Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Chapter Two
It was dark. So dark. He was surrounded by nothing but blackness. No matter how hard he tried, regardless how much effort he put in penetrating the dark blanket that seemed to lay upon his eyes, it wouldn't budge. And it terrified him. He had always been fond of his eyesight and he feared the times at night when he wasn't able to see.
He knew this wasn't real. It was just another dream, after all. And he knew that he feared the dreams more than everything else. He tried to remember why exactly it was that he feared them so much.
But he couldn't. His mind seemed to be made out of jelly. His memories just wouldn't come back to him. He knew that they were there, somewhere deep inside his head. Just a tiny bit out of his reach. But they wouldn't react.
Slowly a sense of dread settled within his stomach. He never forgets a thing! No matter what, he always remembers! He remembers everyting! But not now. Now he just floated in this darkness. Now he wasn't even aware of his own name! So he just continued trying to remember something.
He didn't know how much time had passed since he woke up in this dark void that he was currently in. Was it minutes? Days? Decades? His sense of time was completely lost. Another thing of everything this dark place had taken from him.
There was no sound. There had never been any sound. What a peculiar word... Sound. He thought about it. What was this sound? Had he ever heard it before? No, thats impossible! He had always been here.
Here?
But where it this here? What is this here? He knew things and concepts that made no sense to him. Sound. Here. Memory. All this things, all this strange words were just that for him. Words. Words without any meaning or sense. But one word he knew the meaning of:
Alone.
He knew that he was alone. He knew what it meant. It meant that he was on his own. It meant that there was no one and nothing with him here. There was it again! This peculiar word again! Here... He tried to think of its meaning, but doing so provoked a shot of trobbing pain throughout his entire being. Thus he chose to stop thinking about it. To be more precise, he chose to stop thinking altogether.
He was still on his own. He had stopped thinking long ago. Or was it short ago? Again the pain shot through him.
Thinking hurt. Thinking is bad, he concluded. So he stopped doing it once more.
ItV
The dark doesn't hurt. The dark is good. He decided to embrace the dark. And once more he drifted away, blissfully ignorant of everything.
He was peacefully floating in the dark when it happend. The disturbance announced its arrival without any warning. He had long since stopped to think so in the beginning he didn't even realise what had happened around him. It happened with a sound. A quiet, bubbly hissing reached his ear. He didn't know this feeling, this sensation. Surely it had a name. But he just couldn't be bothered to remember.
Then, light. It was subtle at first, but quickly got brighter and brighter. From absolute black to dark purple. From dark purple over violett to bright pink. From bright pink to... What is that? He saw things, but didn't understand them. It had Eyes, alright. But thats it. Its top and lower face were white. He hearad voices, but didn't understand the words. he blinked. Once. Twice. Nothing happened.
Again the voices.
Suddenly a strange, small device appeared in his field of view. A quiet click was heard. Then came the pain.
PAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAINPAIN
He couldn't see. Everything was white. Everything hurt. Everywhere was pain.
How could this have happened? Why did this happen?
Only a moment before he had been enclosed by his beautiful darkness. He had been happy, he had been safe.
And then, white. Horrible, terrible, agonizing white.
And pain. So much pain. He screeched loudly, partially in pain, partially in terror. He couldn't see! Everything was bright! So, so bright! HE wanted it gone! The whitewas bad, the white was terrible!
He wanted it to stop. He wished for nothing else. But his prayers weren't heard.
The white continued to torture him. And he continued to screech. Yes, not scream, like a human. Screech, like an animal.
He screeched and began to thrash around. The white continued to hurt and he continued to move and to be as loud as he could. He hoped that this would scare it away.
It was so painful that he wasn't able to think a coherent thought, not that he had been able to while being confined in his precious darkness.
But, at the edge of his mind, a tiny part of him registered something. Something he had not felt for an enternity, it seemed. He didn't even remember this feeling until experiencing it right now.
It was sound.
Somewhere, at the very egde of his mind he heard sound. He was hearing! Incorent things they might be, but he was hearing! He heard so many things at once!
His heart, beating inside his chest. Sirens, howling in a loud, constant rythm. Clattering metal. Different voices shouting various things.
"Tie it down!"
"Oh my god, whats happening?"
"AHHHHHH!"
"The-the voices. They speak to me..."
"Come home, little one"
"Make it stop!"
"God, please make that it stops!"
"Alrighty, we got this, guys"
And slowly the noises began to quiet. The light finally faded. The pain dulled to a slight throbbing and then stopped altogether. And his beloved darkness returned.
Again he was drifting in the darkness. For a while now he had been pondering what had happened out there. And he came to the conclusion, that he had been dreaming. He knew that while dreaming you experienced strange and unnatural phenomenons. Obviously this light had been one of them. And this pain as well. And thats why he always feared those dreams! Yes, that's it! The darkness was good. It promised peace ad quiet, unlike the evil light.
But what about this new experience? This sound? He finally knew what it meant, which is why he now also knew what quiet was. It was unnerving. It was like thoughts, but much more vivid! And way more painful! Or was it?
He thought about it and came to the conclusion that while it indeed had been painful this sound-thingy was not the source of his agony. The bad light was why he had been hurt, but the sound was good. Or bad? He was not sure. He concluded that he'd have to test whether it was good or bad.
Now, he just had to figure out how to actually feel this sound-stuff without making the bad white hurt him again...
ItV
Doctor Maria Hill had already seen her fair share of strange things in her life. No wonder when one was working as lead scientist in a secret facility of the government, whose only purpose is to study and understand all extraterristical and supernatural things that might influent the country in any way, shape or form. And even though Maria liked to claim that nothing could truly shock her anymore, the ... thing, for lack of a better word, that was lying on an operating table in front of her did make her rather uncomfortable. Not that she showed so in any way or shape (she had a reputation to uphold after all), but the few persons who knew her good enough knew where and what to look for.
"Damn, that thing's really making you wanna freak out, doesn't it?", a soft baritone on her right asked. Maria didn't have to turn her head to know who the owner of this voice was.
She sighed. "It's emitting a rather... uncomfortable aura, that's for sure, Alastair"
Alastair Creed, unspeakable in the british Ministry of magic, co-worker in the lab and a close friend of Hill's hummed in agreement. "So, you guys have any idea what this might be?", he asked while gesturing to the operating table.
The thing in question was a shimmering, bwronish-purple mass which was lying on the table in the middle of the white laboratory. It vaguely resembled a cocoon of sorts, with a multitude of spikes and tentacles protuding out of it at seemingly random points. Violet light glimmerd underneath some patches of seemingly thinner tissue. The whole thing pulsated in an even rythm and if one looked very closely the faint outline of a humanoid body was visible underneath all the tissue.
"Well", Maria started, pulling a sheet out of one of her coat's pockets"we know nearly nothing about this thing. It's unlike anything we have ever encountered in all our years of research. The material that it is made of is beyond our wildest dreams. When we first tried to analyse it we discovered, that its molecules are in a constant state of disarray and reordering. Means that it constantly changes its molecular structure depending on the influx of light, the noise-level, temperature or even the amount of oxygen and nitrogen in the air. It is extremely resilient as well. In order to cut it a strong laserscalpell was needed. and since you know how these are to come by you can imagine, that this thing here is quite high on our priority list"
"It is?" Alastair was suprised. He knew that the cocoon was unnatural and of course would be very intriguing to research for someone like Dr. Hill. But that it was really one of lab 7's top priorities? That suprised him.
Maria nodded. "It is. The president himself even witnessed our first attempt at cutting the cocoon open"
"Oh?", Alastair raised an eyebrow. "And what did you find out by doing so?"
Maraia grimaced. "That I don't want to repeat this action ever again until we have sufficient equpiment for handling this thing"
"Huh? Why? What happened?", Alastair asked.
"It's easier if I'll show you", Maria sighed.
She brought Alastair into the neighboring Room and had him sit down before a multitude of computer screens. All were depicting the lab with the thing from various vantagepoints and angles.
"Here", she said and gave Alastair a pair of headphones. He set them over his ears and Maria pressed the starting button. "What you're gonna see now is the feed of the surveillance camreas while we attempted to cut the cocoon open for the first time.
"Moving on to cutting the target in area B 7", one of the scientists stated. Alastair recocgnised him to be Jim Crowns, another high ranking member of lab 7's crew. He was holding an strange, metallic device in his hands and was hunched over to top half of the cocoon. The view switched, and instead of hanging from a corner the camera that was filming now had been strapped to the side of Jim's Head, giving Alastair a premium view of the cocoon. Jim spoke again "Beginning the cut in Three. Two. One. Cut!"
A short cutting motion from Jim and a loud hissing sound later and a small rift could be seen in the cocoon. It was roughly ten centimetres in length and went vertically down. The laser cutter was put to the side out of view and unsing two metal clamps, Jim pried the small cut open. A clear liquid-like gel covered the interior but nontheless the occupant of the cocoon was clear to see. At first, Alastair didn't quite comprehend what he was seeing there inside the cocoon. It was smooth, and skin-colored, albeit a bit pale. A small line of black hair was visible in the top third of it but the rest remained smooth. Then, it happened. Movement came into the skin and a till then invisible compartment in there opened. An eye, Alastair realized.
He was right. A big, green eye stared at him from inside the cocoon. The outer iris was a rather ordinary shade of green, but near the pupil the colour changed. The green got darker and slowly changed into a vibrant purple. Swirling and slowly spreading more and more outwards. For a short moment nobody said a word. The eye blinked. Once. Twice.
Jim turned his head, subsequently swining the camera and a metal holder was driven. In its grasp; a flashlight. At least, it looked like a flashlight to Alastair. The device was turned and the holder with the flashlight hovered over the eye.
Jim pressed a button on its side and the flashlight activated.
Immediately the eye clenched shut, and-
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSKKKKKKKKKKKKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
A terrible, unearthly screech tore through the room. The effect was drastic; the present scientists pressed their hands over their ears, some fell on their knees, one even curled up in a fetal position and started crying. Alastair himself who was just watching a video of it was shocked to the core. The cry was primal, violent and full of despair and pain, but also uncontrolled rage. It sounded twisted and warped and it was painfully obvious, that this sound was not meant to be ever heard by human ears. A multitude of voices and sounds assaulted Alastairs ears and he couldn't make heads or tail of where he was for a moment. Still, he couldn't turn his head. It seemed to... intrigue him. An unnatural suction seemed to originate from the computer, and he leaned foreward, his nose almost touching the screen.
Then, it ended. Dr Hill had, despite the terrible noise, knocked the holder of the clamps which kept the cut in the cocoon open away. The wound itself healed almost immediately and thank God the screaming stopped.
The cocoon, which had been moving and transforming the entire time stopped its movements as well. Where before a multitude of spikes and tentacles had grown rapidly all over the surface, the carapace became "smooth" (if you could call it that) once again. The scientists slowly got up again and began, still visibly shaken, to collect the equipment, which had previously been strewn all over the laboratory's floor. The video ended and the screen became black again. Alastair moved to take off his headphones and noticed, that for some reason his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
"You understand, why I do not want to try this course of action again, I presume?", Hill asked dryly.
Alastair only nodded slowly.
A while nobody said a word. Both were sitting there in silence, lost in their thoughts until Alastair broke the silence some minutes later.
"So you didn't do any more tests beyond that?", he sounded intrigued but tried to hide it. And even though his curiosity was painfully obvious to Maria she decided to humor him. "Why, of course we did", she answered. "Just not as extreme as the one you just saw"
"And what did you find out? Or, did you even find something out?", he asked.
"We did. A lot of things, actually", Hill answered. "For once, it is alive. I don't know how, or why, but it lives. Secondly; it changes constantly. Even the slightest change in the airpressure or the influx of light causes the tissue of the cocoon to change. Its entire biomolecularic structure is in a constant state of change. Even its atomes can switch between several- oh" she stopped when she saw the utterly confused look on Alastairs face. "Right, Wizard", she sighed. Another explanation was in order then.
"Basically", she started again as she led him back into the room with the cocoon. "Basically no matter what you do to it, the cocoon tried to adapt as well as it can to its current environment. If we, for example increased the temperature inside the lab, the cocoon's tissue would undoubtedly become more and more heat-resistant. It is the perfect survivalist, fit for any place or environment" She clapped her hands exidedly "And I havethe chance to study it! Isn' this awesome?"
"Uhm, yes, it is" Alastair added uncertainly. He was still a bit shaken by the rather... shocking video. He cleared his throat and slowly began to regain his bearings. "So, You said it was alive, didn't you?"
"Yup. I don't know how, or why, but it certainly lives"
"Aha. And how do you know that?"
"Well, for one, it breathes. And it's got a pulse, and a fairly normal one at that. Well, normal for a human, that is." Hill seemed to get lost in thoughts for a moment, but quickly got her bearings again. "If not for your report, I would have never believed that this was once human. Much less a child"
"Yes, it is most curious indeed", Alastair said. "but as you know, I was at the scene myself and at that time this, this, cocoon as you call it, was much more see-through than now. And there, I could clearly see the outline of a human child in there"
"Well, whatever it once was, now its clearly not anymore. I mean, do you see this?" She gestured at a fairly big patch of near transparent skin on the ribbed form of the cocoon. "For a human it has way too many legs. And lastly I checked, humans didn't have tails either"
Indeed, the form inside the cocoon looked exactly as Maria had explained. "To be honest, it resembles more a huge larvae than a humanoid creature", Alastair murmured.
"Yeah, that it does. Say, do we know the name of whoever got stuck inside this thing?"
All of a sudden, Alastair seemed to have aged several years and a grief stricken shadow was cast over his face. "Well, yeah, sadly I know who this poor child was"
Maria raised an eyebrow. 'Was'?, she thought. So you don't even consider whoever is in there alive anymore?
Although she didn't blame him. Anyone would have a hard time believing the thing inside the cocoon human after the surveillance video.
"And who is it?", she asked absentmindedly, while studying a report that had just been delivered to her by another colleague.
"Harry Potter"
"Oh?", she asked and put the file away. "The-Boy-who-survived, right?"
"Boy-who-lived", Alastair corrected. "But yes, that was him. Imagine my suprise, when I found him in this state in the middle of a muggle neighborhood, instead of somewhere safe under Dumbledore's protection"
"Dumbledore", Maria murmured, "You mean the man we once met, during the incident with that genie in Syria?"
"No, no, that was Alastor Moody, an Auror and dark wizard hunter", Alastair said while lost in memorys. That had been a very... special adventure for all of them.
"Albus Dumbledore is the Headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as well as Supreme Mugwump of the ICW and Chiefwarlock of the Wizengamot"
"ICW?"
"Short for International Confederation of Wizards"
"Ah. Well, he sounds very influential. I'd love to meet him one time"
"Well", Alastair said and wringed his hands, "as a matter of fact, I wrote to him immediatly after bringing the cocoon here, and invited him for a visit. In fact, he should be arriving in about 10 minutes".
blink*
blink, blink*
A short while nobody said a word.
"I see", Maria said coldly, while fixing Alastair with an icy stare. "Well, lets go to my office then and await him. And while we get there, you better explain, why you weren't able to tell me that the most powerful wizrad I ever heard of, will be coming by to see after his mutated protgeé"
Alastair could only let out an audible gulp of dread at that.
ItV
It was 10 minutes later (Maria had just been finished with chewing out Alstair) when the door to the doctors office was opened and a man, no a wizard, entered. He was wearing a pair of (rather hideous) green robes which were decorated with brown and grey lions, as well as a pointed hat in the same fashion. Golden spectacles in the form of a half moon adorned his face and his eyes were twinkling with mirth. A white beard grew from his face and was so enourmously long that he had tucked it in the clasp of his belt. In just a few long strides he had cleared the space between the door and Marias rather impressive mahagony desk.
"Doctor Hill, I presume" he greeted, and held out his hand for her to shake. Maria did so while answering with "Mugwump Dumbledore, I presume?"
"Oh please", he said, while they sat down. Call me Headmaster or Mister if you must. Mugwump reminds me of all that dreadily boring Parliament meetings"
Maria chuckled. "Okay then, Mister Dumbledore. I don't want to appear rude, but my time is sparse, and my shedule packed, so I'd like to come straight to the point. Why are you here?"
"Well, it is a rather complicated matter, I'm afraid", Dumbledore admitted. "You see, I heard of an unsusual incident, invilving a person very close to me. I was told, that you have Harry contained here?"
"That is correct, yes", Maria said. "Though I think it will be best if you see for you little celebrity yourself"
"That would be very kind of you. When can I see him?"
"Right now, if you want. We just have to go through some corridors", Maria explained while getting up and opening the door. "After you, Headmaster"
Dumbledore nodded in thanks and, once past the door let Alastair take the lead. Falling in step with Maria a few steps behind the unspeakable he said: "You know doctor, during our talk earlier I couldn't help but notice that you greeted me by one of my more... international titles. Am I right to presume that you are one of the aware ones?"
Hill nodded. "You are. I am fully aware of the supernatural world as a whole"
Dumbledore blinked. "The supernatural world? Are you a member of it then?"
Maria laughed. "Oh no, I am surely not. But isn't it the duty of an superior worker to know the origins of your employees and colleagues?"
"Oh, of course, you are very right there, Miss"
"Though I have to admit, it was a pretty big shock for me, when I found out"
"Yes, I can understand that", Dumbledore admitted. "Still, not many Muggles know of it. We have the statute of secrecy, after all. If I may ask, how exactly did you find out?"
"Through one of my coworkers' sloppyness actually", she chuckled. "One of my best men, Aragran, did a rather poor job at his curriculum vitae and after giving him the choice to either come clear with the truth or to get turned down to never return, he told me quite a lot of interesting things about the worlds"
"Aragran?" Dumbledore mused. "Hmm, I would've never even dreamed that you'd have a devil working here"
"Oh, he is one of the best guys for heavy lifting I could have wished for", Maria chuckled.
"Hey!", a green haired man shouted out of an open Lab-door. "Thats not the only thing I'm great for! I'm also an amazing artist, a wonderful singer and especially talented in training ducks to-"
"Yes, we know, Gran-gran, you're humility incarnated" a girl's voice from inside the lab shouted. "Now quit bragging and help me with those boxes!"
"Yes ma'am", Aragran sighed.
"And dont' freackin 'ma'am' me, understood?"
"Of course" he answered and added "slave driver" under his breath.
"I heard that!"
A loud gulp was heard, before the door was closed and the three companions were on their way again.
"Does this always go like this in here? Isn't it supossed to be a secret government facility or something like that?", Dumbledore a,usedly asked.
Alastair chuckled "Yeah, that's what everyone says at the first time. But you get used to it pretty quickly. Just like Doc Hill's tirades"
"Zip it Creed", Maria snapped, though there was no real venom behind it.
"Anyway, we're here", Alaststair announced and stopped before a unsuspicious looking door. Maria lay her right hand on a scanner beside it and the door slid open, which allowed Albus to finally lay sight on what his late friends' only son had become...
ItV
Sorry for the long wait guys, but my muse just wasn't there. But now it returned and I'm really exited to be able to continue to write this! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and till next time!