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, or any other site for that matter. I do not give permission to do so.

-o-

Life is a soul-sucking force and I don't like it. Fanfiction writing is slow due to this, but this story is not abandoned. How could I ever abandon our dear Nightmare Lord?

Enjoy!

Fractured Time takes place around five years before The Nightmare Man's Journey.

-o-

Chapter Seven

It took less than two days for Harrison to fully recover. Harry was fine, a bit tender perhaps but the bruises were fading fast. He was still grounded.

"It's not like I even want to go out right now," Harry said.

"Still grounded," Harrison said even as Angel climbed all over him.

Their outing to the sweet shops was the last one Harrison would allow for a while, at least until he had taken care of the rest of Bones' group, and Angel was fine with it as long as she could annoy her favourite person.

Lucy sat on the arm of the chair where Harrison was seated, feet on his thigh while she read aloud from a potions book.

"When can I do this one?" she asked every once in a while, pointing at a recipe.

"With me? Never. Ask Severus."

"Why don't you ever want to make potions with me?" Lucy wondered.

"I don't usually measure things."

"And?"

"Which means I usually end up damaging myself when I try to make potions," Harrison replied. "Last time half of my face melted off. That stung. A lot, actually."

"Half of your face?" Lucy said. "Why didn't we see that?"

"It was in the middle of the night, and the damage was healed by the morning. I said it was fine, it was a good chance for you to learn about the skull and such but Elise wouldn't have it."

"She's so boring sometimes," Lucy said.

Harrison agreed, and Harry said:

"You're making her weird."

"I'm making her curious, there's a difference."

"Weird," Angel mumbled, sitting on Harrison's shoulder.

"Yes, alright, a little weird. We're both weird, little Angel. Am I your tree?"

"Too small."

"Yes, I'm not a very large tree. Just don't go climbing the trees in the tree garden. They're too violent."

"They smash," Angel said.

"Oh yes, they smash people."

"You're making her weird too," Harry said.

"I make everyone weird. You're weird."

"Stop saying weird," Rabastan muttered.

"You're weird," Harrison countered with, like the mature adult he wasn't.

Rabastan rolled his eyes, and turned page in the newspaper. Angel eventually got tired of climbing Harrison and flopped down onto his lap while Lucy was writing up what kinds of potions she wanted to try.

Soon however, the two girls ganged up and demanded stories. Harrison sighed, as if he was suffering greatly from this whole ordeal, and had Harry fetch him a book that was mostly safe for children.

"What about the parts that isn't safe?" Rabastan wondered.

"I won't read them out loud," Harrison replied. "Have you never read to a child?"

"No, I bloody well haven't. You then, big, bad Dark Lord? You read to children often?"

"According to said children, not often enough," Harrison said.

"Read," Lucy said to him.

"Yeah, read!" Angel agreed.

"Alright, you little devils, hang on… let's see, let's see here… nope, that passage is no good."

Harrison scanned the pages before he began to read. It was actually a children's tale, which made Rabastan wonder if they were all children's tales, and if so, why the hell was there bits that weren't safe for children? Or was it a book that had just one children's tale in it?

The book cover offered nothing. Most of them didn't. Rabastan had found out that some of them were indeed a jumble of different texts, ranging from stories to potions to historical events, so it may very well be a book like that.

It was a bit weird. But then again, the word seemed perfectly in tune with everything within Harrison's home.

-o-

Now, Rabastan didn't know much about this new world he had ended up in. Going with Elise to try and find Bones' group had helped to expand what little knowledge he had already learned.

Mostly about rebels though, because boy did they have a lot of rebels in this world. It was a fine line Lucius and Voldemort wandered on, trying to keep everyone happy while also capturing rebels that threatened said happiness.

Harrison was no help. Well, he had been a little bit of a help, mainly by not killing people at random and in excess amount after Dumbledore had been killed and the Ministry had gained Lucius as Minister of Magic.

People had throughout time learned about the Nightmare Lord and his immortality, and feared him. But Elise told Rabastan that once he had been captured and imprisoned for hundreds of years, people forgot him to the point he's never mentioned in any books.

"People usually forget him," she said one time. "In time, when he's calm, they forget. Then they are reminded, and fear him, before they forget once more."

This time around, he was associated with great violence and a lot of death. He was chaos, an unforgiving killer and people saw him as that. Having not acted that way in five years, already people had begun to doubt him.

"They have shorter memories than people had a thousand years ago," Harrison complained when Rabastan brought it up. "Back in the day, they would remember at least for an entire generation who I was, even if I didn't kill a village every week or so. Now they doubt me within five years? People are idiots."

The rebels didn't seem to do much about it, but who knows? Elise said that Lucius and Voldemort suspected a lot of rebels worked in the Ministry, or around it, and could easily have started rumours. It could be one who was on their side, as well. Not a lot of people saw Harrison anyway; he didn't go to the Ministry unless strictly necessary, and seemed more like a shut-in that anything else.

"So what if I like to stay indoors all day?" Harrison said. "I built my house to stay in it, why should I leave when I don't have to?"

"Then don't complain when people forget, master," Lucian had replied.

"They forget anyway, it's like the entire country has a bad memory when it comes to me."

While most of the rebels remained nameless, there were a few names that came back every so often. Harry's former friends were amongst those names, and none of them had been seen for years. So there were some rebels who had to stay in hiding, since they made sure everyone knew they didn't agree with Voldemort and Lucius.

Still, no signs of Bones making contact with any rebels. Rabastan wondered why. Wouldn't it be to her advantage to do so? She may not know that Harrison used to be their Harry Potter, but Rabastan didn't think the rebels would refuse her. They would help her even.

So why didn't she? Was it because they had gone into hiding after what Harrison did to those who captured Harry? Was she trying to… escape or something like that? Expect that they would be forgotten?

Harrison didn't let them do that for long, because eventually he threw up his hands and said:

"Not doing this anymore."

"Not doing what?" Rabastan said. "I thought you liked wood-carving?"

"Oh, not the carving, I'm fine with the carving, but with this whole group from my dimension-thing."

"That thing. What are you going to do about it then?"

"No," Elise said as Harrison opened his mouth.

"I'll be fine!" Harrison exclaimed.

"Master, you're not playing bait."

"I will be fine, Elise, stop worrying so much."

"Master…"

"I'm doing it," Harrison decided. "Besides, I need my exercise."

"No, you don't," Elise said. "You barely eat, and you run around the manor all day every day anyway."

"I need fresh air?"

"So open a window."

"I'd like some sunshine?"

"I'll shine a light in your eyes until you remember you hate the sun, master."

"She's so stubborn," Harrison told Rabastan.

"Yeah," he replied. "No idea who she gets that from."

"Oh, shut up. I'm playing bait, and that's the end of the conversation."

"Bait?" Angel said. "Like fish?"

"Yes, I'm going fishing," Harrison told her.

"But… fish don't bite you."

"They will if I agitate them enough," he replied.

Angel frowned, looking adorably confused with that bow in her hair that Ywgraine had put in that morning. Obviously she was thinking about real fishes. Harrison however, only clapped his hands in delight and dashed from the room. Elise abandoned her work and ran after him. Rabastan wasn't about to just let him go either so he said:

"Angel, don't worry about it. We'll be fine."

"Uncle Harrison is always fine," she said, turning back to her colouring book. "Even when he's acting stupid."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

Harrison had already gone outside by the time Rabastan made it, but due to Elise and Lucian holding him back, he hadn't gotten that far from the manor.

"Come on, what's the worst that can happen?" he said.

"You losing!" Elise snapped.

"Even if I lose half of my body, it'll be fine, you're all stalking me anyway so once they fallen for it, you can just kill them!"

"Master, last time you lost half your body you were in a magical coma for over a year!"

"Well, I won't be dead! Come on, isn't it better to lure them all out thinking they've got me, slaughter the lot of them and then relax?"

"Why does he make things like that sound so easy?" Rabastan asked Elise, who was digging her heels in, so Harrison couldn't run off.

"Because master never thinks."

"I do think!" Harrison protested. "At least one time out of five."

"Doubtful."

Harrison spluttered, trying to wriggle free. He could just sever their arms and be freed that way, it wasn't like it would be permanent damage on their parts, but he didn't seem to want to hurt them.

"Well, if you're so worried about me having my body torn apart, move in before they do that," he tried with.

"You really think he's gonna stop?" Rabastan asked Elise and Lucian.

"Well, in my most magical dreams he might," Elise said.

"Sassy, where does this sassy attitude come from? Is it Rowena? Did Rowena teach you that?"

"Master, please stop struggling."

"Also, the calmness, the calmness is so wrong! I didn't teach you that."

"That was Rowena," Elise replied. "Now, if you insist on playing bait… let us plan it first."

"Oh, so you'll let me?"

"I have no other choice," she said.

Harrison stopped struggling, and the two servants let him go. He didn't try to dash away at least.

"If you play bait, we will follow," Elise said.

"Me too," Rabastan said. "And if you really want to lure them in, you should look a bit like your old self."

"I don't?"

"No, mate, you don't. If it wasn't for your eyes, I would have a hard time recognizing you."

"Oh. Suppose I have to change that. No point in playing bait if I don't look the part."

-o-

They were hiding in an old, abandoned house near the coast when Bones was interrupted in her thinking by a man rushing into the room.

"The Minister is planning!" one said.

"Minister, we saw Potter!"

"You saw him?" she said. "How sure are you?"

She suspected Harry Potter of their dimension to be this dimension's Nightmare Lord due to the similarity of their cruel actions, but hadn't found a picture of the Nightmare Lord to even begin comparing their looks.

"I swear on my life and magic that it was our Harry Potter!"

"And he looked like he did last we saw him in our dimension?" she asked.

"A little older, but that's all," the man said.

"What was he doing?"

"I wasn't close enough to hear what he was saying, and he kept glancing around him. He probably knows we're here, and he's nervous!"

He killed Dumbledore, and remained as arrogant as ever. I'm not sure he knows how to be nervous anymore. Bones tried to find her strength, tried to find the will to make plans.

Not much would change if they did manage to kill their Harry Potter. They were still in a strange dimension, surrounded by a government led by Lucius Malfoy and supported by Voldemort. They were strangers, in hiding, with nowhere to go. No friends, no family. All they had were each other.

She had heard about rebels, but Bones hadn't found them. Or trusted anyone enough to meet up with them. Who knew who was friend or foe here?

But still, something had to be done. If they did manage to kill Harry Potter, she could perhaps convince them to go somewhere. Another country. A new chance of life, with revenge from their dimension completed.

"Take me to him," she commanded at last.

-o-

They found him in Muggle London. Bones didn't have to look hard. Harry Potter was hard to miss. Dishevelled, hair longer than she had ever known him to have, and looking more in his thirties, but the scar was there, and the eyes were the same and…

And he was looking straight at her. His eyes widened, and he fled. Bones felt a flutter of hope. Had his trip to this dimension made him more nervous? Why else would he flee?

They moved after him, crossing streets and alleys as they tailed him. He seemed alone, in somewhat tattered robes. Had she been wrong about him being the Nightmare Lord? Or was he the Nightmare Lord, but not as strong as she had feared? Perhaps he had taken the title from someone else, a dark lord in this dimension's history, in an attempt to make himself even scarier.

"Be ready to Apparate as soon as you have him," she ordered everyone. "Spread out!"

The bustling city life was replaced by calmer streets. Emptier streets.

"Move in!" she yelled as Potter turned to look behind him. "Make sure he can't run!"

Spells flew, in all colours. Their names were called out, but she couldn't hear them; her heart was pounding, her blood rushing. Adrenaline was pumping.

One spell looped his arm off. Another broke his leg. Blood sprayed down onto the ground, and as soon as he was grabbed, he was Apparated.

She saw people on the roofs, saw them with wands in their hands and yelled:

"Apparate!"

She disappeared before anyone on top of the roofs even made it down to the street.

-o-

Elise took the severed arm and looked at Rabastan.

"And this is why I hate when master plays the bait," she told him.

"Ah. So, how often does he lose a limb or two when he does things like this?"

"Every. Single. Time."

"And when we find him, he laughs," Lucian added. "For being so concerned when others are kidnapped, master is rather bad at putting himself in our shoes when he gets taken from us."

"Alright… so who's up for chaining him to the bed until he learns his lesson?" Rabastan asked.

Everyone put up a hand.

Just how often have you done this shit, Harrison?

-o-

Harrison licked the blood off his lips as the bleeding of his stump was stopped, and thought:

Well, shit…

To be continued…

Such a short chapter after such a long time? I suck!

Anyway…

Chapter eight: So, how will Harrison deal with this mess?

See you later,

Tiro