted one hand, palm up, and drew together a pool of magic that puddled like mercury in his palm. He turned his attention to it, still dumbfounded, and then, with a practised flicking motion, sent the magic spraying out across the mess of blood and guts in order to vanish it. While the human part of him was surprised, the elf part of him knew that this was the way it was supposed to be.

Harry couldn't help but grin.

For the first time, he felt magic. He felt it pulsing inside him, and he felt it all around, like he was finally tuned in to the right radio station. And for the first time, Harry's startlingly green eyes twinkled.

Booyah.

There were a lot of things that needed doing in the wizarding world, because there was seriously way too much chaos floating around. First of all, honest, hard-working types like Stan Shunpike were unjustly imprisoned in the most feared wizarding prison on the isles. Secondly, Hogwarts was in serious need of an overhaul. With Dumbledore's death, it lacked the visionary leadership that would continue to drive it into the twenty-first century.

But, most of all, the one thing that needed to be done was to kill Harry Potter.

Lord Voldemort curled his lips in disgust at the Huffelpuff cup, whose shattered remains were spread about his private quarters. Amidst its shards also lay the shards of the mysterious object to which young little Griffin had been tied. Whatever connection his horcruxes had had to these objects, and thus, by extension had had to him were now gone. He didn't know why precisely, nor did he need to. All he needed to know was that they were sent after Harry Potter and now they were as good as gone. Lord Voldemort still couldn't even begin to fathom how the little twerp had managed to destroy two of his horcruxes. It was, of course, a little twist of irony that, out of everything, the destruction of those two specific horcruxes had nothing to do with Harry at all. Raven had simply been vapourized by the same counter-charm that Lily had used to save Harry's life back in 1981, and Griffin had just found a new host for his own soul fragment. Voldemort, of course, did not know this, nor would he be privilege to that information quite so soon.

The only horcrux that remained, or, more precisely phrased, that Voldemort hoped remained, was Nagini. The vessel, after all, had been sent out with the horcrux itself. He wasn't too worried about her, since she was by far the most powerful of them and was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She had proven that on many occasions.

Ah, well, no matter. He neither knew where she was nor when she was planning to return. He simply did not want to think of the possibility that she had been killed, for the ramifications of that situation were too nauseating to contemplate. Still, a voice in the back of his mind, one which no skill at occlumancy could quell, taunted mercilessly, You gambled and you lost, dude. Sucks to be you.

Voldemort retrained his focus on the present and on preparing his next move. It did not do to dwell on your fears, he knew. You just acknowledge them and move on. Voldemort checked himself in the mirror and enjoyed the feel of his magic roiling beneath the surface of his skin before he strode from his private quarters and down the hall of his manor. The occasional dementor roamed the hall, but he took no notice of them. There was not enough human left in him to feel their presence, and his magical aura intuitively kept condensation from forming on his clothes and skin from the chill of their presence.

Voldemort entered what could only be described as a wizarding boardroom. At the center there was a long, black, rectangular table, around which several leather swivel chairs were arranged. Magical viewscreens and maps adorned the walls and at the head of the table was a particularly ornate chair, that could be regarded as a modest throne. Voldemort sat here and presided over his soldiers. At this time, only two were present.

"Severus, Bella," Voldemort said, acknowledging their presence.

"My Lord," they said in unison, bowing their heads deferentially for a brief moment and never taking their eyes off their lord.

Voldemort ploughed on ahead, intent on having them moving as quickly as possible. "I am prepared to turn my sights on the Potter boy." Voldemort had to control his impulse to call his enemy a brat. He had underestimated him too many times, and, with an unknown prophecy in the balance, he had decided that it was time to begin treating Harry Potter like a true adversary. I will not be tricked again, he affirmed silently as he stared at his top lieutenants. "You two I trust above all others," he said solemnly, "and I expect that in this upcoming endeavour, you will operate with the greatest care and perform to your most exigent standards."

"Of course, my lord," they both murmured. Bella's eyes continued to shine with that glint of insanity. Perhaps she is not the best suited for this task, Voldemort mused. No matter, I trust her, and her allegiance is more important to me than competence. Competence is why I have Severus there.

"Observe the Potter boy at his home. Do not be seen. You need not spend long there. Ascertain the thrust of his activities, the state of affairs, etc. Then return immediately and notify me."

Bella nodded, but Severus remained stoic and instead asked a question. "And if he is not there, my lord?"

Voldemort considered this possibility. Could the boy have been relocated? It made little sense since the blood wards that insulated him from attack at his muggle aunt's place would remain intact until his age of majority. Finally, he said, "I trust your discretion in this matter. Feel free to broaden your field of observation, if the situation calls for it. I want to know what Potter is doing and what his routine is. Do not, under any circumstances, be seen." Voldemort levelled a strict gaze at Bella and then turned to Snape and silently legilimanced a single command to him, to which Snape only gave a slight nod of the head. The command was: Keep her in line.

With that out of the way, both his soldiers swept out of their master's lair.

"What in the world were you doing!" Minerva McGonagall exclaimed, pacing back and forth in her office. Her cheeks were stained red from all the flushing she was doing, and strands of her grey hair were discombobulatingly struggling their way out of her otherwise tight and impeccable chignon.

Harry meanwhile, was sitting casually in a poofy leather armchair he just conjured, and which he did wandlessly to boot. Not twenty minutes ago, he had been found grinning like a madman and doing a little jig next to Nagini's corpse on the edge of the lake. Apparently she had spotted him on her way to the castle from Hogsmeade and had immediately rushed over to investigate, only to discover that, while he had vanished the gore on the ground, he himself still looked like death warmed over and was standing not ten feet from an equally battered corpse. A corpse with red eyes, no less.

"Er, killing Voldemort?" Harry said, not quite sure if that were the right answer.

"Killing V-v- You-Know-Who!" she spluttered. "Oh sure, that clears everything up, now doesn't it?"

Harry just shrugged, which sent McGonagall into another furious round of pacing.

Harry wasn't sure whether to be concerned or amused. "You know," he said in a conversational tone, "stress is the number two cause of heart disease."

At Harry's words, the Headmistress seemed to collapse in on herself. She flopped down tiredly in her chair and stared up at the ceiling as she said, "What in the world am I going to do with you, Potter? I can only be thankful that Dumbledore had the sense not to make you a prefect."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked incredulously. "I'd've been a great prefect!"

McGonagall just gave him a look as if to say, "What drugs have you been snorting?"

Harry, in response, just slumped in his chair, equally defeated and mumbled something about being better than Ron, at least.

McGonagall heard this and snapped to attention. "Surely, you're aware that the Weasley home was attacked, were you not?"

Harry just shook his head. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear news that would put him on yet another emotional roller coaster, but then again, at least in his present state he couldn't actually muster up the energy to care.

McGonagall just went on as though she didn't notice Harry's lack of reaction. "Another shade of You-Know-Who attacked the Burrow, just like the one that attacked Miss Genevra Weasley in your second year."

Harry's head snapped up at this statement, and he narrowed his eyes and searched his old Transfiguration Professor's expression for any hint of a lie. "What happened?" he asked in a soft, sibilant hiss, despite the fact that there were no s-sounds in his question.

Minerva shook off the unease at the commanding tone in Harry's voice and answered in her most sympathetic voice, "The shade wanted to kill Ronald Weasley. It was supposed to be a message for you. Molly too was fatally wounded."

The Headmistress's words were like a blow to his head. "Ron?" Harry asked wonderingly, not quite able to believe that one of his oldest friends was now dead.

Minerva pursed her lips, and pressed onwards. "I'm sorry, but there's more. It appears that Miss Granger was also attacked."

It seemed that Minerva need not have said anymore, because Harry stood fast and hard, his conjured squashy leather armchair exploding in a fit of fabric behind him. "So I'm alone then," Harry said with finality. The utter calm with which he uttered those words left Minerva speechless for a moment, before she managed to compose herself.

"You are not alone, Mr. Potter," she said in her strictest voice. "The entire Order is behind you. There are over a dozen fully qualified witches and wizards prepared to put their lives on the line for you - to support you in whatever endeavours you have. You just need to let us in."

Harry did not respond, instead staring off into the distance, to a point somewhere at infinity, memories of the infamous golden trio flashing before his mind's eye. In his own way, he was laying to rest his dearest friends.

Minerva seemed to think that Harry was acquiescing to her quasi-commands about informing the Order, because she went on, "There's a meeting at headquarters tomorrow evening at seven o'clock. I'll expect you there at precisely that time so you may divulge the specifics regarding anything relevant that Albus had told you. that way, the Order will be in a prime position to execute any plans against the dark forces. After that, we will put you in hiding. With this whole mess at Privet Drive and with a warrant out for your arrest, you're hardly in a position to be doing anything productive whatsoever and therefore we shall simply sequester you away in a secret location. We've even gotten many of the Order members to agree to provide you private tutelage in magical defense-"

Harry was not really listening to her. He had tuned her out before she had started speaking, in fact. Doesn't the silly bint know that I just lost my friends? he mused. He focused his mind back on his thoughts about the present. So the Dark Lord sent a horcrux after each of us, did he? Harry thought bitterly. Probably figured I was nothing without my friends. No doubt Snape would have told him that. It was only a bonus that Hermione was a muggle-born. I wonder if her parents are okay. Not that Harry had any intention of seeing them. They were muggles and they were dentists, and, more importantly, he sucked when it came to consoling people, and even more so when he had a hand in the misery, however tangential his involvement happened to be.

Well, Harry thought. I may not be able to kill the fucker just yet - not without getting his horcruxes out of the way first, but I can certainly dispossess his ass and send him back to fucking Albania. That'll teach him a Goddamned lesson he ain't soon to forget.

With that same reckless stupidity that drove him to collapse the wards at Privet Drive, Harry strode out of the office intent on annihilating his mortal foe. Maybe if I get him talking, he'll let something slip about the horcruxes, Harry thought. After all, with Hermione dead, he had a snowball's chance in hell of finding the little bastards. It took Dumbledore a year to find the entrance to the cave, and even with his superlative magical prowess and experience, he still ended up halfway dead from some God awful potion that Harry was sure he was not prepared to drink under any circumstances.

Harry never even noticed that he unconsciously put McGonagall under a full body bind, nor did he notice that, as his mind geared up for war, he unconsciously transfigured his clothes. His shirt became a snug-fitting bulletproof polyester with a featherlight charm on it. Similarly, his pants turned midnight black, and were both flexible and snug-fitting. A robe sprouted from his shoulders downward and curled around his body protectively, billowing ominously in a way that would have made Snape most envious. And, finally, his shoes transformed into steel-toed combat boots. Mirrored sunglasses curled around his eyes as he stepped out into the darkness, and a silencing charm pooled around his clothes and boots, transforming him into a silent, walking predator. His scar disappeared from view, and his hair shortened to a clean, tight cut.

Harry had no clue where Lord Voldemort was hiding, but he reckoned he didn't need to. He had the most detailed and comprehensive understanding of Malfoy Manor bar none. Not even the Malfoy patriarch could match his knowledge on the subject, and it was all thanks to a mildly retarded elf. That would be where he would begin his search for the Dark Lord.

It did not take long for Harry to maneuver his way through the Malfoy wards, and to begin the process of getting lost in the Malfoy estate. If he had ever held any doubts regarding the wealth of his schoolyard nemesis, he quelled them as he walked from one enormous, opulent room to the next. Lucius Malfoy's private study had dragon heads mounted on one wall, with the names of Malfoys and dates inscribed on plaques underneath. Harry could only assume that these were the people who killed the dragons and the dates they did it. Harry wasn't sure whether to be impressed or disgusted. He knew that killing dragons was no easy task, and knew it would have taken a powerful wizard to accomplish the feat. However, he also suspected that the Malfoys played dirty and only involved themselves enough to only barely meet the definition of hunting and killing the dragons in question. He wouldn't have been surprised if the dragons were handicapped in some way, such as being poisoned or chained down or possibly just wounded. Still, he noticed that Lucius wasn't actually acknowledged so he couldn't say for sure. He was confident that Lucius couldn't take on a dragon, but couldn't say one way or the other for his ancestors.

Despite the prevailing opulence from room to room, Harry got the distinct impression that Malfoy manor was a rather cold place. Crystals, as pretty as they were, were hardly fun to play with.

Not a single portrait greeted him, though many kept their beady little grey eyes on him as he passed by. He thought he heard one of them mutter, "Potter hair," but couldn't be sure. It hardly made sense anyway, since he had taken a moment to cut the ugly mop off his head.

Harry's newfound sight gave him special insight into the Malfoy's home. He knew, for example, that there was very little that was transfigured or conjured. Why, he didn't know. Transfigured and conjured objects, when done properly, were no different than their pre-existing counterparts. There was probably some archaic wizarding custom that dictated that conjured items were for the peasantry. Harry didn't actually care all that much. He was just thankful he knew how to avoid magical objects, as, he was quickly discovering that, where there was magic, there were deadly traps of all kinds. The Malfoys were a paranoid lot. Why booby-trap something in your own home?

Eventually, Harry came upon the infamous drawing room, with the secret trap door underneath the carpeting. As much as he was curious to investigate that particular repository of dark arts material, he chose instead to move on in search of his quarry. Surely the ice queen or her ferret of a son had to be somewhere in the place. It would be just my luck to miss them, he bemoaned, coming to a dead end at the end of a particularly long hall. I wonder if I can conjure something toxic, he mused, considering the possibility of just blowing the entire estate up. Like conjuring propane. However, as he pondered that question, it occurred to him that he didn't really need to conjure propane or some other flammable hydrocarbon at all. He could just conjure oxygen, which he did naturally as part of the bubblehead charm. Pure oxygen was probably one of the most flammable substances on Earth.

Harry grinned.

"I will ask you again," said Harry in what was quickly becoming known as his, 'I'm a clinical psychopath' voice. "Where is Voldemort."

"Eat shit, Potter," wheezed Draco Malfoy.

The kid's got balls, Harry thought. I'll give him that. Outwardly, Harry only communicated one phrase, "Suit yourself."

Draco's eyes widened only for a fraction of a second as a buzz saw magically materialized in Harry's hand. More disturbing was the fact that it was spinning really fast and emitting the high pitched buzzing sound for which it was named, and it was doing this all while resting comfortably in the palm of Harry's hand. Harry just smiled a really insincere smile, before proceeding to lop off another one of Draco's fingers. This one was the index finger. As the whirring blade grated against the bone in Malfoy's finger, blood spurted out and the pitch of the saw's buzzing dropped a few semitones as it was forced to slow down to make its way through the bone.

"GODDAMN, POTTER!" Draco shrieked as his second finger was lopped off. "YOU'RE A FUCKING NUTJOB!"

When the finger was gone and Harry had cauterized the wound, he simply levelled a hard gaze at his former classmate. It galled Harry to no end to hear the boy-turned-Death-Eater accuse him of being a nutjob when everyone he ever cared about was brutally murdered. It also made Harry wonder if maybe he had gone a little crazy and if maybe part of being crazy meant that he just didn't care one way or another.

"You seem to be under the serious misapprehension that you're going to survive this encounter either way," Harry said, still grinning and bringing the bloody saw up to Draco's face. "It makes no difference whether you tell me where he is or not. I'll kill you regardless. The only question is, how painful do you intend to make your last moments on this Earth?"

Harry decided that, as a matter of courtesy, he would give Draco Malfoy a good minute to ponder his words. He sincerely hoped that the silly boy would take the hint and give up the crucial information that would aid Harry in seeking revenge upon his tormentor. Draco spent that minute of reprieve, two fingers short of a full set, staring hard at Harry's eyes. One could say he was searching for truth, or God or madness, it didn't matter. In the end, Draco Malfoy bit his lip, a nervous habit Harry had never seen Draco do before. "I can't," he said finally. "Whatever you do to me, the Dark Lord will do ten times worse."

Harry cocked an eyebrow, before parroting Nagini's words at the blond aristocrat. "I would hardly waste my time torturing you, despite what you might think. I gain little pleasure from it. But I will nevertheless. Moreover, I can't understand why this relatively simple concept isn't working its way through your moronic brain. There is nothing left for you on this Earth, Draco. There is nothing left for you anywhere. In thirty minutes, you'll be dead, regardless. Nothing can change that now. Yesterday, or the day before, I might have spared your life. Hell, the idea of killing in cold blood probably would have appalled me. One could say that you and I were the same in that respect." At this last phrase, Draco just looked puzzled, and Harry glanced off to let himself disappear in a whirl of memories, that fateful scene atop the Astronomy Tower playing itself out in his mind's eye. He still remembered the colour fading from Dumbledore's cheeks, his eyes slowly losing focus, his body slumping to the ground, and his gentle, firm voice piercing the still air, broken only by the muffled sounds of distant spellfire. Harry shook himself and returned to the present to continue his monologue. It does not do to dwell on the past, either, he thought. I wish you had taught me that one, Albus.

"But now, Draco - now things have changed." Harry vanished the buzz saw and leaned forward to look into the boy's pale face. "You know, everyone used to call me the Boy-Who-Lived. It's funny, isn't it? Raised by muggles, I was totally clueless about what that meant, and even after I got here, I still couldn't wrap my mind around it. I knew exactly who I was; I've known it all these years, and I can safely say that never did the import of that moniker penetrate my own sense of self. There was a time when I hated Albus Dumbledore for sticking me with my aunt and uncle. I wondered why it was that I didn't deserve love as a childhood, why it was that me being forged into a weapon was so Goddamned important to a man who thought that death is the next great adventure. But now death is all around me. Even my own, if you can believe it. I smell it on me now. I wear it like a cloak, and it comforts me. I understand now that I never could have been the Boy-Who-Lived. Not if I wanted to grow up to be the Chosen One. In all my dealings with the Dark Lord, I can safely say that there's at least one thing he got right. I could never have been the Boy-Who-Lived, because I died that Halloween night in 1981. I've just been on borrowed time. Now, I'm going to ask you again. Where is Lord Voldemort?"

Harry could already see, however, that his words were having very little effect on Draco. Maybe that was because the pain of his two lost fingers was dulling his reasoning abilities, or maybe it was because Draco wasn't all that smart. Harry didn't know and didn't care. "I'm sorry," Draco replied. "Do what you must."

For a spoiled rich kid, Draco managed to hold up against the pain remarkably well. But in the end, he shrieked and cried and begged for mercy, just like everyone else. Just as Harry had promised, thirty minutes after the start of Draco's torture, Harry killed him with a clean, swift, guillotine-style decapitation, whereupon his mutilated, eyeless head rolled off the table and into the corner of the room. The head landed right-side-up and faced the center of the room, its mouth puckered into a silent scream, where one could see the bloodied flaps of gums where his teeth should have been.

This was the scene that Narcissa Malfoy came home to, after attending a pureblood soiree with some of her Death Eater associates. Being a woman of high class and quality upbringing, she was not the type to swear. With a sweeping glance and an upturned nose, she assessed the mess that her home had become. Heavy spellfire, exploded ornaments, heirlooms and shredded furniture littered the various rooms. Narcissa drew her wand and proceeded to investigate each room, one by one, until she arrived at the drawing room, where she found her son's mutilated corpse next to the hearth.

'Draco!" she exclaimed, her icy facade cracking as she ran to her son to gaze upon his body with horror. Oh, Merlin, she silently cried. Not Draco.

The extent of the carnage made her think that the only person who could have done such a thing was either insane or a dark artist. With that in mind, she went to the fireplace and raised her wand to light it. She glanced irritably at the pools of what looked like soapy water sloshing about her ankles, and she cursed not for the first time Harry Potter for robbing her of her house elf.

"Incendio,' she said. Narcissa only had a fraction of a second for her eyes to widen as the enormous fireball that exploded out of her fireplace engulfed her and the entire manor, as the combined twenty tonnes of liquid oxygen and gaseous hydrogen were set ablaze.

Malfoy manor, along with the surrounding gardens, the topiary, fences, gates and other protections transformed into a fifty foot high raging inferno. And out of it rose a dark gold skull with a bronze snake coming out of its mouth.

The next morning found Harry picking listlessly at a fruit salad. One of the downsides, he soon discovered, to being half elf, was that he didn't really need to eat. His own magic seemed to revitalize him, as though it was just conjuring the nutrients right inside of his body. He supposed that made sense, anyway, since wizards could conjure real food. Magic was a beautiful thing. It wasn't really the whole not having to eat thing that was depressing him, nor was it the gruesome murder and destruction of Malfoy manor, for which he was mostly responsible. He was surprised, actually, at how little the sight of gore disgusted him. He supposed that, more than anything, he was just a little bit off-balance by the radical turns his life had made. He was probably still coming off a massive adrenalin rush, as well.

What you need, monsieur, he thought, is some normalcy. A return to routine. A familiar face.

The only problem was, Harry wasn't entirely sure where to go to get that. The people he normally would have turned to - Ron and Hermione - were no longer there, and without Ron present, Harry suspected that seeing the Weasleys would have just been awkward. Despite knowing that it was rather cowardly of him to avoid the Weasleys when they probably could have done with his support, Harry still couldn't manage to make the simple apparation trip to the Burrow, or to Grimmauld Place, where they were most likely held up.

Currently, Harry was sitting in a muggle cafe not far from the Leaky Cauldron. Rather stupidly, he had wandered into Diagon Alley about an hour ago, and it took all of two minutes for aurors to recognize him and attempt to subdue him with lethal force. Somehow, they had managed to spot his scar, despite the glamour that he had put on it the day before - a fact that reminded him he was still woefully underschooled in charms. It wasn't all bad though. Having a chance to sit in the muggle world, Harry had an opportunity to appreciate the feel of it, the intensity of traffic, of muggle food, establishments, trends, fashions, etc. Despite having existed in both worlds, he was rather ignorant. For one thing, he was dead certain no pureblood would be caught dead in a halter-top. Witches and wizards were far more conservative in their dress than muggles, which wasn't a surprise, since their lifestyle emulated that of the medieval period. They've never really grown out of feudalism, Harry mused, observing a gaggle of giggling girls that were ordering specialty coffees with long, convoluted names.

"Hey," a familiar voice to one side said.

Harry jerked his head to the left and stared up at the smiling face of Dean Thomas.

"Hey," Harry replied, slightly wrong footed from the encounter. He had forgotten that people from the magical world also existed in the muggle, like himself, and that, being so close to the Leaky Cauldron, it was inevitable that he would run across somebody. He supposed he should have been at least thankful that it was a friend and not a foe. "Have a seat," Harry said, gesturing to the gold-painted chrome chair across from him.

"Thanks," Dean said, taking it and setting his venti soy mocha frappaccino on the wobbly table. "How've you been doing?"

At first, Harry shrugged, suddenly not quite sure how to deal with one of his schoolmates on a one-on-one basis. Deciding that he'd screwed up his life enough as it was, Harry decided to just get into it. You wanted normalcy, after all, and you can't get much more normal than Dean Thomas. "Everything's a bloody mess, actually," Harry admitted, giving Dean a wan smile to let him know they didn't have to go into it.

Dean just nodded. "I read about the warrant for your arrest. It's all pretty crazy sounding."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, well, when their golden boy doesn't play by the rules, they get their knickers in a twist."

"Aren't you worried about getting caught?" Dean asked curiously.

"Aren't you worried about being associated with a known nutter?" Harry countered. He then shrugged again. "Trust me when I say that I can take care of myself. Besides, what are they going to do? Kill me?" Harry let out a short, mirthless laugh. He wondered how much of his psychosis was due to the fact that he had died and how much of it was due to the fact that he wasn't quite human anymore.

Dean just nodded. "Right. The papers said you went on a rampage and murdered your relatives, and some school kids." Dean then went on rather hastily to add, "Not that any of us believed it, of course."

Harry just scrutinized Dean for a moment before asking, "Who's 'we'?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably for a second before wilting under Harry's piercing gaze. "Some of the DA, you know."

"No, I don't. What's this? Have you guys been corresponding?"

"It's more than that," Dean said. "We've actually been meeting. You know, to practise defense spells."

"Oh," Harry said, nonplussed. His first thought was that he hadn't been invited, either to participate or to teach, and he could tell that Dean was worried he would be offended. Instead, Harry just smiled and said, "Brilliant! Keep up with that. Could save your life, you know." Harry went on to nibble on a slice of peach. Two days ago, he probably would have cared about not having been asked back to the DA, but now, like so much else, it felt as though it belonged to another time. Harry realized right then and there that he was no leader. He never had been, and never wanted to be. He was a soldier. A killer. A nutter and a rebel, but no leader, and he realized that a weight disappeared with that revelation. That's what they wanted out of the Boy-Who-Lived. He was a champion, even if they didn't like what it was he was championing.

"Harry?" Dean asked.

"Yes, Dean?"

"Why do you look like you're trying to inspire a fashion trend for a bad sci-fi trilogy?"

Harry glanced down at his attire, and realized that Dean was right. I could be some kind of reluctant super action hero with stylized kung-fu moves, and people could call me 'The One.' It wouldn't even be that far off the mark.

Harry just grinned. "You know, that's not a bad idea. Only we could do it about myself, and it would be a septalogy. You know, one movie for every year I'm in school. And we could imperius the whole country into liking it."

Dean just shook his head. "You know there'd be the occasional religious zealot that would try to kill you. Nobody likes fads."

"True, true," Harry sighed in a mock-disappointed fashion. "I suppose I'll just have to stick to being moderately wealthy and focus on riding out this whole Dark Lord business."

Just then, Harry caught sight of a dark cloak swishing ominously outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the cafe. There was something distinctly familiar about that billow, and, more importantly, Harry thought he saw a distinctive magical shimmer around the figure's arm. He narrowed his eyes and the grin slipped off his face.

"What is it?" Dean asked, suddenly apprehensively glancing about.

"Can you apparate?" Harry asked quietly.

Dean nodded. "Just got my license.

"You'd best be taking off, then."

"What is it?" Dean asked, now glancing around even more conspicuously. Harry couldn't help but scoff at the nervousness in Dean's voice. DA lessons my ass, he thought with just a little bit of leftover spite.

"Death Eaters," Harry continued in that same quiet voice. "At least one. Probably more. Stop glancing around."

Dean did as he was told, and Harry noticed that a stern expression stole over his face. "I'm not leaving you here alone," Dean said fiercely. "I failed you - no - we all failed you in fifth year. I'm not going to fail you now."

Harry wanted to roll his eyes and forcibly apparate Dean to safety, but he knew, somewhere in the back of his mind that he was proud at least, on some level, that people were prepared to fight. Even if they were still young and idealistic. It gave Harry hope that he could fight for more than just revenge - that he could look forward to a brighter dawn.

Harry nodded. "Draw your wand. Be inconspicuous. Can you do wards?" Harry asked.

Dean shook his head. "Only a simple muggle repulsion ward."

"that's more than me," Harry replied. "And that's all we need, really. Use it and get these muggles out of here." Herd them into the back, or out the door, whichever works best."

"Won't that alert the enemy?" Dean asked.

"They already know we're on to them. They're probably waiting for us to take off so they can get us in the back, or maybe they're hoping the place will clear out. They don't want panicked muggles in the way anymore than we do. They'll just be a distraction."

Dean nodded. "Right."

Harry grabbed Dean's wrist just as he was about to cast the ward. "Two things," Harry said quietly, now glancing about himself. He thought he saw a second Death Eater signature, though he couldn't be sure. "Remember you can always apparate to dodge a spell. That'll save your life if you're quick enough. Second, if it's Snape, then you need to be fast with your spells. He can read your mind."

Dean's eyes widened at this statement and he could only nod.

"Shoot first, think later. Always keep moving."

"Understood."

Dean cast the muggle repulsion ward, and soon people were leaving the cafe, half in a daze, some with their wallets still in hand, and others with coffee cups that they didn't seem to quite know what to do with. One guy tripped over a chair and sprayed whipped cream all over himself, but he hardly seemed to notice and instead crawled straight out the front door. There was a fellow with a white cane who was having particular difficulty, and before he managed to get through the front door, he was picked off with a killing curse.

Dean jumped to his feet and was already scanning the empty space where the green light had emanated from. Unlike Harry, he couldn't see magic, and was at a loss. "Disillusionment," he finally said.

"Actually, it's an invisibility cloak," Harry corrected, silently summoning the thing to himself. To his dismay, even as he watched it sail in his direction, he knew that it was his own cloak. And before he could do anything about it, he saw it erupt in a burst of flames, so that it fell uselessly at Harry's feet. From underneath it was now revealed to be none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Hello, little Potter," she cooed, ever so gently. There was something in the sound of her voice that put Harry on edge. It was softer, more dangerous sounding. At first, Harry couldn't place it, until he realized that she sounded more like Severus Snape and less like the insane, arrogant woman he had met at the DOM. She was like a blend of the two.

Harry did a quick check of his surroundings to make sure she didn't have a point guard, and, seeing none, he proceeded to level his wand, which wasn't really a wand at all but a conjured stick of wood. He hardly had time to process the fact that his father's invisibility cloak had been destroyed, because she sent two swift killing curses his way. Dean smartly apparated, while Harry just threw his wand at the incoming spell and simultaneously conjured a dozen bricks over her head.

Bellatrix never even saw them coming, and was bombarded with the lot of them, which collapsed her body to the ground swiftly and neatly. Harry summoned her wand and snapped it over his knee. "Well, that was easy," he said aloud to no one in particular, as he threw the pieces of her now broken wand away. Absently, he lit them on fire, burning them to ash.

"Whoa," Dean said, amazed as he stared at Harry from behind the counter. "That was brilliant. You took out Lestrange, and wandlessly."

Harry shrugged. Two days ago, he would have just been lucky to survive. Now it was child's play. He went up to his Godfather's murderer and hefted one of the bricks right into her face. There was a distinct cracking sound that told him he had cracked her skull. Harry proceeded to bash her head in until it was an unrecognizable mash of bone fragments and brain jelly and ripped up pink flesh.

"Er, Harry?" Dean asked, a tinge of fear and revulsion in his voice.

"Yes, Dean?" Harry asked in his detached, 'I'm a psycho' voice.

"You bashed her face in with a brick."

Harry just looked at Dean as though he were stating the obvious, which, in truth, he was.

"Right," Dean said. "I think I'll just be going now."

"You do that, Dean," Harry replied, as Dean made a swift exit. Harry couldn't help but call after him, "Good luck with the DA!"

Dean was gone, and Harry stood alone in the middle of a muggle cafe, yet another dead body at his feet. He sighed and followed Dean out the door. Where was there to go for him to get his sanity back? Maybe, he thought, maybe I'll take Minnie up on that offer of defense lessons. With that, Harry apparated to Grimmauld Place, or, as close to it as he could get.

The figure of Dean Thomas did not head to the Leaky Cauldron as he told Harry he would. He instead apparated to number four Privet Drive, of all places, and not just any part of number four, but to what used to be considered Dudley's second bedroom. There, he stood to attention before Lord Voldemort.

"Hello, Severus," said Voldemort, who was idly sifting through Harry's belongings, his long, bony white fingers flipping through the pages of Harry's beloved photo album. "What news do you bring?"

Dean Thomas just said, "My Lord, please undo the disguise."

Lord Voldemort raised a hairless eyebrow. "My dear, Severus, you and I both know that undoing polyjuice with magic is most... excruciating."

"No more than having to exist as a mudblood," Severus replied evenly.

"Excellent answer, Severus," said Voldemort. With a snap of his fingers, magic coursed around the figure of Dean Thomas, who swiftly transformed back to the tall, gaunt, greasy-haired figure of Severus Snape. "Now, report."

"Of course, my Lord." Severus made the customary bow of deference before his master. "I used the imperius to take control of Hestia Jones. It was fortunate for us that we used polyjuice and not a simple glamour. The boy has learned to discriminate between Death Eaters and regular magical folk. I believe he can sense the Dark Mark. He seemed to spot the Lestrange clone before she entered the establishment."

Voldemort's face remained impassive. In fact, he wasn't even looking at Severus, and was just continuing to flip idly through the pages of Harry's photo album. However, it was a mistake to think that his keen mind was not processing Snape's words.

Snape continued, "there are a number of things to note about the boy that may be a cause for concern. I will describe his mental state afterwards. First, I would like to bring to your attention his dueling skills. His control over simple conjurations and charms, such as the levitation charm have dramatically improved. He intercepted a killing curse with a conjured stick that he was passing off as a wand. He also used wandless magic to guide the stick into the path of the killing curse that Jones sent his way. He then wandlessly conjured a dozen distinct objects directly over Jones's head. It appears he does not require a wand at all, anymore. How this has come to be, I do not know."

"What of his occlumancy?" Voldemort asked.

"Potter's occlumancy skills are still deplorable. They only exist when he feels threatened. He only seems able to construct a simple wall to defend against a surface probe. It is unclear whether he would hold up against a direct assault. His mind was open to me prior to Jones's arrival. I gleaned the following: the boy is responsible for the destruction of Malfoy Manor. He cares little for the Ministry and is not worried at all about the warrant for his arrest. he does not seem to think they can impede him. He is mourning the death of his two friends. He also does not seem to possess any plan of action at the moment. I expect that he will return to the Order for guidance."

"Grimmauld Place?" Voldemort asked.

Severus nodded.

"Have you had occasion to examine the new wards?"

"Bellatrix is doing that as we speak. Without the Fidelius, the place will nevertheless be vulnerable to an assault. It is only a matter of finding their weakness."

"It will not be so easy," Voldemort replied, snapping the photo album shut and throwing it to one side. "the Order is but one problem amongst many. We will always face resistance. That is for certain. Quelling the Order will do little to rectify that overall problem. No, what we need is to take control of the hegemony. That has been our largest obstacle, and it was one which Dumbledore knew acutely. it was the reason he remained at Hogwarts. His ability to influence the minds of future generations empowered him in ways that the Minister of Magic could only dream about. It is why I am so aggrieved that you threw away your position at Hogwarts. Surely Fenra or one of the others atop the tower would have been most able to handle the old man." Voldemort shook his head. "But that is neither here nor there. Come, let us return to headquarters. There is nothing for us here."

"My Lord, do you not intend to set at least one trap in his bedroom?" Severus asked, lowering his head to make the question as deferential as possible.

"No, there is simply no point. The boy can sense magic. He will not be fooled. He can sense more than the Dark Mark. You neglected to mention that he identified her use of the invisibility cloak even after you sought to mislead him."

"My apologies, my Lord," Severus said, but Voldemort just waved his words away.

"There is no need for that." Voldemort paused and stroked his chin in contemplation. "The boy has changed. I would not have believed it before that he be capable of this. It is clear now that my familiar has expired, and Potter will most certainly enter into a period of reflection. He will have cocooned himself in the familiar scent of others, and when he emerges, he will be the adversary that he is destined to be. I see now the full content of the prophesy. Nothing short of a duel between him and me will end this. Fate and Magic have conspired against me, Severus. Only after he has become my equal will he be truly vulnerable, just as I will be vulnerable to him. Then we shall see who is the victor. Come. There is much to do."

Severus couldn't say he understood everything the Dark Lord had said, but he understood enough. Sighing inwardly, he wondered not for the first time whether he made a mistake throwing his lot in with the Dark Lord. Yes, catering to the brat's whims had been deeply offensive, but now it seemed that Potter actually had a shot at success. Funny how the tables had turned. Not that it mattered. Severus had no recourse but to stay with the side he had chosen, which, he supposed, was the reason the Dark Lord had become more free with information. Even the Dark Lord knew that it was too late for Severus. You only had one chance at redemption, it seemed.