Chapter Two: Silence, Summers, and Screams
"I suppose it's all perspective, really. Some people see the bad things that happen to them as a burden, others as potential for growth." –Rebecca Roanhorse
Must Maim. Rip. Kill. Master said to MaimRipKill.
So hungry, so hungry, so hUnGrY hungry hungry hungry.
Must Maim and Rip and Kill.
Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill
Maim. Rip. Kill.
Maim.
Rip.
Kill.
mAiM. RiP. KiLl.
Speak to me! Heed my call Slytherin's monster! Answer to your new Master.
Obey!
Cleanse the school of the filth and then you can feed on them all.
Maim.
Rip.
Kill.
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The sword feels like coming home. It feels like she has been handed her wand all over again, it feels like she's falling into the softness of a nest and the warmth of a burrow. It settles in her grip like a well beloved broom and cherished cloak and the warmth of cold reflective metal under her shaking palm.
And suddenly it like she's…home. Like there is a grin on her face and arm across her shoulders and the sheer tenderness of a family who loved her instead of hating her. She falls into the stance the follows her across worlds. Falls into it like she falls into the sky and snow and into the realm of animals that roam free and unhindered.
Then it's as simple as waving her wand, it's like feeling the drafts under soft wings, and she glides like she's dancing.
[It erupts deep inside of her. The cold that burns. It breaches from the very center of her soul and the whole of her heart and the longing in her mind. It erupts and burns the world.]
Then all she knows is pain, a hot scorching pain like sandpaper in her blood and coals behind her eyes and the nesting of humming bird hearts forcing the jagged broken glass to rip and rip and rip until everything that she is begins to bleed out and dry up.
[It's the first time she ever dies. Well and truly dies and it's soft like snow and amber hair and tender unbroken bloody skin. Feels like home and love and minehis, minehis, minehis, minehis.]
The memory of Tom Riddle dies. It's the second person she has ever killed. She hopes it's the last and yet something tells her he won't be.
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Shetheyhim is hungry. Starving on hertheirhis last leg, everything hurts. Cold, freezing cold, frozen water sticking to hertheirhis ripped gaunt skin, aching aching aching aching. Shetheyhim growls deep in shetheirhis throat, watching the slumbering house, identical and boring in every way. It's not surprising this is where Lily's sister would settle with her giant husband and their giant child.
Shetheyhim, know this house. Knows the creaks and squeaks and the spider nests. Knows where to walk and where to run and where to stand still. Knows how to bend the metal of the bars with her fingers, knows how to the drag the locks out of place with a thought.
Knows there is a girl that Shetheyhim don't deserve to see, doesn't deserve to know, doesn't deserve her love or smiles or care. It's his fault his fault his fault his fault his fault his fault his fault his his his his-
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She's sitting on a curb, knees tucked to her chest with her arms and neck covered in fingerprint bruises, the first time she meets her godfather. She's twelve years old and it's been eleven years since either has seen the other. But she didn't know that at the time.
She's shaking, the cold breeze skirting on her skin, freezing the unfallen tears on her eyes. She breaths deeply, feels the oxygen burn inside her lungs and then let's go. Her chest collapsed, head dizzy and light, she can feel her heart pulsing behind her belly button.
She falls on her back, head nestled on the grass and dew, spreads her arms out and looks out to the stars. Watches as her eyes try to convince her that the stars are twinkling, changing colors the longer she looks.
She closes her eyes, focuses on her ears, hears the dogs littering the neighbors yards. Hears the wind push the old swings back and forth and back again, hears the crickets chirp and frogs croak from the underbrush. Everything else sleeps. Slumbers underneath the crescent moon. Marge is sure to be floating up there, in those stars and before that moon.
She can faintly hear the cracks of apparition from down the street, can hear the voices and the yells and the screech from Aunt Petunia's mouth. She breaths deep again, feels the cold air travel down her aching throat, burning her in the process, feels it settle in her lungs and behind her diaphragm. Holds it there until she can feel the blood rushing through her veins.
Then released it.
Only to startle up with a scream stuck in her throat when a wet slobbery tongue rubs across her face. It's a dog, big and black with large glowing greyblue eyes. It's teeth are sharp, glinting only inches from her face, tongue wagging from it's mouth. She sits up properly watching it as it watches her with a unusual intensity, pulls her knees back to her chest.
"Hello." She keeps her voice quiet, not wanting the Wixen to hear her. Not wanting to scare the dog away. It's been awhile since she had seen Hedwig, having let her stay with Hermione over the summer instead of the Dursley's house.
The dog watches some more, tilts it's head to the side with its ears drooping.
"Are you hungry?" she asked as she pulls the wrapped food from her pockets. She'd been hiding it away, while she cooked and cleaned, to eat later. But the dog is stick thin, she can see it's hip bones poking out and was sure he didn't have so much fur then she would be able to count it's ribs.
She unwraps the two left over sandwiches from lunch, then the ham, crackers, and cheese she pilfered from the platter in the fridge, and the slivers of steak from dinner.
"Sorry I don't have more. The Dursley's don't really care if I eat."
The dog growls, bending down to rub its nose on the ground, and turns it's head from the napkins. She smiles, grabs a sandwich and takes a bite.
"See, we can share," she says as she rips the rest up into tinier pieces so the dog wouldn't choke. "Have some, please."
It watches her for a second, looking between the food and her a few times before slowly gobbling up the sandwich.
[Should the obvious intelligence scare her? Probably, but Harry has grown used to her Owl's sharp eyes, and a dragons fast matured mind, and a snakes warbling voice. She's been inside their heads, knows that they understand far more than humans ever want think.]
She smiles and sits beneath the stars to eat, for the first time in almost two days, with this gigantic black dog.
Later, when the moon shifts across the sky and the wind picks up harshly, after she's done rubbing magic covered fingers through the dogs matted bloody fur.
"I'll call you Silence, because I didn't hear you walk up earlier. Is that okay?"
The dog looks up from her lap, goes back down again with a huff.
"So Silence, would you like to go to London with me?" she asks with a smile, raising her wand to the street and begins another trip into Diagon Ally.
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The first time she cast her patronus she is thirteen years old and can feel her soul being sucked from her body.
[Fate is not a mistress at all. So she can not be fickle. Time goes back and forth and back again. Time is like sand, billions apon billions apon trillions of grains.]
It does not take shape, or perhaps it does but it never stays that way. It lands on hoofed feet, flies with dragon wings, looked at her with sharp golden eyes, is flanked with black fur and scaled skin. It does not keep it's shape.
[She was four years old when she discovered magic. But it wasn't right. No matter what books she reads or what questions she asks, it was never right.]
Harlona Potter is thirteen when she casts her first patronus over her godfathers unconscious body.
It never keeps it's shape.
More often then not, it's like a fog that shifts with every movement. Like a boggart trying to scare a group of people with different fears. Sometimes it's a stag, stand strong and proud against the backdrop of forest. Sometimes it a small dragon that stares at her, hungry and fireless. Sometimes it's a snake so large that the classroom is almost too small to hold it.
Sometimes it's Silence sitting peacefully at her feet, watching and playing. Sometimes it's Hedwig perching in her hair like the real thing does. Chirping and nipping her ears.
They keep her safe, gliding across the fields and trees and water, to keep her and Sirius(who was Silence) safe.
When Sirius flys away on the back of Buckbeak, a wolf runs across the courtyard. Joining the dog and owl and stag.
Later, when she is boarding the train to leave for the summer, Silence is bounding across the platform, huffing and puffing around the piece of paper in his mouth.
Your coming to stay with me this summer no matter what anyone says. - It reads. - I promised. I love you, Silence.
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In the early days of the summer break, Sirius and Harry explore muggle London. With glamours and magic to hide them. She watches Sirius get a new tattoo the span of his forearm, watches him re-pierce his ears and then getting her own. And then convinced him to dye his hair the muggle way.
That leads to the renaming of Silence to Snuffles. Who, instead of black, is now brown with spots of blonde. [Which will later be spots of blood when he rips a Death Eater's throat out with his teeth at the World Cup.]
Sirius teaches her a lot of things that summer, teaches her things Molly or Dumbledore would've never wanted her to know. Puts his blood into her own, watches as her bones get ever sharper and her eyes gleam Sirius' grey-blue up close.
By the time Sumer ends, Sirius has taught Harry a lot of things. By the time summer ends, a grey direwolf joins the Grim in the attic.
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She nearly falls from the weight of the dragon, it's gaze a physical weight on her shaking shoulders. She nearly stumbles from it as the nesting mother watches her. The breath is burning in her lungs, heavy with carbon instead of oxygen and she. can't. breath.
It sends sharp needles of pain through her body every step that take her closer to the dragon. Norberta was never this imposing, she never had this weight about her.
Harry is nearly crushed under the immeasurable weight of the Dragon's gaze, but she doesn't. Her breath is exhaled from her lungs, let's go as she slowly raised her hands to show the mother that she had not wand or weapon.
Slowly she steps forward, one hesitant step forward at a time. Only then does she kneel, baring her neck up at the mother dragon in a show of submission.
[She knows the minds of these beings. Knows them and lives in them and adopts them. They were not creatures or beasts but living sentient beings who have complex minds of their own. A dragon one of the most intelligent she's ever experienced.]
Parseltongue falls easily from her lips, slowly and with more growl then hiss this time, because dragons are not snakes and they never would be. It had taken her years of being in Norberta's head to get even a little proficient at changing her pitch to mimic the dragon.
"There is a fake amongst your nest. I've been sent to retrieve it."
"A…fake…?"
The nesting mother rumbles back from her throat, harsh and no doubt painful for her to pronounce. Harry hates that she is chained and trapped. No one and no being deserves to be locked away from the sky like this. It brings tears to her eyes even now.
"Yes, a fake made of metal and magic. It shines golden amongst your beautiful eggs."
She growls in a way Harry can not understand, too garbled and scratches to be words in parseltongue. Slowly Harry looks up, watches as the dragon nudges the eggs with her snout.
Harry flinches when the dragon roars to the sky, the fire streaming from her throat seemingly scorching the clouds. She nearly breaks under the weight of the dragons rage. Her muscles spasm under it, she nearly wither when the dragons mind bore down on her own.
Unconsciousness flickers at the edges of her eyes, white dots blurring her sight as the dragons head gets closer and closer and closer to her own body. The heat that wafts off her skin makes it even more unbearable.
[Harry can not stand the heat, has not been able to since she was young and burning underneath the summer sun in Aunt Petunia's gardens. She can not stand it.]
She nearly buckles, bones nearly bending to do so, but she's been inside their heads, she can stand outside of them. The dragon stares at her, hot scorching air blowing her hair harshly behind her. She can feel her skin being steamed. Soon enough she would begin to burn.
She keeps her hands loose and open, not moving, not standing, but shifting her eyes to look into one of the dragons own. The dragon speaks again slowly
"Forest Dragon…speaks…of you. A human…who…can…speak. Nest mate…the…forest dragon…calls…this human. Take…the fake…far away…dragon kin."
Harry slowly stands when the dragon cranes her long neck back up to the sky, once again releasing the stagnant breath from her lungs. The dots clear, and the mind pressing against her own lightens so much so that it has her staggering as she inches towards the the dragon's nest.
She keeps her hands visible as she reaches in and heaves the heavy golden egg from it place nestled inbetween the other scorching warm real eggs. She backs away far easier than when she walked up, making sure to never move too fast or suddenly in case the dragon decided to take back her leniency.
Only when she gets back to the Champions Tent did she crumple and buckle. Head bounces up from the floor as unconscious overtakes her.
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The shining glint of treasure catches her eyes as she glides past the Merpeople colony. Long arms trailing behind her. Slowly she comes to a stop.
She hovers there. Watching. Watching. Watching. Then it shines again, then again, then again. She flutter closer, keeping stray arms tucked close to her body.
The treasure is beautiful, shining golden bubbles wrapped around the floating humans in the Merpeople's domain. Slowly, she brings a tentacle close to the floating humans, then pokes.
They wiggle. She does it again, and the bounce against on another. They are shining brighter now. She brings up another tentacle,
then another, then another.
They bounce and wiggle and shake.
She jerks away sharply, fleeing when she sees the Merpeople racing towards her with their shape teeth, claws and spears.
She shrieked, inky trail skirting in the water as the sharp pin points prickle her skin.
She speeds back into the darkness of the water.
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Snuffles is barking in the stands, she can hear that first, over the sounds of her own pounding painful heartbeat. Sirius is the first to notice something wrong as the people cheer in the stands. He's barking, snarling, she can hear him.
She's alive.
Cedric is dead.
She's sobbing, but she doesn't know that, doesn't know she's screaming when she says he's back, he's back, he's back. Voldemort.
She crying and bleeding and still feels his voice in her head. Like oil on water, like glue and glass and Basilisk venom slicing against her mind. It isn't- it isn't- she can't-
Think.
Everything Hurts, her head, her bones, her veins, her blood. She's screaming but she doesn't know it. She's sobbing but she doesn't feel it. She's breaking and everything breaks with her.
The ground crumples, the stands rot, the maze walls wither to blackened roots.
She's breaking and she can still feel him inside her. head.
There are hands dragging her up and away. Hands hands hands, she fights and struggles against the hold. Nails and teeth and magic.
Someone is grappling her, hands on her shoulders and arms and legs. Dragging her away away away away from Sirius' barking.
Cedric is dead. She is alive. She's fighting and he's dead.
Someone screams, then everyone is screaming.
In those last seconds, before the black over takes her, everything turns cold.
A/N: We don't cover it in detail, so Sirius gets on the train with her when third year ends. He had already put Buckbeak up at #12 and the made his way back to Harry.
Harry had taken Silence with her to Hogwarts during her third year and told everyone he was her new dog. Later when she says the dementors killed Silence she tells everyone Snuffles is her new dog during forth year.
They stay at Grimmauld place all summer. Sirius dyes his hair brown at the roots and blonde at the tip. He lets her read through the Black Library after blood adopting her. They do not visit Diagon Ally at all that summer.
Oh and both Lily and James blood adopted her when they found her as a baby so she basically has like five parents.
Now we have one or two more chapter to go before we get to Westeros. Yay!!!
Thank you all for reading! Have a good day/night!! :)