Fractured Time
Summary: Continuation of Birth of a Nightmare Man chapter thirteen, where we left Rabastan and Draco wondering about Harry Potter's fate. But now time has become a strange thing, and their world is dying. How can they escape? Will they ever see Harry Potter again?
Pairing/s: None.
Warnings: Time-travelling and dimension-travelling, some violence and gore. People acting OOC.
Disclaimers: I don't own Harry Potter nor do I make any money on fanfiction.
NOTE: Do not re-upload on sites as goodreads or Wattpad, I do not give permission to do so.
-o-
Thanks for all the reviews! Writer's block lifted, and I was granted a little bit of inspiration. So I wrote this chapter faster than the others.
Fractured Time takes place around five years before The Nightmare Man's Journey.
-o-
Chapter Six
Rabastan had seen Harrison angry before. Had seen him throw temper tantrums and yell at walls. Tear at his own hair, slam his body down onto the floor. Rabastan had even seen him draw blood, either with his bare hands or by smacking his head against the wall. Harrison had many ways to show his anger, both when he was Harry Potter and now as an ancient dark lord.
He had never seen the quiet anger. Yes, he had seen Harry Potter quiet and solemn while also angry, but this… this was different.
The moment Joanne and Louis entered, and Harry didn't follow, Harrison had gone still.
"Where is he?" he said.
Joanne's arm was gone. No, Louis was holding her arm, and her stump was dripping blood steadily but she seemed only paler because of Harrison's question. Her lips wobbled, and Rabastan swallowed.
"Attack," she got out. "At Diagon Alley. They attacked at once, they took my arm and then Harry was gone… master."
Louis reached into a pocket on his robe and took out Harry's wand, hand shaking.
"He most likely dropped it during the struggle," Louis explained.
Harrison didn't move to take the wand. Instead his eyes remained fixed on the wall to the right of the two servants, gently tapping a finger to his lips. The longer he was quiet, the more both Joanne and Louis seemed to shrink into themselves. They huddled close, as if expecting an explosion.
"Why would he have dropped it?" Harrison asked.
"We heard him scream," Joanne explained. "Like he was… hurt."
The walls shivered, and the ground shook beneath their feet. Somewhere, Rabastan heard a vase crashing to the floor. Another shiver and the windows clattered in their frames. Joanne whimpered, and then threw herself onto her knees. Louis wasn't far behind.
"Please forgive us, master!" Joanne begged. "We'll do anything… we'll find him!"
She didn't seem to care her arm had been cut off, or that she was still bleeding. Finally Harrison tore his gaze from the wall, and Rabastan couldn't help the small gasp; Harrison's eyes were near black, and he appeared pale, almost gaunt in his face.
He looked down at the two servants at his feet, and tilted his head.
"Why are you bleeding?" he asked.
Harrison's voice was quiet, and could be mistaken almost as gentle. Rabastan would have preferred it if he was screaming, and he wasn't even the one Harrison was focused on.
"They cut off my arm, master," Joanne said.
"Oh… so they did. Very distracting, isn't it? To lose a limb you're used to have by your side at all times."
"Master…" Joanne said.
"Who are they, now again? I don't think neither of you explained who took Harry."
"We didn't see any faces," Louis said. "But Harry shouted something."
"Did he now? What did he shout?"
"People from his world," Joanne said. "He most likely meant you, master. People from your world."
Bones' group. Rabastan swallowed. Was that good or bad? Did they think Harry Potter was… their Harry Potter? The one who had caused the cracks of time? Or did they know Harrison was their Harry, and that this world's Harry was on Harrison's side?
This was headache-inducing.
"Master…" Joanne began once more.
"Quiet," Harrison said.
He didn't sound… angry. He still wasn't screaming. In fact, his voice had gone oddly silky smooth now. Not as gentle as before, just… Rabastan didn't have words for his tone, and from the looks of it, Joanne and Louis didn't seem to like it.
Joanne was shaking in place. Rabastan himself couldn't move, and didn't blame her for shaking. This calmness was worse than any screaming. He preferred it when Harrison rampaged, threw himself at the floors, because Rabastan knew how to calm him down. This version… he didn't know how to calm down this version of Harrison.
Harrison snapped his fingers at Louis, motioning for the arm. Louis handed it over, not looking at Harrison. He held the arm in his hands, and then said:
"Joanne, get up."
She did, despite the fact she was as white as a sheet. Harrison pulled her in, closer, and with a surge of magic he reattached her arm.
"Have Elise look it over," Harrison said. "Harry's wand."
"Here, master."
"Put it in his room," Harrison said. "He'll want it safe when he gets back."
"Master, we can search for him," Joanne began.
"Go to Elise, Joanne. Louis, Harry's room."
The two nearly fled and Harrison stayed motionless in the middle of the hall. Rabastan realized his friend was staring at the blood trail Joanne had left, from the front door to the small puddle where she had stood.
"Rabastan…" he said.
"Yes?" Rabastan replied, not really wanting to move if that would make Harrison more upset.
"They took Harry."
"They did."
"My Harry. Mine."
"Yes… yes, they did."
"People don't just take what's mine," Harrison said, like he genuinely didn't understand why Harry had been taken. "People have tried to take my servants before, my power… how many times do I have to remind all the idiots in the world they can't take what's mine?!"
Now he was screaming, and the manor shook with the force. His eyes were all black, completely blank. The inside of his mouth was black as well, and Rabastan was very much reminded of the Dementors.
As soon as Harrison got visibly upset, he calmed down. The black eyes remained. Rabastan saw the veins turning black beneath the pale skin, saw the nails going grey. As if the anger manifested itself within Harrison's body, when he didn't let it out into the air.
"Lucian!" he called out sharply.
The pale man appeared moments later, rather composed despite the subtle shaking of the entire manor. When seeing the black eyes, Lucian's mouth thinned out and he said:
"Yes, master?"
"Is… Lucy and Angel here?" he asked.
"Severus decided an unprompted visit to a Muggle sweets shop was in order," Lucian said. "They left just as Joanne and Louis came back, and he realized Harry wasn't with them."
"Oh, good… good, good… this whole house-shaking business is a bit too much excitement for two children, don't you think?"
"Yes… master. I heard what happened. What will you do?"
"What will I do? You mean, what will I do about the fact people from my old world dared to snatch something that belongs to me? You mean that?"
Now, Lucian didn't look half as composed as earlier. He cleared his throat nonetheless and said:
"Yes. About that."
"I'll find them of course," Harrison said, and smiled.
Sharks had kinder grins than the one Harrison was showing them.
"I'll find them," he repeated, "and then I'll slaughter them all."
-o-
Harry woke up with a headache, and to the sounds of an argument. Furious whispers and he opened his eyes to a slit. Five people were huddled together in what looked like a shack of a house, and they didn't seem pleased with each other. He recognized one of them as one of the Patil twins. The other dimension's Patil. It looked like Padma, but to the honest, they were so similar he had a hard time telling them apart. It might as well be Parvati, especially from this angle and the fact Harry's eyes weren't exactly opened.
The others were vaguely familiar, another version of students he probably went to school with. As one of them turned to look at him, Harry was careful to keep his eyes mostly closed, and his breathing calm. It was better if they thought him unconscious for now.
"Are you sure it isn't him?" one whispered at last.
"Yes! That isn't our Harry Potter; it's this dimension's Potter."
"You said you were sure it was our Potter!"
"Well, I was until we got a closer look!"
Oh joy. He had been mistaken for Harrison. Great. He wondered how long it would take for Harrison to track these people down, kill them, and then grounding Harry despite the fact he was over twenty years old. Also despite the fact Harrison vehemently denied having anything resembling parenthood within his vast personality, which was a big, fat lie.
Harry looked again. The five were distracted, pale and sweaty. He took the chance to feel how tightly his hands were bound. But he quickly stopped when that made pain radiate throughout one of his arms. Damn, he had forgotten about his elbow.
The groan slipped out from him before he could think to stop it, and someone pulled him up from his half-lying position. He opened his eyes fully, and saw five, pale faces staring at him.
"You're from this world," one said.
"He knows that already!" Patil said. He still didn't know which one. "You, Potter, have you seen another you walking around?"
"You're talking about Harrison," Harry replied.
He might as well be honest. It wasn't like these people would live long enough to tell the entire world. If he was lucky, they wouldn't be able to tell anyone else before Harrison found this place.
How would Harrison find this place? Harry never questioned how Harrison found people. He knew the rebels evaded both the Nightmare Lord as well as Voldemort, though. What if these people were as good?
They didn't look to have that much planned. They looked, in fact, very much like they didn't have a plan at all.
"Harrison?" one said.
"We should've told Madam Bones we were going to do this!" a third hissed.
"Too late for that now," Patil said. "What do you mean, Harrison?"
"His name. He's Harrison now."
"So he made it to this world."
"Yes," Harry said. "He made it. I guess, I don't really know how and so, but he's… here."
They were Harrison's enemies. Was it bad to let them know he knew Harrison? Well, it was too late now to take it back.
"Where is he?" Patil demanded.
"At his home?"
"Where is that, then?"
"Look, he's got it warded to hell and back. Not even I can find it."
Technically true, he could Apparate to inside the wards, but they didn't need to know that part. Harry was reckless, and didn't always think things through, but he wasn't so stupid that he revealed he could Apparate straight through the wards of their enemy.
Harrison might do that, and then refuse to Apparate just to be difficult, but Harry wasn't Harrison.
"So we need to get him outside the wards," Patil said to the others. "The people who were with you, Potter, why did they try to protect you?"
"They… work for Harrison."
"So you're important?"
"He's invested some time in me, I'm sure he'd be disappointed if I died too soon," Harry said.
They drew back, whispering amongst one another. Harry was fine with being bait. If he was bait that meant Harrison would come here. If Harrison came here, those five would be dead within a heartbeat… or a year, depending how long Harrison wanted to torture them for taking what belonged to him.
-o-
A note was delivered to Lucius, addressed to the Nightmare Lord, confirmed by spells to be written by Harry Potter. As Lucius knew Harry had been taken he didn't waste any time; he left the Ministry early and went straight to Harrison's manor to hand it over. Possibly running away afterwards, in case Harrison felt like killing the messenger.
The manor seemed darker, somewhat, and as Lucius looked around on the walls they appeared to lean over him. Caging him in.
"It's master's magic," Lucian said from the doorway. "It's agitated. Why are you here, pretty?"
"Does every one of Harrison's servants call me that?" Lucius wondered.
"Well, you are pretty," Lucian said. "This might not be a good time for a visit."
"I have a note for your master," Lucius replied. "It was confirmed to have been written by Harry Potter."
"Oh. That changes everything, then. Follow me."
Lucian took him to a smaller room, and Harrison looked up from the desk. Lucius had never seen the Nightmare Lord look like that, pale with black veins beneath his skin. His eyes were a bit sunken in, black as the night, and when he parted his lips Lucius saw the inside of his mouth was black as well.
If Dementors could look human, then Harrison was like a human Dementor at this moment. Maybe not so strange considering he made them.
"Note written by Harry," Lucian said.
Harrison vanished and reappeared in front of Lucius, plucked the note from his slack fingers and read it right then and there. His fingernails were grey, and the tips of his fingers were turning black as well.
"It's a location," Harrison said. "They're using Harry as bait to get to me."
"Is that… a bad thing?" Lucius whispered to Lucian.
"As bait… as… as if he's a… thing," Harrison continued. "A thing, Lucian."
"Yes, master, that's very bad of them to use Harry as if he was a thing."
"Don't patronize me."
"Yes, master, I won't, it's just… you're making the furniture float?"
They slammed down onto the floor with a bang, papers scattering everywhere. Maps, where he apparently had tried to pinpoint Harry's location, rolled up. Harrison looked at the note again and repeated:
"Bait. Bait! Harry is not a thing, he's not bait!"
"But they handed over their location," Lucian hurried to say.
"Yes, they did. You know what they also had Harry write? That I was to be killed for my crimes! What kind of idiots fell through to this dimension? Do they think? Do they have brains? How stupid is this?"
"They must think you aren't very powerful, master," Lucian said. "After all, the people from your dimension who did get to know you are the Nightmare Lord is now dead. Except for Rabastan and Draco, because they're special."
"Oh… that is true. So, what, they think that I'm the same age as the last time they saw me?"
"Possibly?" Lucian said.
Lucius had turned into air. Maybe literally. He was almost standing between Harrison and Lucian, and they didn't seem to even notice him anymore.
"Well, that means they're still stupid! They couldn't kill me back then, what makes them think they can kill me now?"
"You can always go and ask them."
"I think I will," Harrison said. "And then I'll kill them. Using what's mine as bait, that's unforgivable!"
"But wanting to kill master is apparently fine," Lucian muttered as Harrison returned to the desk to get his outer robe.
"People have tried to kill me hundreds of times, Lucian, it's old news, and it's funny when they try and fail."
"Are you going alone, master?"
"It's not like you'll let me go alone," Harrison replied.
Lucius got out of the way for Harrison to go out of the room, flattening himself against the wall. That had Harrison notice him again.
"Why does he look so… concerned?" Harrison asked Lucian.
"Your eyes, master. And you skin. And the veins."
"Oh. Not much I can do about that now, not until I've got some blood on my hands. Elise? Elise! We're going out! Get your spiky boots on!"
Elise hurried down the stairs as they came to the entrance hall. Spiky boots were on, and Lucius decided not to wonder how many people had possibly been kicked to death with the help of those boots.
"Where are we going, master?" she said.
"To kill some idiots and get Harry back," Harrison said.
-o-
The location was a remote house, more like a shack than anything else. The walls were barely standing and the roof had several holes in it. A lone curtain fluttered in the wind that went right through one of the numerous broken windows.
And they had put Harry in this hole? Harrison was going to murder them twice.
He could admit to himself he wasn't exactly thinking clearly, and it was probably a good thing that Elise was there in case he made an idiotic mistake, but he needed to go alone first.
"Stay hidden," he told Elise. "I'll call on you if needed."
"What if they destroy your vocal chords?" Elise said. "Or crush your windpipe?"
"I'm sure I'll find a way to let you know if I need any assistance."
With that, he moved out of the shadows and up towards the shack. Halfway there, five people stepped out of the building. No Harry. Was he inside? Harrison felt for his magic, but found wards instead. So they had been clever enough to erect wards around the shack, leaving him blind as to how many there were in the building?
He could tear the wards down. But that could endanger Harry. Harrison was pretty sure he could raise Harry from the dead, but if he could avoid it that would be preferable. So should he wait? Should he find out how many they were inside the wards?
"Only five of you?" he asked.
"The others will be here soon!" one yelled.
He was promptly elbowed in the side by one of the others. Harrison tilted his head. So there was only five? Or was it a trick? Poking at their minds, he found shields. He could tear those down too.
"Why did you take Harry Potter?" he said instead.
"It doesn't matter to you," another said.
Should he know their faces? Because he didn't recognize them now. Well, one was similar to the others he had seen from Bones' group. Patil?
"Why not?"
"You're Harry Potter from our dimension."
"If you insist."
"But you're older," the Patil girl said.
"Yes, that does tend to happen when the years pass," Harrison replied. "You get older."
"Doesn't matter now. Do you know what you did? To our world? What chaos you created? How many people we've lost?!"
"I do know," he said.
"And?"
He didn't recognize the woman who said that. She seemed to be the same age as Patil, meaning she could've been in school the same time he did. But he never did look much at other students, too busy with himself and all the things happening around him.
"It sounds very chaotic," he told her. "You must have been miserable."
"We were."
"Good. I love to make people miserable. Now where is Harry? Is he inside?"
"You're going to pay for your crimes."
"Lovely. Get in line."
"What?"
"Seriously, get in line. There are a lot of people who want me to pay for my crimes. So he is inside? Did you hurt him?"
"What does it matter to you?" Patil asked, wand out and aimed at him.
"I took him in years ago," Harrison said. "He's mine."
Should he risk tearing the wards down? But then he saw movements, and Elise hadn't stayed in place. Instead she was climbing in through a window. Bless her soul, she never could leave someone else's wards alone. That meant she would take care of whoever was inside, and help Harry.
Good enough. Harrison rolled his shoulders and said:
"So, what now?"
"We're taking you to be judged."
"In my experience, it's just easier to kill people on the spot."
"We're not like you!" Patil yelled. "We aren't senseless, cruel murderers!"
"Where's your sister?" he asked.
She flinched.
"Which one are you again? I never could tell the difference."
"You know where Padma is?" she wanted to know.
"Yes," he said. "I left her corpse as a nice meal for the Inferi. They were very grateful to have some nice flesh to chew on."
Patil, Parvati's face crumpled, just like he wanted it to. Then she screamed, and flung a spell at him. He dodged it, and then he heard:
"Avada Kedavra!"
The green light came rushing at him. He dove out of the way from the first one. The second one was so close he felt its effects barely grab hold of him, and the third knocked him over. The killing spell was funny. Sometimes it took hold and he vanished into darkness for a while. Other times, he was just in pain.
This time, he rolled around, gasping for breath as the pain travelled through his nerve system.
"How is he not dead?!" someone screamed.
"I have Harry, master!"
Elise's voice made him look up. Harry was with Elise, one of his arms in a weird angle. Harrison pushed against Harry's mind, broken bone, elbow on fire, pain shooting up along the arm, and he howled. They dared to hurt what was his.
The wards fell. It was just the five of them. If someone was coming, they wouldn't arrive in time, because Harrison was moving. No nice, neat killing spells. Not any spells. He poured magic into his arms, his hands, made them stronger than humanly possible and tore.
Patil's wand arm was first. It flew through the air and she screamed. He moved on, plunged his arm through someone's chest and pulled out a lung. Patil was coming up from behind, so he turned and kicked her in the face, adding magic to his leg. She fell backwards, blood gushing out of her broken nose.
One man he slammed to the ground. Once down, he dug his fingers through flesh and ignored the screams. He broke the sternum, and pried the ribcage open when Patil, despite her lost arm and broken nose, jumped on his back.
A knife found itself in between his ribs, and the blade punctured his lung. Harrison kept on moving, and soon felt the familiar sensation of blood coming up his throat. He let the blood bubble out of his mouth and nose, and grinned wide.
Everyone was injured. Patil lost her leg. He broke someone's jaw and ripped out their tongue. Another he punched until he reached bone and brain, and then he stumbled back, knife still in his chest. Patil was trying to drag herself away. Couldn't she Apparate? If she couldn't, then that meant Elise had erected some wards of her own. Good.
The man with his ribcage open was moaning faintly. The man with his skull bashed in was twitching, but not more than that. Another man laid a bit away, neck twisted in a weird, sharp angle.
The unknown woman was still standing. She had a nosebleed, and one hand was torn open. She was hunched over, and Harrison faintly remembered a kick delivered to her ribs.
"Why aren't you dead?" she asked now.
"Because I'm as immortal as you get," he replied.
"Monster…"
"Aren't we all?" He spread his arms. "Come on. Give it your best shot. Maybe I'll stay down. Maybe I won't. People, throughout history, kept trying. Trying to keep me down on the ground. Perhaps they should've chopped me into tiny, little pieces. It would have taken me a while to recover from that."
She sobbed sharply, once, before drawing herself up to her full height. There was something cold and hard in her eyes. Harrison smiled.
"That's the look," he said. "That's a fierce look. I like it. Come on."
She may have been an idiot, but she had guts and she didn't back down. She didn't rush at him without a plan. Instead she took her wand in her non-injured hand, and looked around. She didn't have any back-up. Patil was too injured to help anyone, and she was still trying to crawl away.
"Don't let her get outside your wards," he told Elise, pointing at Patil.
"Master, the knife…"
"A punctured lung has never stopped me from fighting before," he replied.
Elise nodded, mouth tight, and kept her body between the unknown woman and Harry, whose face had relaxed. She must have started the healing process on him, or at least numbed the pain until she could do so.
"He's important to you," the woman said. "You're caring for yourself?"
"He's not me," Harrison said. "I'm not him. But yes, he's important. He will always be important."
"I don't stand much of a chance, do I?"
"You don't stand any chance," he corrected. "You will die here."
She nodded. She was young, he supposed. Perhaps too young to die a violent death. But young people died too. George from his dimension died young, so did Fred. So did numerous others. Life wasn't fair that way.
"Make it quick at least," she said.
He usually didn't like it when people just gave up. But he could be a merciful killer at times. He moved, had his hand around her throat before she could even flinch. His magic flowed into her body, took over, and she was dead in moments. Her life force taken away before she even noticed and Harrison let her body fall to the ground.
"I didn't even get to use my boots," he heard Elise say.
"There will be other chances," Harrison said. "Or you could use it on Patil. Her crawling is pathetic."
Patil had enough in her to scream when Elise kicked her over, and when Harrison looked one of her boots was covered in blood. Before Patil could begin crawling again Elise was there, one boot on her chest.
"What shall we do with her, master?"
He wanted to kill Patil, just for the hell of it. But information was good. Information came first, he supposed, and Harrison walked over to them. He gripped Patil's head and without warning, dove into her mind.
She screamed as he broke her shields and took every memory she had, ripping them apart in search for the rest of the group. He saw Bones in a house, but they changed locations often. The house would be abandoned at this point.
Discussions of where their Harry Potter was. The five had acted on their own. Bones hadn't cleared the kidnapping of Harry Potter, hadn't even gone so far to even discuss it. It was funny; they thought they had gotten their Harry Potter, but realizing they had the wrong version they sent a note to Harrison instead of going to Bones. If they had gone back to their group, they wouldn't be here right now. Three dead, two dying.
"Master?"
"What?"
"The man with the ribcage open… what are we to do with him?"
Harrison pulled away from Patil's thoughts. She gave him some insight, but no location of the group which was disappointing. She was garbling, foaming at the mouth. Did he break her too much? Oops.
He turned to look at the man.
"He's still alive?"
"Yes," Elise said.
"Oh." Harrison snapped his fingers, and the man's heart exploded. "Now he's not."
"Harrison, what's wrong with your eyes?"
Harry kneeled down by Harrison's side now, and Harrison could feel the strain in the eyes. He could feel the blackness pulsating through his veins, and seeing Harry up close… helped. He put his hand on Harry's cheek, and then down so he could feel the pulse. He left a smear of blood behind, but Harry didn't seem too bothered by it.
Once he could feel Harry's pulse, the blackness beneath the skin began to recede. The strain on his eyes lessened, and the world exploded in colours. He hadn't even noticed the colours vanishing.
"I'm alright," Harry said. "It's not like they were going to kill me."
"You couldn't have known that."
"They aren't you, Harrison. They're the good guys."
"The good guys can kill people at first sight too," Harrison insisted. "Ow."
"Oh, now you notice the knife?" Harry wanted to know.
"I had other things on my mind," Harrison said and pulled the knife out.
Once the foreign object was gone, the wound began to heal. He wasn't sure how much blood he had lost, but a fair amount seemed to have leaked out of his mouth and nose during the fight.
"Can we go home now?" Harry wondered.
"Yes. Also, you're grounded."
"Fucking knew that…"
-o-
Rabastan came to Harrison's room, and found the door ajar. He pushed it open, knocked on it a few times to let Harrison know someone was coming.
A trail of bloodied clothing led to the bathroom. Harry was laid out on the bed, bruises on his skin but deeply asleep under the covers.
"In here, Rabastan," came Harrison's voice from the bathroom.
He was in the bath when Rabastan entered. He hadn't gotten around to do more than sit down in the water, Rabastan figured once he saw the dried blood on Harrison's face, shoulders and hands.
"I think I have brain bits in my hair," Harrison complained.
His eyes were green again. His skin was not as pale, and there were no black veins. He seemed like himself again, complaining about the strangest things and… did he just say brain bits?
"You're hopeless," Rabastan concluded, sat down on the edge and helped him look for said brain bits.
He did find a few, along with bone, and some blood. Harrison eventually stopped helping, just sitting and letting Rabastan do whatever he wanted.
"How's Harry?" Rabastan asked.
"Alright, considering the circumstances," Harrison said. "I grounded him."
"You know, it's not his fault he got kidnapped."
"No, but grounding him means people will have less chance of kidnapping him again."
"Who was it?"
"Five from Bones' group, I only recognized Patil. They acted on their own."
"And?"
"If they sent for back-up, all the back-up will find are corpses."
"I guess that's to be expected," Rabastan said as he poured water over Harrison's hair.
The water was turning pink. Harrison moved his hands through the water, created swirls, and the blood vanished along with the bits of brain and bone.
"How do you do that?" Rabastan asked.
"Do what?"
"That magic. You're just… you just make things happen without words, or a wand."
"I haven't used a wand for quite some time. My magic… it reacts to what I want to have done. I can't explain how I do it. I think it, and it's being… done?"
With such ease. Perhaps it got easier the older you became. Perhaps Harrison was just special. Perhaps he didn't give a shit about his own limitations and just moved on with no regards to how magic should work, because impossible things didn't seem so impossible when it was Harrison who did them.
"Alright," Rabastan said, letting it go. "I'll get you some fresh clothes, why don't you finish cleaning up?"
"Is that how mothers sound like?"
"Do I look like your mother?"
"Hmm, get red hair and we'll see."
Rabastan snorted and slapped the back of Harrison's head before leaving him to finish up. He found clothes in a walk-in closet, and put a fresh set just inside the bathroom door. Before Harry was accidentally woken up by either one of them, Rabastan left.
Harrison found him minutes later.
"I thought you went to bed," Rabastan said.
"I'm not that tired just yet," Harrison said. "I would only have woken up Harry anyway."
"Why was Harry in your bed?"
"He said he felt safer in there. Stupid really, my manor is secure but if that's where he wants to sleep, I won't complain."
Harrison sat down.
"Elise told me about the knife," Rabastan continued.
"Figures…"
"No lasting damage, I presume?"
"Lung's fine," Harrison said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'll regain the blood soon enough."
"No further information about the rest of them?"
"Nothing that will help me find them. Why must they be clever and keep on moving?"
"You don't like a challenge?"
"Normally, I would, but I think I'm tired of challenges this decade. I just want things to be done."
"This decade?"
"It changes. Maybe. Perhaps it just a few years. Did I like challenges when I just got out of the prison? I can't remember now."
"Is your memory that bad?"
"Not always," Harrison said. "I'm a bit light-headed to be honest."
"That's the blood loss speaking. You need to sleep."
"But I'm not tired. Or am I?"
"Bed."
"Oh, fine, if you insist."
Harrison let himself be pulled up and walked upstairs. Outside his bedroom, he stopped.
"Were you scared of me?" he asked Rabastan. "When Joanne and Louis came back without Harry?"
"A little bit," Rabastan said. "Not scared you would hurt me, or them, but… you can be scary."
"I don't usually get that angry anymore," Harrison said. "It was easier before. I had quite the temper. I suppose I still do, if the anger manifested itself in my body like that."
"Oh, you have a temper," Rabastan said. "Last week you threw yourself against the wall for a half-hour."
"That was just passing the time."
"And had nothing to do with the fact your potion didn't work out the way you hoped?"
"My potions never do, if I got upset every time they weren't successful I'd be having temper tantrums daily."
"I suppose it's a good thing you got Severus then."
"The best." Harrison opened the door. "Well, I'm off to bed then… not that it's late or anything."
"Just go to sleep."
"What if I don't want to sleep once I'm in there?"
"Try harder then. You're light-headed, you need the rest."
"Again, is that what a mother sounds like?"
Rabastan realized no matter what he said next, he might very well end up sounding like his own mother, and judging by the look on Harrison's face, he seemed to know it too.
"You fucking bastard, go to sleep like a normal person."
"Not normal," Harrison said, smiling. "If I'm still asleep tomorrow, wake me up?"
"Sure."
"Just want to make sure I don't sleep for too long. I did that once. I was just taking a nap, and I woke up three months later."
"Alright, I take it back about normal. You're definitely weird, but I wouldn't have you any other way."
With that, Rabastan shoved Harrison into the bedroom, and stayed in the doorway until Harrison was settled. Harry woke up briefly, and mumbled something.
"Yes, it's just me," Harrison said. "Now, don't go blaming me if Angel jumps on your stomach tomorrow morning."
"It's just you she does it to," Harry muttered, nearly buried beneath the blankets. "Because you're her favourite."
"She has a funny way of showing it."
Both of them were asleep within minutes, and Rabastan eased the door close. As he turned, Elise was there.
"He's asleep," Rabastan said. "Now, I know he said he didn't get any information about their whereabouts but… how about we go look for them anyway?"
Elise grinned.
-o-
Amelia Bones had not stopped to question what they were doing. What they were trying to accomplish. If they were trying to accomplish anything.
Falling through the crack to another dimension had been a strange feeling. For a moment after landing, she had been thrilled to see whole landscapes. She was overwhelmed with gratitude and guilt, gratitude for having escaped the hell her world had become, and guilt for leaving some behind.
But the new world hadn't brought her much comfort, once she started to learn about it. The Ministry was in the hands of Voldemort, who was alive and well. The Minister was Lucius Malfoy, a slippery man who probably could be trusted as much as her dimension's Lucius. Which means, not trusted at all.
There was also another person. She hadn't seen him herself. The Nightmare Lord. A whispered title, more secretive than Voldemort. An ancient lord, she was told the few times she spoke to people not in her group.
It was said this old lord ruled over people by fear. He attacked people at random. Killed people at random. There was no goal, no sense of his actions. He killed, and he tortured. No meaning. Little to no message. So he was worse than Voldemort.
And he was still alive! Bones heard people doubting it, saying he was an impostor while others said they had seen him injured beyond repair. Apparently he had lost both lungs and his heart, and still lived.
So this dimension was no better than the old one and she had lost almost half of the group already. They had gone after Lucius, the first group and disappeared, and then five more had decided to find and take Harry Potter. Only they kidnapped the wrong one.
They had assumed it was their dimension's Harry Potter, only to realize their mistake. She wondered how they made that mistake; she had seen this dimension's Harry Potter and he looked nothing like theirs. Had they forgotten that their Harry Potter had changed? Or had they not seen him since he was a teenager?
Did it matter now, she wondered, as she looked at the remains of the five people who had taken Harry Potter. He was nowhere to be seen, and the five people were dead. In pieces.
The violence told her it was their dimension's Harry Potter, no doubt about it. The violence also told her… the violence suggested to her, in the gentlest of terms, it was the work of this Nightmare Lord. Apparently he liked violence. He could tear people apart. Rip their limbs one by one, and laugh at people's despair.
But it couldn't be. Harry Potter couldn't be the Nightmare Lord. Could he?
Bones wondered if they should stop. Just get on with their lives someplace else, outside of England. It would be safer for them all, and would also let them live longer. But she couldn't suggest that. She was their Minister, and she needed to keep on fighting.
Fighting a Ministry who seemed perfectly content with Lucius Malfoy as their Minister. Fighting a Ministry who was fine with Voldemort as an advisor. Mind, he didn't seem as insane as he was in their world. But he was friends with the Nightmare Lord, and the Nightmare Lord was dangerous.
"What should we do, minister?"
Give up, she wanted to say. How about we just give up?
They wouldn't survive like this. Even if she wanted to stop Harry Potter, she knew none of them were strong enough.
"We'll retreat for now," she said instead.
"There's something wrong with the people in this dimension. How can they just accept Voldemort and Malfoy?"
"People adapt. Especially to governments, when the changes aren't radically different from what they already know."
"But it's wrong!"
"Not in this world."
Just give up, she desperately wanted to yell. She was tired. What was the point of finding their dimension's Harry Potter? What could possibly be solved by finding him? What was the point of killing Lucius Malfoy? That wouldn't do them any good. No one would just step up and say she should take over the position.
Their existence here was pointless, and yet Bones couldn't say they should give up. Because they wouldn't listen anyway, her group. What was left of her group. They wanted justice. They wanted their old lives back.
Neither of that was possible. Bones sighed, and said:
"Let's bury the bodies. Then we'll figure out what we should do."
She had chased after the Malfoys for years after Potter disappeared. She had strength, back then. But now it was gone. She was just going through the motions.
Would she find that strength again, when it all seemed so meaningless in the end?
To be continued…
Bones isn't as convinced of their cause as the others in her group. But will it stop them?
Chapter seven: Harrison decides to give Bones' group what they want; him. Because what could go wrong, when the Nightmare Lord plays bait?
See you guys later,
Tiro