Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all other characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this version of the Mask belongs to New Line Cinemas; I'm just using them for this story
Feedback: I'd appreciate it, believe me
Harry Potter and the Mask of Loki
Despite what he'd said to Ron while they were still in the cell- about how the enemy of their enemy was their friend- for a moment, Harry was tempted to leave Wormtail to fight it out with the Death Eater on his own. After all, the rat animagus had done nothing to make Harry even want to save him in the first place; why should he stick his neck out to save Wormtail just because he was now apparently trying to help him…?
The reason was simple; Wormtail seemed to be trying to help him and his friends escape from their current predicament.
In this kind of situation, Harry would at least like to know why Wormtail was doing that before he made any judgement calls about what to do with the man who'd betrayed his parents.
"Expelliarmus!" he yelled, pointing his wand at the two combatants before him and his friends. As soon as the spell was out of his mouth, the Death Eater Wormtail had been fighting with was sent flying backwards, his mouth opening in a brief gasp before he crashed into the stone wall behind him with an unpleasant crunching sound.
As the Death Eater's unconscious body fell to the ground, Harry noticed with relief that his neck wasn't broken- no matter how badly his original plan had gone wrong, he wasn't going to kill anybody but Voldemort unless he had no other option- but one arm was twisted at an awkward angle and there was a nasty gash above his right eye.
"Th-thank you…" Wormtail stuttered, loking shakily up at Harry through his ever-slightly-watery eyes. "I-I don't know wh-what he would have done to me… he was an animal… you saved my life…"
"Don't try and win me over with stories; just stick to the facts," Harry growled, pointing his wand at Wormtail as his father's former friend knelt before him, staring back at him with wide, terrified eyes. "You have a minute to explain to me exactly what you're doing here, as well as why I shouldn't knock you out as well, and after that, we're all going to hit you with the first spell we can think of, OK?"
"R-right…" Wormtail muttered, looking awkwardly at the four young wizards before him. "W-well… you see, the truth of the matter is…"
"Yes?" Ginny interjected, glaring at the man who'd ruined Harry's life for almost as long as he could remember.
"…is that…" Wormtail paused, briefly looking like he'd never actually be able to finish his sentence due to his teeth chattering so much, before he finally looked at them with an intensity that was totally at odds with his usually watery gaze, "I h-hate my life."
Harry stared at Wormtail for a moment before speaking again.
"So… what? You want us to kill you?" he asked, raising his wand once more, a still-harsh glare in his eyes. "Trust me, you've come to the right place if you want death…"
"NO!" Wormtail yelled, looking desperately at Harry. "I w-want it to end, yes, but I-I just want out of this place; I'll take anywhere over spending another second with all these Death Eaters! You're the only p-people who'll ever listen to me rather than just k-kill me on sight; I h-had to t-try and get you o-out if I was ever going to talk to anybody about what I w-wanted…"
"Hold on; can I make sure we're on the same page of the 'novel' here?" Hermione interjected, looking critically at Wormtail. "Are you telling us you let us out… so we can send you to prison?"
Wormtail looked over at Hermione, a pained expression on his face, and, after a moment's pause, he nodded slightly.
"I j-just want out of this…" he said, looking back at Harry as he spoke. "Please… you have to help me… I don't want to stay here any more… you have to stop this… this nightmare…"
"You know, that's the part I don't really understand," Ron retorted, managing to make his voice sound relatively nonchalant despite his inner excitement and curiosity at what he was currently hearing. "You're saying you hate your life right now, yet you're the person who gave the Death Eaters their leader back in the first place? Surely they'd be pretty much falling over each other to congratulate you for what you did for them?"
Despite his currently terrified attitude, Wormtail snorted slightly in a sarcastic manner.
"A-As if," he said, sounding almost sarcastic as he looked at the four Hogwarts students before him. "Even those Death Eaters who v-venerated the D-Dark Lord don't like me because I 'took so long to bring him back'; can you imagine the treatment I get from th-those Death Eaters who actually didn't like having to follow the Dark L-Lord again after spending thirteen years free t-to do their own thing?"
Ginny nodded slightly as she glanced over at Harry.
"You have to admit, he makes a good point," she said, shrugging casually as she looked at her boyfriend. "I mean, I don't think Malfoy was exactly pleased at having to lose all the authority he'd gathered in the Ministry in the years since Voldemort snuffed it, and he was hardly the only ex-Death Eater in a position of power following Voldemort's death. It's not totally impossible that he's telling us the truth…"
"Yeah… I guess…" Harry mused, staring thoughtfully at Wormtail for a moment, his wand still held out in front of him.
On the one hand, this was the man who'd betrayed his parents and condemned him to live with the Dursleys for ten whole years, being belittled and humiliated at every available opportunity, all because he was too afraid for his own miserable life to bother risking himself for the people who would have died to protect him…
But, on the other hand, he wanted to get his friends to safety, and this man seemed to be the only way of doing that.
Even putting that aside, he'd certainly given them a plausible explanation as to why he was helping them escape; it certainly fit with everything Harry had gathered about the Death Eaters in his encounters with them. They all operated on a policy of 'Look out for 'Number One' first and leave everyone else out to dry', and only the more fanatically devoted of Voldemort's followers- such as the infamous Bellatrix Lestrange, of course- actually seemed to be happy about the situation as it currently stood.
Either way, Wormtail would be getting a great deal of abuse from both sides; those Death Eaters who'd acquired power for themselves would now have to deal with having to 'share' it with Voldemort all over again, and those who'd been the most devoted to Voldemort would be angry that Wormtail hadn't done anything to resurrect the Dark Lord earlier.
Besides, when you got down to it, Harry's options were limited; with the Mask in Voldemort's hands, his only real chance at stopping the 'Dark Lord' who could use that kind of power would be a quick, unexpected strike as soon as possible while his friends got out of here as soon as they could.
"OK," he said simply, nodding briefly at Wormtail before looking at his friends. "You'd all better get out of here and wait for the Order; there's too many Death Eaters here for you to take them all on. Wormtail and I will go after Voldemort; knowing Tom, he's probably issued orders that nobody but him is to kill me, so that gives me a few more options than you if I get into a fight."
"Harry-" Ginny began, glaring at her boyfriend before Harry held up a hand to stop her.
"Please, Ginny," he said, looking at her. "I can't do this if I don't know you guys are all safe; I need to know that you're out of Voldemort's clutches if I'm going to win this."
And if Wormtail's whole story does turn out to be a trap, Harry added to himself, hoping that the others would guess what he was thinking, I'd rather it was just me who had to deal with it.
I need to know that somebody who knows what's happened here tonight lives through this, no matter how slim the odds are that they'll be able to do anything against the Mask…
It was a somewhat pessimistic attitude, he knew, but he had to be practical; of all the people he'd encountered as Mark, Ginny had the most experience with his powers in that form. If he couldn't stop Voldemort now, she'd be everyone's best bet at working out a suitable defence against the new 'Dark Lord'…
After a moment's silence, Ginny nodded in a resigned manner.
"OK…" she said, sighing as she looked at Harry, frustration evident on her face as she looked at him. "Just so you know, I don't like this."
"I know," Harry said, smiling slightly at her. "I think that's why I love you, to be honest; you're as stubborn as I am when you put your mind to it."
Walking over to Ginny, Harry took her in his arms, gave her a brief kiss on the lips, and then turned to look at Wormtail.
"OK then, Peter," he said, somehow managing to make Wormtail's real name sound like a curse, determined to make it clear that he still didn't trust the former marauder as far as he could throw him "let's-"
"J-just one th-thing…" Wormtail said, slowly reaching into his back pocket. For a moment, Harry tensed up, preparing himself for the possibility that this might be another attack, but then he pulled out three wands, their handles facing outwards, and Harry relaxed, he recognised those wands easily enough.
"I t-took them from the ot-other D-Death Eaters after they'd l-locked you u-up; they told me to s-snap them," Wormtail explained, as he passed the various wands over to Ron, Hermione and Ginny, managing a slight, if shaky, smile as he did so. "The a-advantage of being basically the s-servant; everybody just e-expects you to d-do whatever they ask of y-you at once."
"Uh… thanks," Ron said, slightly uncertainly, as he took the wand and casually waved it, the familiar trail of sparks that showed the wand had 'chosen' him flying from the wand as he did so. Glancing over at the others, Harry was pleased to note that the same thing was happening with Ginny and Hermione as they experimented with the wands they'd taken; at least Wormtail had done something good for them, even if his information was still to be taken with a grain of salt.
"Thanks," he said simply, looking back at Wormtail. "Now… take me to Voldemort."
Nodding in acceptance at the young man before him, Wormtail turned around and began to hurry along the corridor. Harry turned to look at his friends, gave them one last encouraging nod, and then ran after Wormtail, his wand clenched tightly in his hand.
Even as he hurried up the stairs away from the dungeons, Harry knew that he would be most likely heading for his death. After all, Voldemort already had a greater knowledge of magic than Harry could hope to possess at this point in his life, and with the Mask in his possession, the odds tilted ever more drastically in his favour…
But Harry had never given up hope easily.
Even when living with the Dursleys, he'd never lost hope of somehow getting out of Privet Drive and away from Dudley, finally having the opportunity to make a life of his own…
It had been a slim hope back then, but 'slim' was better than 'none', as far as Harry was concerned.
He wouldn't give up hope now.
As he hurried along the corridors of Hogwarts, Wormtail occasionally turning around and waving him into a nearby classroom to evade passing Death Eaters- Wormtail always shifted into rat form when that happened, rendering him practically invisible unless you already knew he was there-, Harry grew ever more tense as they approached the main hall, constantly glancing around himself in an attempt to make sure no Death Eaters were just following them until they reached a point where there would be no way for the two of them to escape…
But nothing like that happened.
Soon, the two of them were standing outside the Great Hall, Wormtail looking anxiously at Harry as he indicated the Hall.
"H-he's st-still in there," the man once called Peter Pettigrew (As far as Harry was concerned, Pettigrew had died when he betrayed Harry's parents, and 'Wormtail' was the only name he really deserved) said, indicating the hall. "I th-think he's p-practicing with the m-mask he got from y-you; I definitely heard s-something that wasn't a conventional spell being u-used in there…"
"He's already wearing it?" Harry asked, looking anxiously at Wormtail. The wizard nodded, and Harry groaned.
Great… he mused, staring forlornly at his wand; given how little effect conventional curses had on him when he was using the Mask, he somehow doubted he could just Summon the Mask off Voldemort's face to even the odds.
He glanced critically over at Wormtail, rapidly scanning the battered man who'd just risked everything to help him escape; even if he didn't have serious doubts about Wormtail's loyalty in a crisis situation, he wouldn't have trusted this guy to hold his own in a fight with Malfoy, never mind a Voldemort who was using the magic-enhancing powers of the Mask.
"You just get out of here," he said, jerking his thumb towards the door. "And I'm trusting you to wait for the aurors, on the grounds that, if you don't wait for them, when you're found after running away- and with that rat form of yours now known, you will be found- I will personally make sure that you get a cell so uncomfortable that you won't be able to find a decent place to sleep even when you're a rat. Got me?"
Wormtail nodded slightly, his eyes wide in fear as he stared at Harry's determined glare.
"Good," Harry said casually, before turning around to face the door, slipping his wand up his sleeve as he did so; he didn't want to give Voldemort any reason to focus on his wand until he'd managed to see what the guy was using the Mask for.
Given that he'd seized every available opportunity to watch television and read books back when he'd been with the Dursleys, he'd had a fairly broad scope of knowledge of popular culture to provide him with inspiration for his transformations as Mark, but as far as he knew Voldemort had never shown much interest in fiction, so it was possible his use of the Mask would be 'limited' to just enhancing his normal magical powers. Of course, even with that 'limitation', Voldemort wouldn't exactly be easy to deal with, particularly since Harry doubted he could just summon the Mask off Voldemort's face- it seemed pretty well-fixed there as far as he could see- which left him facing a super-powered dark lord who had an unhealthy obsession with wanting him dead.
So what else is new? Harry asked himself, a small smile crossing his face at the thought.
With that, he reached out, took the door handles, opened the doors…
And stared with wide eyes at the sight before him.
Voldemort stood in the middle of the hall, nobody else visible in the room; evidently, he hadn't wanted the Death Eaters around while he practised with the Mask, although Harry doubted it had been out of concern for them as he practiced with his new powers. He was still dressed in his traditional long dark robes, but the cloak over Voldemort's shoulders was now made of leather and held onto him by thick silver clasps in the form of the Slytherin crest.
Like when Harry became Mark, Voldemort's head had become green, retaining his customary baldness and serpent-like features, but where Mark was no more physically imposing than Harry was, the VoldeMask (As Harry was already beginning to think of this new foe as) was significantly more muscular than the conventional Voldemort, most likely reflecting Voldemort's inflated self-image; Harry doubted Voldemort had any interest in physical combat, so the muscles weren't there for that reason. He no longer held his wand, but the faint trace of red energy crackling around his fingertips when Harry stepped in made it clear that the reason the VoldeMask didn't have a wand was that he didn't need it.
As soon as he heard the doors open, the VoldeMask turned to look in the direction of the door, a smile spreading across his face as he took in the person standing there.
"Ah, Harry," he said, as nonchalantly as though he was addressing an old friend rather than the boy whose life he'd ruined out of his own selfish desire to survive. "You got out of my little prison, I see?"
"Yeah… I got out," Harry stated, glaring at the VoldeMask in a manner that he doubted reflected even half of the confidence he was trying to express. A part of his mind noted that the VoldeMask's voice now sounded lower and more raspy, almost as though he was recovering from a serious throat infection of some kind…
In many ways, that made him almost scarier.
"And you honestly think you can fight me?" the VoldeMask asked, retaining his nonchalant attitude as he faced the young man before him. "I possess the power of a god; you think that you can defeat me?"
Harry shrugged casually as he stared at his adversary.
"You know what they say," he said, slightly shifting his body into a combat stance as he kept his eyes fixed on his opponent. "Nothing is impossible."
With that, his wand still hidden up his sleeve, he charged towards the VoldeMask, one fist outstretched as he aimed a powerful punch at the VoldeMask's face, his knuckles making contact with his foe's eye…
Only for the VoldeMask to lash out with an Expelliarmus curse from one finger that sent Harry flying backwards into a wall. The blow didn't seem to break anything- the jinx was clearly a relatively light one that was already beginning to lose force when it started, so he didn't hit the wall as hard as he might have done- but, as Harry collapsed to the ground, he was left gasping for air, clutching his back as a brief, sharp spike of agony flew through his body.
"A valiant attempt, Harry," the VoldeMask said, staring nonchalantly at the young man he'd become determined to kill from the moment he first heard about a prophecy from a future Potions Master, over seventeen years ago. "But a foolish one; you cannot hope to match me now. You never could."
"Well, I adhere to a simple philosophy when it comes to fighting," Harry said, shrugging dismissively as he stood up, determined to ignore the pain in his back as he planned out his next attack. "If at first you don't succeed…"
Even as he continued speaking, he ran forward, his fist raised to strike once more as he launched another punch at the VoldeMask's chest, instinctively opening his hand out to strike at his foe with the points of his fingers (He assumed it was some residual instincts from a couple of the forms he'd assumed as Mark who knew anything about unarmed combat)…
And, once again, nothing happened; the VoldeMask sent Harry flying in the split second between Harry realising that his attack hadn't worked and Harry having time to come up with a new plan.
OK… Harry mused to himself as he lay on the ground, wincing in pain as he clutched at his right thigh. This is not working out so well.
On the bright side, though, it would appear his theory about Voldemort's use of the Mask was accurate so far; apart from the obvious detail of being far stronger and faster than Voldemort was normally the VoldeMask hadn't done anything to him that Voldemort wouldn't theoretically be able to do without it. If their positions had been reversed, Harry would probably have transformed into a costumed hero of some kind, or at least given himself some elaborate weapons, but so far the VoldeMask hadn't even tried to use a spell; he just seemed to be instinctively throwing Harry off to the side, taking advantage of his enhanced strength but not really using anything else.
"Do you know what the definition of insanity is, Harry?" the VoldeMask continued, chuckling slightly as he stared at the young man before him. "If not, you should, for you're showing one of the key signs of it yourself; it is doing the same thing over and over again… and expecting a different result when you try it."
"And you know what I say to that?" Harry countered as he stood up, glaring fixedly at the man before him. "You'd know a lot about that; you've been doing pretty much the same thing every time we've fought, trying to kill me and me always escaping. How can you say I'm the mad one here when I've only been doing this for the last few minutes and you've been doing it for the last seventeen years?"
"Besides," he added, allowing himself a small chuckle- it couldn't hurt to make himself appear more confident than he was, "it only counts if I actually expected to stop you with those attacks."
Before the VoldeMask could process that, Harry, deciding a rapid change of tactics was in order, had slid his wand out of his sleeve, raised it to point at his opponent, and 'yelled' Levicorpus! in his mind as 'loudly' as he could. Instantly, the VoldeMask was turned upside down, hovering incredulously in the air for a moment before Harry cast a rapid "Expelliarmus!" that sent him flying back into the opposite wall.
Knowing that this latest 'strategy' of his wouldn't keep the VoldeMask 'occupied' for long, Harry seized his chance; rushing forward (Taking care to slip his wand up his sleeve; hopefully he'd held so close to his arm that the VoldeMask wouldn't have seen it, and simply assume that he'd been doing wandless magic of some kind), Harry grabbed the back of the VoldeMask's head and desperately pulled at the seam where the Mask met at the back of Voldemort's head, praying that he'd manage to get the artefact away from his enemy this way…
The spell struck him so rapidly that Harry was half-way across the hall before he realised he'd even been hit with an Expelliarmus himself.
This is definitely not working out well… Harry groaned to himself; his mouth was bleeding, and his left arm didn't feel like it would be up to much any time soon either.
If he didn't figure out a way to end this fast, he was in serious trouble.
"Reducto!" he yelled, desperately 'flicking' his wand back into his hand and launching a curse in the VoldeMask's direction, cursing as he looked up just in time to see his opponent 'deflect' the attack with a mere wave of his hand; evidently, Voldemort was starting to really think about what he could do with the Mask. Rolling along the floor of the hall, Harry desperately launched a variety of rapid spells at the VoldeMask while trying to stay on the move to evade his foe, but each spell was either deflected or did no real damage.
Just as Harry had leapt back onto his feet and was preparing to try another head-on attack- he was thinking a quick kick to the stomach this time around- the VoldeMask, as casually as though he was swatting a bug- something that Harry really resented; he hadn't come all this way to be treated as though he wasn't even wroth the effort of a decent fight- held up a hand and cast what seemed to be another Expelliarmus, sending Harry flying back into the wall with such force that Harry couldn't believe that he could still move his legs afterwards.
No… he groaned to himself, as he strained to get back onto his feet. Get up… you can do this… you can do this…
The problem was that, no matter how hard he tried to stand up, his body just didn't have the strength. The VoldeMask may not have killed him- clearly Voldemort wanted to rub Harry's loss in his face, rather than just kill him outright- but he'd done so much damage to Harry's body over the course of the fight that it was clear that Harry wouldn't be posing a significant threat to the 'Dark Lord' in continued single combat any time soon.
Staring at the gasping, bruised and bleeding form of the young man whom it had been prophesised would be his downfall, the VoldeMask smiled as he raised one hand, a brilliant green glow surrounding it as he stared at Harry.
"Game over, Harry Potter," he said, staring at the soon-to-be-deceased young wizard before him, a broad grin on his green face. "You've given me quite the challenge…"
His eyes narrowed as he stared at Harry, the young wizard weakly turning to look at him defiantly despite his cracked glasses and the fresh blood streaming from his scar, covering his eye.
"But," the VoldeMask continued, raising his glowing hand to point it at Harry, his grin spreading even wider across his face, "in the end… I fulfilled my inevitable destiny."
With that, his expression almost seemed to become polite as he looked at Harry as though he wasn't about to blow his foe's head off.
"I've won," the VoldeMask said, dismissively staring at Harry before his voice took on a mockingly polite tone. "Any last words?"
Then, with a flash, it hit Harry.
With all Dumbledore had taught him about Voldemort, he suddenly knew that there was a way to escape this current situation…
Glaring back at Voldemort, he grinned, hoping that his mouth wasn't as badly battered as it felt; he needed to be able to speak properly if he was going to make his point right now.
"Coward," he said as clearly as he could, glaring up at Voldemort as he said it.
If this didn't work, he'd be no worse off than he would have been otherwise…