CW: "Major" (Not really) Character Death. Non-consensual touching/licking in this context :( Blood, lots of blood. Graphic depictions of violence. Self-harm, Pentagrams.
Author's Note: The fic gets worse before it gets better, so buckle up for the cringe. My boyfriend forced me into playing Elden Ring with him, so there is a reference in this chapter. :D
8 Spinner's End, Cokeworth, August 1st, 1991
"Alfred, you fat bastard!" Harry yelled at the end of a ladder. The wretched penguin was now sitting atop his head, making Harry lose balance. As he was surrounded by various potions and due to lack of space, he just couldn't stand any longer. He lost his grip and fell backwards, landing with the ladder and Alfred into his aunt's office.
His penguin was sitting on the ground, face blank, and feathers ragged. Harry was a mess, his head throbbing and his knees aching. A painful few minutes later, Harry sat up and arranged himself in a manner befitting his dignity. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. There was but an ache, not a damning trauma on his back. The carpet was soft, like velvet on the soles of his feet, and the room was filled with a harsh odour of chemical perfumes, lit by a small lamp atop a stack of books that looked like a small library. Harry looked around and noticed that there were books everywhere—more than usual—from the floor to the ceiling. Some were in the very corner of the room, and some sat in the middle.
A single letter sat at her desk, unblemished. He got up and walked over to the desk, his hand reaching for the letter. When he clutched it in his hands, a surly dread fell on his shoulders. The letter was addressed to him. The scent drew him in as vapid as hunger. He opened the letter and read. At that instance, a throttle of hands took his neck. They were cold but burned like fire as they meshed with air. He was now in the hands of a creature he had never seen or would ever see again.
The letter—he had seen his aunt take it from the post this morning, inspecting it before warning him away from it when he approached. It was a letter from his uncle. The man who had hurt him and left him to die in that cupboard so many times that he had grown numb from the pain. Yet, he had never understood what made the man tick. Not until this moment, for this letter was not from his uncle. It was from Fenrir Greyback.
How have these people escaped imprisonment? Their lies were as thick as a forest and shallow as a river that had run dry. Harry dreamed about it in infrequent pauses since the day he was at that zoo. That woman—something was wrong. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest when he learned who the letter was from. He would have been able to breathe easier if it had been from his uncle. So that he would ignore him. Instead, he had to deal with the possibility that he had an imminent threat to deal with.
They had been associating with Vernon to siphon information about him. Harry took the letter with him on his ascent back up the ladder, stuffing Alfred into his shirt on the way there. He would not let these people use him or kill him. Whatever they wanted, it concerned him.
Back up in his room, Harry looked out the window. Paranoid for the first time in his life. He could not shake the thought that someone was watching him. But no one was there, at least from what he could see. Harry didn't want to deal with that, and he didn't want to risk angering his uncle or Voldemort's followers. Instead of returning a letter, Harry retired to his desk and sat down on his small office chair. His lips pursed in concentration as he stared at the letter in his hand.
Shuffling footsteps made him aware of his aunt's presence. She had a lingering scent of lavender on her clothes that made him want to sneeze.
"Harry, I told you to clean this place. It's like someone died in here." She was standing in the doorway, her eyes fixed on him.
Harry didn't move an inch. "It's just so peculiar."
She stepped into the room.
"I told you to use the vacuum," she said before picking up his clothes from the floor, hands dripping low like a swooping crane. She started folding them with effortless grace.
Harry lifted his arms towards his aunt and said, "I want you to explain to me what this is."
"You went down to my office?" She glowered at him with a bitter look of disapproval.
"Have you seen the contents of this?" It lurked beneath every word he said, something taking a hold of him. He tried to pull away, but the thoughts kept thrashing in his head. He wanted to tell her what had taken him like this, this frigid and empty feeling in his mind. Harry wanted to tell her what an awful person he was shaping up to be.
"I have not, but you know what I do? Rules, Harry, rules," his aunt spoke with vehemence, a teetering mound of nerves behind her gritted teeth. "Clean up and go to bed."
Harry stared at her. "You opened it yourself before I did," he said. "You're lying."
She was about to yell at him again but closed her mouth at his words. They were tricky sometimes; words. When one could hear right through them, they meant nothing. But with names, it was different: names meant something. Without them, you could start over, you could start anew, but when you have one, it makes you unique and desirable.
"Just put it away," she said, her eyes narrowed as a cold sweat formed on her brow.
"There's something about it. I just can't get it out of my head." Harry was tired of it all, tired of the nightmares, the voices in his head, the coldness in his heart and the name. He was tired of his name.
She tried grabbing for the letter, but Harry pulled it away. "No."
"Harry, just give it here," his aunt said, her demeanour withering. "Nothing from Vernon can remain in this house."
"But it's not from him. It's bait for me to go see them!" Harry was on his feet, his hands on the letter, but his aunt grabbed his wrist.
"Who?!" Petunia asked. Exasperated by his behaviour, she seemed to have lost all control over her emotions.
"The Death Eaters! Fenrir Greyback and his pack! Remember that woman super-glued onto your husband's shoulder?!" Harry stood up to exclaim, "she's with them!"
"All the more reason for you to stay here and let the adults handle it!" The conflict in her face was too surreal for Harry. Petunia Dursley was not the type to be so protective, especially of Harry, a boy who had always been a pest to her. Why was it now that she was stopping him?
Why was she feigning to care?
"I want to go there!" He admitted, feeling it crawling under his skin. The sound of harps, one string at a time, pausing and then starting up against the backdrop of the wind. A thunderous weaving force of many voices, all of them speaking in a language he could not understand.
Cull the heretics, it told him. Harry knew what that meant. He knew the Death Eaters were marked for him next. He knew they would be at his feet grovelling for clemency.
"Are you out of your blithering mind?! They'll kill you!" Petunia cupped his face with both hands, tears glistening in her pale eyes. Her lips fell. "Oh, god." Harry had never seen his aunt cry before. It was a strange ordeal. Heartfelt sobs from a different woman would not make him feel so vulnerable.
"I know. That's why I want to go. I have to find uncle Vernon! You don't understand! He's in trouble!" He needed Harry. The only one who could save him was Harry. No one else. Harry had to go to the Death Eaters and tell them to leave his uncle alone. So that Harry could ratify the orders of the deity himself.
God demanded it.
"I understand everything," she responded. "Think about every memory you have of Vernon... Why would you ever want to save a man like that?" Petunia looked at him in dismay. "Still trying to save the world? Even after everything, you are your mother's son." It let out as a harsh whisper, but it caved in on itself as a blunt truth.
Harry didn't know what was compelling him to think like this. He never liked Vernon. Why was his safety at the forefront of his mind now? Why? It was a blurred question. Harry did not want to be like his mother. He did not want to be like his father. He didn't want to die. But why did he want to save Vernon, of all people?
"A life, even one as miserable as uncle Vernon, can be saved." Why did she not understand? Why didn't he? Harry wanted to scream at her as much as he wanted to scream at himself. But he did not. He was silent, a coward, a fool. He was a child foremost, not to be burdened with such a task.
She tucked him into her shoulder for a fierce hug. Bleak and succinct, the embrace was a steel blade against his slanted shoulders. Harry knew she didn't care for him; he was a tool.
"Get it out of your head."
"No!" Harry said as if the world was collapsing around him or if he was sinking into an abyss of black water. "This is important." He did not know if it was. He just craved being required.
"You're just a child! You can't handle yourself, not against Greyback, not without me! I'll protect you! So stay put where I can see you and don't even think about going there!"
If he needed to take Greyback down, he would. He didn't need his aunt. All this arguing would make it so hard when he got to Privet Drive, and maybe, just maybe, Harry would get that much closer to saving Vernon Dursley. He would not let them get away with this half-baked taunt until he knew his uncle was clear of any harm. His safety was Harry's priority. They would not hold him as a hostage against his head, for Harry will be the one to grant his uncle Death's tentative mercy, not them.
Petunia cocked her head. She led him to this decision. Yes, it was her fault.
"Get dressed for bed, Harry. We will discuss this tomorrow."
Harry nodded his knuckles as pale as whalebone. A sharp sting pricked his finger as he looked up at his aunt. "I don't need you."
"But I need you," she replied.
Blood fell to the pale boards of the floor. A dark red mist seeped out. Like a serpent, it coiled, surging through his veins. He was not alone in his mind any longer.
Harps assailed once again.
"Rise…"
It was the voice of God beckoning him. A choir of voices, calling him to the darkness in every corner of his room. Blood, it echoed. Reverberating, it cascaded through the air in his lungs. It was asphyxiating, like a universe being eaten.
A coastline, the scalding vision of a sea. In a cavern, a stalagmite composition sat amid an island, the grim light of the cave-mouth shading the innards with a deathly green hue.
"Harry... what... on earth do you think you're doing?!" Petunia broke free of his spell, but it was enough time for him to run. It pushed him along to the grand pile of cinder in the living room's heart. In his hand, he released the powder, a warmth flooding in with the ticking clock.
"Harry, no! You're under a compulsion!" Her yelling was now muffled by green flames as he grieved in his perhaps unwise decision. The clock struck eleven as the fire consumed him.
A teeming gale thrashed his black hair back, revealing his forehead. Harry didn't know why he was standing at Privet Drive or why he wanted to save Vernon, but here he was in the middle of the deserted street. Dealings around these parts were cut short after the whole muck from 1988. Fenrir Greyback ran through the streets, decimating the Aurors one by one. The man was said to be a beast, eating children and beheading men as he slew through the night.
Harry made his way to the fourth house. The lawn was clean and shabby without aunt Petunia's garden. It was glum. He approached his old home in anticipation and knocked. It shot thrice, a quick thump against the birch, pure and beige.
"Hello?" He said, waiting for the door to swing open, his breath coming in slow and iambic. A beat passed before he heard footsteps and the worn door creak. The lady who opened the door was tall, and her mouth was painted with bright red lipstick.
She wore tight and dark leather, a gown fit for a queen of hell if there was one. Her hair laid past her ivory shoulders like a golden waterfall twirling into lively curls. The woman held a porcelain teacup filled with tea that stunk rich and metallic—exotic—must have been.
Her face was very familiar, but Harry couldn't pin the map. With severe eyes and a stick-like nose, she had to be a model.
"My, what a surprise. Who could you be?" she asked, her bright red lips stretching to reveal a set of white canines.
Harry stared at her; it was as if he was thinking about her minutes ago. He just couldn't put a name on it. Even thinking about it made his head hurt.
"Excuse me, I'm just looking for... someone," Harry mumbled. His eyes darted around the premise in search of the right person.
"Handsome and a gentleman? You must get all the ladies worked up." She said in a malignant tone, giggling as he looked at her in confusion. "Let's play a game first, and perhaps I'll let you in to drum up what you're looking for." The woman took a step closer. The windows inside were barred up, with old wooden planks hammered in as a barricade. He could still hear the howling winds bashing against them and the screeching of the metal rim as it scraped upon the sill.
"Oh—okay, what kind of game?"
"It's simple. You tell me your name and a fun fact about you, and I'll do the same as payment for your entry." The woman said to him with a smile, her eyes twinkling with sadistic fascination.
"Okay, I am Harry Potter, and I have a pet penguin," he said.
"Delighted. My name's Teresa, and the coolest thing about me is that my sister is famous—a baroness!"
"In the House of Lords?" Harry popped the question.
"No, silly, in the States!" That sort of explained her strange accent. It was a mixture of American with a bit of something else he couldn't put a finger on. "Well, I say sister, but she doesn't know I exist," she said afterwards.
"That's weird."
"Well? Don't just stand there! Come in! Come in!" She said with ardent vigour, hair spinning as cotton candy would in the right consistency, yet her voice held a tune of the most joyous nature, however unsweet it may be.
Harry was drawn to her, following her inside in a stupor. "I'm sorry, I'm just here to... what was I here for again?" He couldn't keep his eyes off her. The woman was so stunning that it was taxing to look anywhere else.
She put her teacup down. "Now, Harry, you couldn't have forgotten your memory so soon?" she asked.
Harry's cheeks flushed, and he felt a slight tingling in his stomach as the woman cornered him near a wall, making him look into her eyes. They were pale as grapes yet dimmer than a moonless night.
"You've been a naughty boy, Harry." His face burned brighter as he stepped back into the wall, caressed by shadows. A plate of fine china sat mounted over his head, and above that, a portrait of an oil-painted Marjorie Dursley.
"What—"
"I wonder what you taste like..." The woman leaned down and licked his throat. It was pins of pine or some root grinding up his throat, searing at the touch. The prickling tinge of tears that sparkled in his eyes was stifled as the woman wrestled with the first button of his shirt. The black puff that was Alfred popped his head through at the unrest.
"You weren't lying about the penguin?" The woman said, face in complete, utter disbelief. The woman let off a content sigh and stood him back up with her hand.
Harry held back his fear and opposed her, whispering down to Alfred as she turned her back on him.
"… Alfred, can you do your thing?" He hissed into a whisper. The penguin droned in for his thumb and started licking.
"How about you sit there, and we can both wait for that someone, why don't we?" the woman said as she relaxed onto the table, ignoring the chairs and sofas.
"On the floor?" Harry said, his voice trembling with something that resembled fear.
"No, but I'll be more than happy to see you do it," she said, wagging her finger at him.
Harry let himself earn a smile as Alfred breached the upper layer of his skin, blood oozing out in a sombre trickle. It wasn't much, but it would be enough to ignite her.
"And why is that?"
"Because I detest you… and the being that lives in you," she said.
The world stopped.
"What… do you mean?"
"It is spectacular, isn't it?" The woman then pulled a cigarette from the carton on the coffee table. "The Call and its powers." She lit one with a snap of her fingers. As she dragged, the soot dying off, ashes flicking into the air, halted his breath.
"How do you know about that?" Harry said as Alfred hopped out and ran into the kitchen. He drew his bleeding thumb back.
"Well, for one, it's a total mockery of the real thing us vampires have." She said as she took another drag. His own thoughts were returning to him now. He had been under her spell since he touched that letter. Why was it now that it was coming back to him? "Or is it?" she taunted before her eyes travelled behind him.
"There you are, boy-who-lived." A voice snarled behind him. In the doorway stood a tall man with bestial features. His teeth were unclean to a voracious intensity. They were frothing at the ends of his mouth, and his eyes were a stormy grey. His hair was the colour of crude oil, and his right arm was a mess of battle-won scars.
Fenrir Greyback.
The first Death Eater to escape Azkaban. And next to him was—was the very last face he wanted to see right now.
"Uncle Vernon?" Harry regretted not bringing his new wand.
His uncle now had a strong jawline, a robust figure, and beady eyes that bore into his soul. Before they averted to speculate a particular spot on the wall next to Greyback. Something was off. He could smell it.
"Why does he look like that?" Harry asked, not caring about the repercussions it might bring.
"Kind of you to notice," Teresa said. "Just a dietary change."
He felt a surge of confidence and stood up straight. "There were three that escaped from Azkaban... where's the third one?" Harry asked. There was no way he was getting out of this without stalling.
Teresa let out a snide laugh, and Greyback joined in, the vampire even rolling her head back in mania.
"So bold, just like your dead parents—" she started.
"—Yet so delicate," Greyback griped.
"Oh, Harry, I didn't escape from nowhere!" Teresa spat at him.
"Sire, will you kill the boy now?" 'Vernon' asked her. But Harry was unsure of what to call the man anymore. He was a thing now, a creature of horror.
Harry slid his hand into his pocket, found where the letter had been, and showed it to them. "Here's your letter back... I need to tell aunt Petunia and my cousin of their loss." No one moved. They only stared at him. Teresa had lifted a leg over the other from where she sat on the table, her eyes lowered, and her scowl fiendish.
"I don't know, Vernon," the woman said. "It's not me who wants him dead."
He saw the disdainful stare of his uncle as he was backed into a corner. But luck never liked him. He was sure of it now. Greyback's long arm had latched itself into his throat.
"You think you can outrun a wolf, boy?" Greyback said before tossing him to the other end of the room. He landed flat on his back, arching into the dining table. "Then run."
"He won't have to," a familiar voice said as they pushed Vernon and Teresa away with a powerful gust of wind. It only went so far as his uncle was pushed back enough to crash into the side wall. But Teresa—she was a monster. She batted away the wind and stayed strong in front of Severus as he stared them down.
He felt it then, too. That crawling darkness, an eternity, promised to him like the flutter of butterfly wings that burst once. Then again, and again. It was retching out of him, an intense heat. He was going to die.
"Sectumsempra!" Severus' voice outmatched Harry's scream as the chandelier above him exploded from his magical instability. The broken candles spilled, and fire grazed through the carpeted floor. Greyback bolted like a jaguar, his feet crouching in a prowling stance before he did so. He sprung onto a deflecting blue shield Severus cast as he swivelled under great claws. The vampire lady was on Severus, gripping his collar and hurling him.
Harry dove under the table as Severus flew over him, smacking into the stairwell. He was on his feet before Greyback reached him. Severus directed his wand at the three assailants.
"Petrificus Totalus!" The spell hit Greyback in the chest, and he fell back like a statue built from gravel before turning to sand and reconvening on the other side of the room, materializing in a golden light.
Harry watched with alarm as Severus swerved at a curse thrown at him.
Greyback had a wand.
"Go, Harry!" Severus yelled as they veered around him. Harry leveraged his weight against the blazing tiles as he booked it into the next room, where he'd seen Alfred run off.
"You filthy traitor!" Greyback growled as he ripped into Severus' skin, leaving a blood trail as it did on the lycanthrope's chest from his spell. Severus rolled out of the way just in time to drop his heavy black robe. There was thrashing and sounds of spells being hurled around.
As he turned the last corner before the stairwell, Harry felt the blood drain from his veins. Teresa and Vernon were in front of him.
"You little minx. Just where do you think you're going?" She hissed as she kicked him back into the room. Harry winced. The fire spread across the floor, the flames reaching the ceiling. Harry had to get out of there. He needed to get to Alfred, but the penguin had gone upstairs.
Severus' wand sent a wave of spectral shadows at the two, binding them to the wall. The potions master was caught against a stray piece of furniture as Fenrir crashed into a conjured protection spell.
"Vernon! Take off his head!"
Harry prepared himself. Now was the time to focus.
Vernon broke free of his shadowy confines, running at Harry at terrific speed. Biting his injured thumb, Harry drew more blood and sprayed Vernon with it.
The red splashed over his eyes and brows, blinding him. He muttered the sacred words under his breath and witnessed the blood exploding into a fiery miasma.
Vernon screamed, clutching his face to put it out, but that only made it worse.
With an upswing for the stairs, Harry made it out of sight before the fire swallowed him, but it took Vernon's life, or, more so, the lack of it as it endowed the rest of the stairs. At least, that's what Harry thought until Vernon walked through the conflagrations and into the room.
"You're very peculiar, boy... you always were," Vernon announced as he neared him. "You seem so terrified, and yet your eyes gleam with elation," Vernon said, catching his palms soaked in blood.
There was no other choice now. He had to invoke the darkness within him. The only way to save himself would be to draw the sigil of the God of Blood.
"You're right… Tres," he chanted.
"Strange word, for a strange boy… what are you going to do with it?" Vernon threatened his existence with each step taken. Harry chilled his nerves, thin and shaking, his bloodied index painted a circle on his right palm.
"Aunt Petunia shouldn't have ever married you. You're a horrible man," Harry said, hoping that his panic wasn't profound. A line, then another, until the circle was filled with a pentagram.
"You think her a saint, do you?"
"She's much better a person than you'll ever be."
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong." Vernon drew closer, and Harry scrambled back further. "She is worse than me."
"She isn't the one trying to kill an eleven-year-old."
His uncle let out a laugh. It was more than a chuckle. "Of course not. Think back to the day after Dudley's sixth. "Of course not. Think back to the day after Dudley's sixth. Has it fizzled out of your head already, boy?"
"What do you mean?"
"You assume she cares for you?" Vernon raised a brow. "She is only using you to cover her rapacious hide."
"D-Duo."
"Two," Vernon said before realizing that his cockiness might have been his shortcoming. A circlet of magical runes encircled the vampire's throat. "What have you done?"
"Unus…"
"No—"
"I'm sorry, uncle," Harry said as his hands bled and thrust it upward.
"You little—"
"Nihil!" Nothing.
The room grew red for a moment before Vernon sputtered out blood.
"Nihil!"
Vernon coughed up more blood and fire.
A small, satisfied smile rose on Harry's face.
"Nihil…"
"You... you killed me...?" Vernon said, somewhat dumbfounded in between bloody coughs. "But I... thought..." The man fell to the floor in a plop.
Looking at Vernon on the ground, the boy sprung up and fell back hard, not having enough strength to get up. Studying the body, Harry was in shock, his eyes frozen, his mouth agape. But the blood that spilled from the mouth made it worse.
He had killed Vernon.
And he enjoyed it.
But at that moment, Harry felt anything but joy. Alfred came out of the corner and waddled over to him. Licking his wounds as the fire closed in on him.