A/N: Hello all. Life has been kicking my butt in an exciting way. I'm in the process of buying a house - but there's been a lot of fiddly bits that, when coupled with how intense work is right now, has just left me not wanting to do very much at all. Also some emotional upset has happened so...all this to say, this update is late. But I'm here now and hopefully, I will be back to my two-week updating schedule.
Quick note - there is a fight in this chapter and I have difficulties with fight scenes so bear with me if the pacing is a little off.
Hope you enjoy :)
Chapter 27: Why don't we go talk about it
1st September 1993
Petunia looked at the broken lock to the cupboard they kept the Freak in when she misbehaved. After that horrid man had threatened them in their own home, she and Vernon had decided it was better that the Freak get given Dudley's second bedroom. Her little Diddums had wailed at how unfair it was, but they'd had no choice. And once they explained that those horrid unnatural people would hurt them if they didn't listen, he quietened down some.
They still kept the Freak in there when she misbehaved or did…it. Vernon had been harsher than he should have been when she ran off without telling them in the summer, and the cupboard was a better reminder that she was still in their house. Their rules would still apply and there would be consequences if they didn't.
Like not being allowed back at that school.
Petunia wouldn't have let her stay over the school term. It wasn't worth the rest of the freaks banging down her door just so she could see that stupid challenging look be crushed in the Freak's eyes. And nobody wanted her around anyway. Petunia had just wanted to make her anxious that she would miss her precious train.
But she had broken the lock, taken her…things and had gotten to London on her own. Good. Now they didn't need to take her ever again. And if Petunia was lucky, the Freak would be hit by a car or something along those lines and they just wouldn't have to deal with it at all.
Vernon would be mad, but if he could just…refrain himself a little then it would be fine. Nothing permanent, they'd agreed. Nothing that they would need to take her to the hospital for. But the Freak brought out the worst in him - in all of them. Vernon was fine when she wasn't around. They all were fine. The house was peaceful and happy and without stress, but she always brought it back as soon as she was around them.
It was probably her Freakish abilities.
They had tried to make her normal. They had tried to teach her that it wasn't natural to be able to do those things. Petunia had almost thought that the girl was safe from all of it. But then she'd gone and made her ratty blanket move, and that had been it. She was a lost cause.
Petunia had felt…robbed that day. If the Freak had just been normal, if she hadn't moved that God awful blanket, then Petunia could have grieved her sister without guilt. She could have had a niece. Maybe she could have had a daughter.
She placed a hand on her stomach. Dudley was her only. Her last.
Some small part of her had hoped that the girl could've been hers too. But she had blown all those hopes away with one look at that blanket with her Lily-green eyes and that was it.
She was one of them.
There was a knock on the front door.
The sound startled Petunia and she pulled her robe closed with the hand that had been resting on her stomach. It was far too early to have visitors.
Petunia walked to the door and looked through the peeper. Her body stiffened with annoyance. It was that hag, Figg.
She opened the door.
"Good morning Petunia. A fair day, isn't it?" She smelt of cat food; a wet, processed, musty smell that would shift and enter Petunia's nostrils any time the old woman moved. She wrinkled her nose with distaste but said nothing about it.
"What do you want? She's already left."
"Don't you want to invite me inside?" The hag smiled. Her teeth were stained yellow and incredibly crooked. It made Petunia feel ill.
Who were these people to dump a child they hadn't wanted on their doorstep a decade ago and then complain about how they were treating her? How dare they? There had been no support, no explanation other than that absurd letter - nothing.
As if it hadn't been bad enough that man Dumbledore had intruded in their home and used his disgusting magic on her husband, she had found out that one of her neighbours was an associate of his. And that she'd been put there to watch them. It was insulting. A breach of their privacy and security.
She remembered the first time the hag had told them who she was. She'd come with more threats about what he would do to them. That he was the most powerful Wizard in the century.
Well, if he was so powerful, why did they need to take care of the Freak?
The hag cocked a wiry eyebrow and Petunia let her in, closing the door behind her. She would not invite her any further than the first few steps into her home.
"I thought I saw her leaving early. She's a little young to be making the trip to London by herself, isn't she?" the hag asked.
"No."
"Really?"
"She left before we could wake up. I couldn't have taken her if I wanted to," Petunia said through her gritted teeth.
The hag hummed. "She seemed to be favouring one side. Did she get hurt?"
"She ran off somewhere in the summer and sprained her ankle. It wasn't bad enough to need treatment. She's fine."
"Will she be coming home for the Christmas holidays?"
"She never does."
"That's a shame." The hag hummed again but nodded. "You're treating her well then?"
Petunia clenched the fist that was still holding the robe together hard enough that she felt her fingernails bending under the pressure. "You and yours have threatened us enough. We wouldn't risk our lives for the brat."
The hag frowned, but nodded. "Well, I suppose I'll see her in the summer, won't I? She'll be turning fourteen next year."
What did that even matter? But Petunia answered anyway. "Yes."
"Good well…make sure she has a good birthday. Fourteen is an important stepping stone for a young witch."
Petunia inhaled sharply at the word but nodded all the same. "If that will be all, I have breakfast to prepare."
"Of course. Have a good morning Petunia, and do say hello to Vernon and Dudley for me."
"I'll be sure to," she said stiffly. Petunia would have ushered the hag out of her home, but she didn't want to touch her. Who knew what she carried around on her clothes all day. Not only that, but there was cat hair on every visible part of her clothing.
It was better to just wait for the hag to leave of her own volition than risk picking up some nasty disease.
Saturday 28th May 1994
Tom didn't remember falling asleep, but he knew he was in a dream. Dreams felt a little too close to his time in the Diary, but at least he knew that he would wake up from them. And if he concentrated hard enough, he could recognise the dream while still in it. Lucid dreaming, the Muggles called it.
Strangely enough, however, this time he knew he was dreaming but he couldn't control it. Not fully. And stranger still, the girl was there too.
Tom had never dreamt of Potter.
She was on the other side of a door that had always been there and wasn't there a moment ago. Tom walked through it and saw Halley standing over two red-headed boys. They were two of the Weasley girl's brothers. Fred and George.
They were frozen in fear as a Boggart hovered over them and Tom could see the tears in their eyes. And he knew just what had happened.
Tom walked beside her, still looking at the twins. "It feels good, doesn't it?"
He didn't need to ask. At the base of his stomach he could feel the giddyness throbbing - the satisfaction piercing its way into their mind.
"It does."
Honey. Lysander had told him honey was sweeter, and he knew this to be the case. Scared little girls didn't want to be told what to do. They wanted not to be scared anymore.
"You can feel like that all the time," he said.
Tom had something in his grasp. Some part of the dream was his too. He moved forwards, and as he did so the twins melted away.
"Is that what you feel?" she asked. She was letting him show her. She was giving him the chance to show her what power truly could be.
"Oh, little Halley," Tom laughed, "I feel so much more." Tom took the strings of the dream and pulled. He offered to her an image; she stood tall and strong - beautiful and wrathful in her power. Gracious and merciless. She was a goddess amongst men. Those in Hogwarts meant nothing. Seas of people parted in red, tinted in yellow and gold - fear and awe. One needed both to guide. To rule. To control.
Halley waited, staring at the threads that were so easy to hold if only he would hand them to her. He could see himself through her eyes. He looked powerful. He looked content. He looked at ease.
"I want to feel what you feel," she said.
"Then let me in." He pulled a thread to her. It hovered, flexible and ready to wrap her in its smooth silk. It moved forward, closer and closer until it reached out and gently pushed her scar into view.
Then it grew taught, and something dimmed.
Somewhere in between her head and her fingertips Halley felt an echo of something that was so familiar to Tom. She felt uneasy. He felt caged. Something was calling to him.
"Not yet," she said.
Tom let the threads drop and the image melted into grey. They were surrounded by grey and blue, by nothing and promises of everything.
"But soon," he said.
"Maybe."
He promised. "Soon."
The dream stayed clear in his mind when he woke up, and Tom was puzzled. In the seconds after he woke, his whole being yearned for...something. For the eternal seconds it took to clear himself from sleep, something was reaching out into the night. And in the clarity you only got milliseconds after dreaming, he knew it was Halley Potter.
Then it all dimmed and he was left with the remnants of the dream. As clear as they were, they made no sense.
The vividness of the whole thing was unsettling, but what was troubling him was the way he'd felt the girl's emotions as clearly as if they were his own. He was more used to feeling flashes of emotions now with the Weasley chit's soul in his body. Those emotions lashed out like hormonal tantrums. Easy to ignore - like a screaming child.
This was different. It was almost like Legilliency, but...where Legilimency let him view her emotions and thoughts through a lens, giving him some sort of distance, this was hers.
Her emotions but swelling in his body until they became his. Impossible to ignore. Impossible to not feel.
What was even more disturbing was that he could not convince himself that it was only a dream.
His body felt charged in the same way he did when he was around powerful magic. It was seeping into him, feuling him in some way. Tom felt more powerful. Whether or not he was was another matter and would take Lysander running more tests that they frankly didn't have the time for.
In two days they were heading back to Guarda to capture and gather information from the Flamels, and if Lysander thought something strange was going on, he would lose his focus. Now was not the time for testing power.
But it wouldn't do to ignore it either. Maybe he should do his own experiments.
His first inclination was to believe it was the Legilimency they'd been doing. Maybe by continuously looking into her mind he'd left some sort of imprint on her. He'd never heard or read about anything like that, but if he truly had shared a dream with Potter then he would be able to do it again. All he'd need to do was figure out how it had happened. It wasn't like he hadn't had to start from the bare bones of almost everything he'd worked on before.
Tom felt the beginnings of a plan coming into place. He wouldn't be able to work on it just yet, but once they were back, once he had the Stone, he would have time to work on it.
"They're a big fan of nature." Sarcasm and annoyance laced Daugher's words and Tom ignored her as he placed a stone on the floor and joined Daugher in standing in front of the house.
The Flamels' house was small and well built. Stone and cement kept it together in the middle of a desert. The surrounding area was dead and brown; the trees that could grow were slumped over each other, bent in odd angles and rotting from the inside out. The ground had patches of wheat-coloured grass in between sections of dehydrated orange looking dirt, and the well that stood beside the house had long dried out from the unrelenting sun.
But it was out of the way. A long trek away from anyone and anything, and that was just how Tom wanted it. He didn't need witnesses to what was probably going to get ugly.
The Flamels had left Guarda. It would have been stupid not to, though it would have made things much easier. At least they didn't have to track them down. At some point in the chaos of Daugher losing her memory, she'd put a tracker on them.
He was impressed; it had cut their recon down exponentially. Now, he and Daugher were in the middle of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, and Tom just wanted to get this over with to get out of the heat.
"Can we get this over with? I need a shower."
"I would have thought you'd be right at home in the dust and the dirt, Daugher, given your heritage."
"Funny, I would have said the same about you," she sniped back.
Tom bristled. Comments like that got under his skin in a way that they shouldn't have - and she shouldn't have been able to pick up on anything like that. He checked his mental shields and cursed the fact that he still didn't know how her gift worked.
She checked her watch. "The potion should be ending right about now."
Yes, Tom could feel her magic starting to gather. "Let's go. I don't want to have to exert too much energy, so the aim is to get the stone without much trouble."
Daugher nodded and the two of them approached the house. It seemed without any protection, but as they got closer Tom felt the wards pulse with magic and he immediately found it difficult to concentrate. But the pain didn't seem as bad as Lysander had made it out to be.
"Are the wards functioning the same way as the last time you encountered them?" Tom asked.
Daugher shook her head. "They don't feel as intense. Not weak, but not skull-splittingly painful. We are kinda far away though."
Hopefully that boded well. He wasn't going to lower his guard, but if they weren't as strong then it may mean that the Flamels were weaker. Of course, it could just be a trap. But he'd come so close to this that he was willing to take a calculated risk.
"It's likely they already know we're here," Daugher continued, "so we should go now."
"Let's announce our presence, shall we?"
From his pocket, Tom took the final stone of a set that had been engraved with odd shapes and patterns. There hadn't been much time to question it, but Lysander had proved he was reliable. And he was about to prove just how reliable.
When Tom placed the final stone on the ground, the circle connected, and a wave of gold light rose up and began attacking the house. A shield around 10 metres wide grew, and it became somewhat of a light show. It almost seemed like a battle of wills, and wasn't that the point? Magic had some sentience. Just enough to understand intent. But with the Flamels' shields trying to stem off a large attack, the two of them could walk in through the front door.
Of course, Lysander had given them both potions that nullified their magic enough to make it seem they weren't a threat. It was a potion he'd created by accident, and one that Tom had not wanted to take until Lysander drank it himself. It still hadn't sat right with him, but it worked through all the testing they'd done.
And now, they could walk right through the front door into the house of very unsuspecting Flamels.
"Honey, I'm home," Daugher said before immediately casting a shield as a spell flew her way. "What kind of greeting was that?" she asked snidely, with a tilt of her head.
Tom got his first real-life glimpse at the Flamels and was disgusted. They looked like raisins that had been out in the sun too long: shrivelled, withered and wrinkled. What was the point of being immortal if you still aged?
The woman - Pernelle - pushed Flamel back behind her. "Leave!"
"We only have a few questions," Tom said. He kept his eye on both of them, but Flamel never took his own wand out. He did have his hands close together as if he was about to clap, but wasn't moving other than that.
"I know what type of questions you have. There are no answers here for you." She spat at his feet and the glob of saliva barely missed his shoe.
Tom moved his shoe away from it in distaste and held his hands up in a surrendering motion. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I just have a little issue that you can help with."
"And while we're at it, if you could tell me just what I 'forgot', that would be great," Daugher said bitterly.
"Leave!" Pernelle ordered again. She moved backwards, pushing Flamel with her. He shuffled but moved as she was telling him.
Tom stayed where he was. He was trying to be nice about this - after all, if they could keep the Flamels alive, they would have access to a lot of forgotten knowledge. It would be good to reward Lysander for all of his hard work.
"Just - listen," Tom said. He took a careful step forward, holding the other hand out behind him to keep Daugher back. She was going to mess it up if she let off any more snarky quips. "I just need to stabilise my soul."
"What did you do?"
Tom's head whipped towards Flamel who looked aghast. The first words spoken by the man were strangled and full of weariness and fear. As Tom focused on him though, he could sense something just below the surface. Something throbbing.
"Hush Nicho - this is not our problem."
"What if he -"
"No!"
"Pernelle - we cannot let mistakes be repeated!"
She shook her head. "He's no Alchemist. Just look at him."
"I'm not an Alchemist," he agreed quickly. "But I am a Horcrux."
He could feel Daugher's eyes on him, but he ignored it. His theory wasn't one that he really wanted to test, and Pernelle didn't look like she would let them get away without a fight.
Regardless of whether they were weakened, he didn't want to test how much of a chance he had against people who'd had millennia to gather knowledge and spells he would have never heard of. And if that meant letting go of one of his secrets, then so be it. He could always kill or obliviate her later.
Unfortunately, Pernelle's eyes narrowed into slits. "Get away now! Vile thing."
"I need help."
"You do not. You need to be put down."
This was going badly. He could see that from how she tightened her grip on her wand. But he would try one more time. "Please -" he took a step forward and that was the breaking point.
In a smooth motion, Pernelle raised her wand to the ceiling and sent a shockwave through it.
Crack!
The ceiling split in two, and for a second it almost looked like it was going to hold. But in the blink of an eye, the cracks spread dangerously quickly, reaching either end of the square structure. A loud rumble boomed throughout the room. Then the ceiling was falling.
Tom jumped back and immediately put up a shield to keep a large piece of concrete from falling on his head. Pernelle was running backwards with Flamel - his chance was escaping.
Tom lunged forward, trying to dodge the still-falling ceiling, trying to catch up to them. There wasn't much distance they could go in the small house, but he refused to take any chances this time.
Daugher followed him, wand immediately firing curses and stunners. She was aiming for the old woman, going after her with a ruthless viciousness that he'd never seen on her. It suited her well.
The woman was giving her all back though. In between trying to keep Flamel behind her and safe, and battling the two of them, she was still an aggressive fighter. Her body seemed to move with well-practised ease, and the furious concentration in her eyes was stark. She moved the strength of a woman far younger than her, and Tom knew that they were being fuelled by the Stone.
"What did you do to my memory, you bitch?!" Daugher shouted over the cracks of magic and bangs of explosions.
Pernelle answered with a nasty looking black spell sent first to Daugher, and then to Tom. He ducked and rolled behind a large piece of fallen ceiling just in time for the spell to fly besides his ear. He heard it crackle dangerously as it flew past. It hit the wall and the wall sizzled, peeling away from the steel rods supporting it.
Tom breathed hard as he looked at what was left of the wall and a pit of fear tightened in his stomach. That was very close, and this was not one of his practice duels with Lysander.
This woman would kill him if he let her - and Tom hadn't come so far to die at the hand of a miserable old cunt.
He turned, crouched, and looked for Daugher.
She was about a metre away, clutching her side. Daugher pulled her hand away and red painted it. She looked furious.
There was shuffling and a groan of pain from where Pernelle and Flamel had been and Tom knew they were about to escape. If they let up their attacks for too long, then Pernelle would slip out and away from them with Flamel. They wouldn't find them again after that.
"Stop! Pernelle - you're going too far." Flamel's weak voice could barely be heard, but Tom noted it all the same, and he hoped it meant she was weakening.
From the corner of his eye he saw Daugher point her wand at herself. She was panting, her shoulders heaving up and down in uneven movements, and then she put her wand at the tip of her wound. She clenched her teeth and said a spell. The wand lit up and she screamed in pain - cauterising the wound.
Tom used the scream as a distraction. He propelled himself over the rubble and fired off a series of bone vanishing curses in all directions. He just needed to hit her or Flamel somewhere and they'd be incapacitated.
But he only just had time to see something shimmering through the clouds of dust. A spell hit his arm. He felt the warmth of it before pain registered. Then it began.
Fire filled knives pierced at his arm. In his very flesh. It embedded itself into his bones and began seeping down, cracking and crumbling. Tom didn't realise he was yelling until something heavy kicked him in the mouth and his teeth sliced through his tongue.
The taste of copper oozed, running down the back of his throat - suffocating him. The pain was worse. If suffocation ended the pain, then let it come.
A yell cut through the pounding in his head and Tom heard a dull thud beside him. A hard, wet sound came. And another. And then a grunt.
"What did you do?!" A female voice - Daugher - yelled. Another wet sound came with a crack this time.
"Stop - please - my wife!"
Tom brought his hand to his shoulder. The pain burned its way back into existence and he screamed again, writhing. As if moving would get him away from it. It didn't.
He tried to breathe through it, but every movement felt excruciating. He shut his eyes tight and tried to will himself to calm down. To block the pain out with his shields. He'd felt pain like this before. He'd split his soul.
He needed to shut it off. To cordon the pain away in one corner of his mind to deal with, and he needed to do it quickly.
A bright flash of light hit his eyelids turning everything a bright pink and blue. Tom used the colours to distract himself. He counted the spots and when they faded, he squeezed his eyes tighter again to bring them back.
Who knew how long it took, but by the end of it he was able to move his arm without the crippling pain. Tom opened his eyes to see the building in ruins. No ceiling was left and nothing structurally sound.
He dragged himself up, still not able to control his arm, and pulled himself to a better vantage point.
"You're up?" he heard Daugher say in disbelief. She had Flamel at wand point and immediately her attention went to the old man. "Fix him. Do whatever you did to Lysander that day and fix his shoulder," she ordered.
Flamel sighed. "I won't."
Daugher shifted her stance, looked at Tom and then back at Flamel. "You won't, or you can't?"
"I won't."
"So there's a way." She crouched down to where Flamel was cradling his wife's still body. He was caressing a wound on her face and Daugher looked between them. "You love your wife, don't you?"
He said nothing.
"You must for you to both still be together. Either that or its desperation."
Flamel shifted and looked at her. "I know what you're doing, and it doesn't matter. She's dying anyway, and Pernelle would much rather you didn't learn anything from us."
A spark of red flashed and it caught his eye. Tom turned to where it had come from just in time to see red electricity flicker from Pernelle's body. And then, like it was some sort of catalyst, the lightning died out and her skin began flaking away.
It fell into chips but there was no muscle underneath. Instead, she looked almost hollow. But that wasn't right either. It was almost like if he looked hard enough, Tom could see an outline that began to chip off into black dots.
It made him nauseous to witness.
Daugher had been silent but he looked back at her in time to see her reel a fist back and punch Flamel in the face. The man flew backwards, landing next to Tom in a crumpled heap.
As frail as he looked, Tom could feel something radiate off him. Different from the charge of energy Lysander had taught him, this was something strong and throbbing. It wasn't neutral though, like the energy charge. Flamel was tinged with anguish.
Flamel coughed and blood splattered out. Daugher approached him, wand pointed. "Fix him," she ordered again.
"Wait," Tom gasped out.
"I don't have the skill to patch this up, Blue. You're going to die."
He would not. He'd gone through worse. And now his head was clearer, it was easier to think through the cordoned off pain. "I want the stone."
Flamel chuckled a breathless laugh. "I'm afraid the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone will die with me."
"The hell they will! Crucio!"
Flamel fell on the floor in pain but refusing to make any sound. He was closer to Tom now, and Tom could feel that power tinged in pain again.
Daugher came closer and pulled Flamel up by the strands of his head. "How does it work?"
"I won't -"
She shot the spell at him again, and again, Flamel started shuddering. But when she took it off him, he was still lucid. Was she not putting enough hate into the spell? No - he'd seen it when she'd found out they had tampered with her memories. So why was he not budging?
"Nicho -" a soft voice came from his right. Pernelle had woken up. "Stop hurting him."
Tom looked between the two as Daugher sent a third round of crucio at Flamel.
"Stop!"
"She's going to keep doing it," Tom told her tiredly. "She's going to keep torturing him till he gives something up."
Pernelle looked at him with resignation in her eyes. Pieces of her cheek flickered off into a black swarm. She wheezed. "The Stone is not meant to be held. It is destruction and pain."
If he could, Tom would have argued. Would have smooth-talked it out of the both of them. But they were old and resigned. The Flamels had seen a millennium of pain and power, and he knew that they wouldn't budge. Not when they were together.
But Pernelle was flickering away. The black specks were disintegrating the rest of her and rising up into the dust-filled air. Her skin was cracking - crumbling - apart and she looked like she was in pain.
"I can end it now," he rushed the words out. "I can put an end to your suffering."
Her eyes narrowed, and then she laughed. Her chest rose and fell in time with the gasps of air. Pernelle looked him dead in the eyes once she'd finished. "I would rather watch as your plans crumble before your eyes."
"You would face death so willingly?" The idea struck fear into his stomach. It roiled and mashed around in tandem with the pain making his stomach want to lurch, and his vision begin to dim at the edges.
Pernelle opened her mouth to speak, but her final words didn't come. Instead, the corners of her mouth cracked and peeled into blackness, and whatever outline there was of her withered away.
Tom's breath became shallow in time with his heartbeat speeding up. He could feel the way his lungs gasped for air that wasn't giving him enough oxygen, and his heart beat faster, pushing blood out of the still gaping wound in his arm.
With no strength to hold himself up anymore, Tom collapsed. He felt the sting of rocks cutting into the back of his head but it was dulled by how blurry and dark everything was getting.
The last thing he saw as he kept trying to blink the blackness away was Pernelle's eyes. Wide and grinning as she took away his last bargaining chip for Flamel. His last chance of fixing himself.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Things are going to be happening quickly now till the end of the year so it's gonna be an intense ride.
I'm still looking for a beta if anyone is interested.
Feel free to message. Hope you all have a good week, and I'll see you in a couple of weekends' time.
