Servitude of a Peculiar Sort

Chapter Two: Catriona

Harry's ear twitched, as if tickled with a feather. He wasn't sure if he was unable to open his eyes, or simply unwilling. The softness of his bed, the summer wind blowing in through the open window, the soft trickle of running water…

'Water?' he thought. 'Why is there water in my dorm?' Harry's memory of the night before came back to him. It was followed quickly by guilt and panic. Guilt for falling asleep without contacting anyone or returning to the school when he should have. Panic because of how long it felt like he'd slept.

Harry's eyes shot up and he looked down at his watch. 12:34 pm. The train had left just over six hours ago.

He was stranded! He wondered if Hermione and Ron were worried about him. Had the Hogwarts staff formed a search party? Were they looking for him now? Maybe if he ran he could find one of them and get a Portkey or Floo Powder or something. Harry sprang to his feet and prepared to depart. He heard a faint giggle come from somewhere behind him that stopped him in his tracks. There was something compelling about the sound. It was like Veela charm or a whiff of Amortentia. He turned towards the sound, never once thinking of the consequences.

She was seated in the lowest branch of the grove's giant oak with her back against the tree's trunk. She was lacking anything even resembling clothing. Her skin was lightly tanned to the color of dried leaves and her hair was the vibrant green of springtime grass. Her hair reached down her back and stopped at the base of her spine. In a few places, there were small leaves and flowers growing out of the hair. Her eyes were green like his and eerily catlike. A slight smile covered her face, but not the kind of smile Harry felt he wanted to see. She looked…hungry.

"Good morning, traveler." She spoke to him. "You rested well. You had many worries that needed easing."

Harry felt his mouth run dry. She had turned slightly to face him and her hair had shifted. The green strands were no longer shielding his eyes from her nude form.

"Oh." she said. "Forgive me. I am Catriona, traveler. And you are?"

There was something in her voice that made Harry feel she already knew his name and was just singling him out for unfair treatment. He doubted he could speak with his mouth so dry… but he managed to croak out "I'm Harry Potter."

"Such a noble name." she swooned. "Oh, but you must be thirsty! Drink, please."

Harry wasn't certain if his body was following his command or hers as he bent down to the pool… and stopped. Something in his mind that he had been suppressing for the last few minutes was screaming at him. 'For the love of Merlin, don't drink it!' it yelled. Harry's head began to rise from the pool. He didn't really need a drink did he?

"Not thirsty?" Catriona asked. She shifted again causing her breasts to jiggle and send a new wave of dryness through Harry's throat. "Then perhaps you would like to swim with me?"

'No! No! No! No!' it yelled at him. 'This is a really bad idea. You need to be getting back to school.' Harry felt a bit of the old panic returning. They were probably worried (though he couldn't for the life of him remember who "they" were.)

Harry was about to mention something about returning to Hogwarts when another voice came to the forefront of his mind, urging him into the water. 'Come on, you're all hot and sweaty anyway and you've been wearing those clothes since yesterday.'

Harry settled on the sensible medium between the two forces clashing in his mind. "I haven't any swimming trunks. These are my only clothes."

She laughed, causing her chest to shake once more. She dropped from the branch to the ground with feline grace. "Don't be silly, Harry. Why would you need swimming trunks?" she lowered her voice to a seductive whisper. "You wouldn't be wearing them for long anyway."

"I…" Harry managed. Harry was gathering up the last of his willpower for one final strike, so he could convince her that he needed to leave. The words were already gathering themselves in his mind. 'I'm really sorry' he planned to say. 'But all my friends are waiting for me at school. I'm running late. I really do want to stay but I can't.'

Catriona lowered herself into the water while Harry stood on the bank of the pool, thinking. She turned to face him, and then, she smiled. The carefully arranged words, the defiant look on his face, the feeling of urgently needing to be elsewhere... all of these things slipped away from Harry like water through a sieve. And yet, Harry didn't struggle to gather back the emotions or thoughts. They were lost to him. All that mattered was Catriona and her dazzling smile. Harry kicked off his shoes, and tossed aside his robe and t-shirt. The button went flying off his jeans but he made no effort to locate it. He dove into the cool, clear water wearing only his socks.

He surfaced and swam to Catriona, like an obedient puppy returning a ball to its master. She nodded approvingly at Harry, and he felt his heart swell with the praise. In a matter of seconds, The-Boy-Who-Lived had gone from being a defiant teenager to a lovesick schoolboy.

She closed the distance between them and embraced Harry. She met his eyes briefly, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Harry's eyes bulged and his body went tense, like a man struck by lightning. Then, his eyes closed, and he went limp.

She lifted Harry from the water and carried him to the mossy bed that he'd slept in the night before. She laid him down gently and removed a thorn from one of the plants growing amongst her hair. She drew the thorn lightly across Harry's hands. She made two cuts, one from the end of his thumb to the end of his smallest finger, and the other from the tip of his index finger to the base of his wrist. She repeated the process with her own hands and then tossed the bloody thorn aside. She placed one of his hands upon the trunk of the tree and it stayed there as if it had been glued. She laced the fingers of his other hand through her own hand, their blood mingling. She then placed her remaining free hand on the tree, completing a crude circle between Harry, Catriona and the great oak.

There was one last element the ritual of Harry's binding required. Catriona was already straddling Harry. She raised herself up, and lowered herself onto Harry's penis.

A jolt of energy raced up her spine, and the oak was crackling with static electricity. Grasses and flowers grew at a visible rate, and the moss Harry was laying on began to grow into his skin.

And then something... different happened. Catriona had captured dozens of men in her lifetime in this same manner. Every time, the ritual worked the exact same way: stunt the man's free will, bind it to her and her tree and make him love her with every fiber of his being. Every time, the ritual would have the mild electricity, and the plants would wrap the man in a cocoon. The next morning she would pull him free and he would serve her until the end of his days.

But never would the plants attempt to bind her too. Her legs were already held tight to the ground, and her hand had grown into the bark of the tree. Harry's eyes snapped open. He was in pain. The scar on his forehead was visibly convulsing. The scar split open like a Jack-o-Lantern in December and it bled a lot. The blood sizzled like oil in a frying pan and burned away. His scar was steaming and radiating very bright light. He was screaming. Until the plants grew over his mouth that is. The plants continued to grow, making her unable to see the light from his scar and the static electricity got louder. Catriona felt the hair on the back of her neck beginning to rise.

Then there was the pain. It felt like her blood had become liquid fire, burning her from the inside out. She howled in her agony until the vines and grasses grew over her head. The plants were taking away her air... and then everything was dark.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

A/n: Crap. My chapters seem to be getting shorter. I'll fix that next chapter. This one just didn't really have anywhere else to end it.