AN: Yes I am back writing and updating the story because of some shit that happened recently and on top of that my computer decided to say bye bye and almost die on me but I recovered the story files so I hopefully I will keep on keepin on and do remember that this story is AU so different stuff can happen! Do please keep that in mind.
Guest review: Yes, yes it was a reference to that.
Chapter 19 – Bittersweet, but for whom?
'What the hell did I just dream about?' Tonks' first thoughts of the day kept buzzing around her mind, slowly conjuring up the rapidly fading images of the dreams but keeping only the most important ones fresh and detailed.
"Great half-machine half-beast things surrounded by innumerable people, beasts, and creatures that can only come from hell bearing down on a castle that looks like I should know it but I don't. You really shouldn't have a drink before bedtime Tonksie."
"But should I ever find whoever cast some sort of curse that gives nightmares combined with hallucinations on me, I am going to end them," grumbled Tonks as she began her daily routine of getting ready for the morning before she gave a glance to the clock on the wall and realised that she had slept way into the afternoon.
"Dammit all to hell, I knew I should've set an alarm." Tonks continued to grumble about her singular woes before trudging out of her room and down the hallway before slowing down and eventually stopping as she began to hear slightly raised voices, not from downstairs in the kitchen, but in one of the rooms that was close to the library.
As she got closer to the raised voices, she could begin to make out and recognize the raised voices belonging to both Harry and Remus. But as she strained her ears to try to hear what they were arguing about, the tone of Harry's voice became lower in pitch, as if something was underneath his voice and deepening it.
Before she could get any closer, Remus tore open the door and stormed down the stairs, barely missing her but not noticing her either, 'So glad I kept to the walls otherwise I would've become a pancake by the way he stormed out of there.'
As she turned around to follow Remus down the stairs, Tonk stopped for a moment before turning back and walked into the room where she knew Harry had had his argument with Remus.
"Umm Harry? Can I ask what the hell that was about? Because Remus had a look of absolute fury on his face when he almost barged into me coming out of here."
Harry just stood there without speaking, almost seeming like he was looking for the right words to use but in reality, he was just standing there with a part of his mind miles away, thinking his thoughts before he turned slightly towards her with a regarding eye.
"Oh, that? That was simply an of different opinions dear Tonks. It seemed that Remus and I have a very different opinion on our lifestyles and he did not exactly like what I had to say about such things." At her confused raised eyebrow, Harry decided to indulge her a little bit more.
"It seems that Remus, like so many before him, allowed the wolf inside him to dictate which powerful figure to follow with a single track mind and did not question their orders whatsoever." Tonks' confusion only increased as Harry's eyes glazed over slightly, as if remembering a memory of the past but quickly snapped out of as silence descended on the two of them.
'Okay how am I gonna do this? Do I just blurt it out or do I say it in a more'"Why are you still in school?"'Thanks a lot, mouth.' As Tonks was berating her mouth for being too quick, she had to get Harry to repeat his question.
"What do you mean by that dear Tonks?" Unbeknownst to her, the door of the room began to slowly shut, with a few minuscule runes burnt into the wood.
"Well, what I mean is that you're pretty much top of your year, you are scarily powerful by your demonstrations from the tournament and just by the way you speak it's like you know a hell of a lot more than you show." Nervousness began to creep into her voice as the only response to her questioning was just the staring of his ice blue eyes.
After a few dragging seconds of silence that made her almost fidget, Harry's initial response made her strain her hearing just a tad to hear it clearly. "You want to know why I stay? You really want to know changeling?" Seeing her nod ever so slightly in anticipation, he answered her question.
"The reason or reasons really of why I stay is quite simple; a leader needs followers, and a god needs worshipers." At hearing his answer, Tonks shook her head in confusion at the whole worshiping bit. "What do you mean a god needs worshipers? It isn't like you fancy yourself a god, Harry. Harry?"
"I remember when millennia upon millennia ago when I was naught but a cloud of energy, moving and shifting on the whims of mortals. When my brothers and I became sentient and begun to play the opening moves of our great game. I remember the great sundering of the Old Ones gates and the glorious invasions in the aftermath." Both mortal occupants of the room didn't realize or even notice that the walls around them began to melt and shift into something else, something not of the material plane.
"Our fun increased further when our newly born sister joined us and entered the game and with the arrival of the so-called Anathema, you'd think we would've slowed down our games but we only shifted into the shadows, playing with the minds of his sons and turned them on each other. Billions or even trillions of souls were ours to play with whenever we gained control of their governor." Instead of the normal room that they had occupied back in Grimmauld place, when she looked around, Tonks almost gasped in shock as the normal walls were now replaced with shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books, towering all around them and even up into the air.
"Even when our blockheaded brother decided to be damned jealous and throw me off my rightful place at the top of the food chain, our influence in the material worlds still grew. Until those blasted Asur decided to create that portal of theirs to reduce it, we were on our way to domination! Don't you see changeling!? We were once at the top of the food chain with our magic and might with no one to stop us! We even had our own champion, poised to bring about the destruction of the enemies of chaos!" Whoever, or rather whatever, Tonks had been talking to before in that small room had now disappeared, and now in their place was…something.
"We were even winning against you mortals when that fortress world was destroyed! But then on the cusp of victory, we were denied, and we were reduced to this. You ask me if I fancy myself a god changeling? I...AM…A...GOD!" Even whilst staring at him, Tonks could almost see a form underneath Harry's own form, writhing like a group of snakes slithering about and faces continuously speaking then stopping.
"But why? Why take over an innocent young boy like Harry? He is nothing to you." Despite her inner feelings about the situation, she still couldn't understand why this god had chosen the young man she had become friends with.
"He is a chosen of fate and as the Architect of Fate, he is perfect for me. He knows exactly what his role is and in the future. Now leave me changeling, I have fates to spin and you have your own mortal things to do." Quicker than a blink of an eye, Tonks found herself back in the material world, exactly where she and Harry were talking.
"He's right you know, I know exactly what I was doing when I first accepted him when I was a young boy and I know exactly what my role is in the future. I am the Champion of Tzeentch, the vessel to the Architect of Fate and leader of my faction Tonks, just as Hermione and Neville are the leaders of their factions. But I need followers Tonks, allies who I can count on to help me when the time comes. Will you join me?" The thoughts in her head were swirling around as she tried to comprehend what she had just witnessed and heard.
'Okay first off my friend is the so-called vessel of an evil god bent on domination and if what it was talking about was truthful, there are two more out there with Hermione and Neville involved also. In addition to that, this evil god chose him for a specific reason but Harry knows that and fully accepts it. And now, he fully admits to wanting followers and worshipers to said evil god and wants me to help in whatever he seems to be preparing for. Merlin preserve me.' With both her head and heart in agreement, Tonks nodded her head in acceptance in joining her young friends side, despite any and all her previous allegiances with order.
Scene break
"Move! Move out of the way you useless curs!" Everyone in front and even around her scrambled as fast as they could to get out of the quickly striding witch, lest they incur her wrath and possibly go insane from it.
For the past several weeks, Bellatrix had been diligently serving and working for her lord and master whilst she had been working on her assigned mission. For the several weeks, she had been given the task of locating and kidnapping a number of muggles, specifically young children within their first several years of life.
As she quietly entered she lords private chambers, she took a brief second to look around the room and noted that several more inner circle members were, including Severus and Lucius, pointedly discussing something with their lord.
"Master, I have returned with what you desire of me. I have each and every one of them under the draught of living death that Snape so lovingly made for us and hidden away exactly where you wanted them." Bellatrix whispered in her constant worshiping tone.
"Thank you Bellatrix, you have been such help these past number of weeks. Now Severus, do you have what I asked for you do retrieve?" The Dark Lords silken voice whispered ever so slightly as the group turned towards the potions master, who they had just realized had a small box with him.
"Indeed I have my lord. I retrieved it from the very place you said it was to be. Though I must confess my confusion my lord, why go through all this effort when we know that someone was the cause of the destruction of such an artifact?" Whilst Snape kept staring directly at Voldemort, he did notice out of the corner of his eye that Lucius had shrunk back in shame and the hiss that came from Bellatrix.
Voldemort hummed in slight amusement at his servant's behavior towards one another and slowly moved towards one of the tomes that he had laid across the main table in the center of the room. "Whilst the destruction of one of my most precious artifacts because of Lucius was a major step back from my return my dear friend, it still hasn't deterred me from delving further into the mysteries of soul and summoning magic. That is why I asked dear Bella here to gather the subjects that I needed for my experiments."
As Voldemort began to explain a few more minor details pertaining to the plan, behind his occlumency shields, Severus began to clamp down onto the nervous and fearful sensations that had begun to creep up in him as he listened to the dark lord's plans. 'Albus must know of this, Voldemort delving even further into the forbidden arts is bad enough but now the dark mark is acting up? Shifting colors in certain places? This isn't normal.'
Scene break
"Come on slowpoke, it's only a few more kilometers until we can sit down have a rest!"
"Easy for you to say! You've been doing this all your life and the complete opposite for me." Jim looked towards his wife who had walked further ahead of him with a slight smile and laughed.
For the past hour and a half, Jim and his wife had been hiking through the forest where Lizzy had always wanted to go but never quite found the time to go what with their jobs getting in the way or life in general.
Ever since the reports about some sasquatch looking creatures had been reported in and near the forests, not a lot of people had been willing to go trekking but Lizzy had always been able to convince her husband to go along with whatever harebrained adventure of hers because he loved her that much.
"Hey Jim? Hurry up and come look at this will ya!" Jim could just hear Lizzy call out from over a small ridge area but when he came up beside her, he looked at what she been pointing towards and crinkled his eyebrows in confusion.
"And what exactly are you wanting me to see Liz? Some weird lines carved into a rock that was probably made by some people that sipped a bit too much from the bottle or maybe even some people who were high as kites." Jim waved his arms around in an exaggerated manner as he walked around the rock.
"Jimmy come on, doesn't this interest you? I mean yeah they were probably made by some druggies but they honestly look like markings made some old Viking tribe or something. You have to admit that would be awesome if we discovered some ancient Viking ruins and we got all the credit for it." The two of them shared a laugh between them as they imagined the tv interviews because of this 'amazing discovery'.
Before too long, the duo began to continue on their trek further on the path, never noticing they were being followed by not one, nor two or even three shadows, but by a herd of them.
"Did you hear that?"
"Nooo, do you hear something? Maybe it's the mysterious sasquatch that somehow moved from America over to England?" Jim snorted at the picture running through his head but slowed down as he looked over at Lizzy's concerned look.
"I swear I heard something though. It's getting late so maybe we should head-JIM!" As her husband was swept up in front of her by a brutishly tall bull, Lizzy turned her head sideways to see a veritable herd of beasts running towards her, each and every one of them bellowing out for something.
"Humans run in Beastmen land! Become food for herd!" Shocked that the brutish beast actually spoke to her, the last thing Lizzy saw was the sight of her loving husband Jim's head being torn from his body and a very large axe swinging towards hers.
Because Harry and Remus had a bit of an explosive argument between the two of them, will it affect something in the future? Will the result bring in some unwanted attention to Harry? With the recruitment of Tonks, Harry now has his changeling, but how long will it last before someone realizes what she has done? Who else will fall prey to the machinations of Chaos? Find out next time on The Affliction!
AN: A bit of a background dump from Tzeentchs p.o.v.
Give it a good read, possibly even give a review as they are always welcome and it tells me if you're liking the story and you have yourself a very good day :)