Chapter 3 The Cold Prince
A/N: In this chapter I introduce some of the history of probably the two biggest OCs in this story, The Cold Prince and Damien Greengrass. While they aren't the most common, the roles each plays are exceedingly important, as you will find out soon.
Alas, the battle isn't portrayed. It's really just a side note to introduce the Cold Prince.
" Left flank advance three meters at an angle of twenty degrees. Align parallel with enemy force. First rank, right flank, move forward at an angle of fifty degrees with respect to the enemy. Second rank; right flank: Sweep behind them and open fire at range. Use flaming Arrows. Walled Unit Eight: Aim Ballista at nine o'clock, and fire on my mark."
Harry listened as the man his commander, Lazarus, called CZ, rattled off strings of commands. Lazarus hissed, " We are the Central Flank, Rank Four. When CZ calls us, we move by his orders. To disobey the Cold Prince is to risk the Ire of the Goblins. Remember, to the Goblins, he's higher than even the Emperor."
Harry didn't know who this Emperor was, but based on Lazarus' expression, he must be pretty high up there. The command rang out, " First through Fourth Ranks! Central Flank: Advance forward and engage the enemy in close combat!"
Lazarus bared his teeth, and ordered Harry to follow him. Isilde and Nikolai hung back, due to their ranged capacity. A blonde girl that Harry had met slightly before the battle and quickly became friends with advanced ahead of them, a small golden baton hung at her waist and a slim sword in her hands. Harry raised his shield, and moved to the front of the central flank. Lazarus lowered his glaive with a smile, " It's nice to be back on the battle field."
Harry frowned at his commander, " Is your heart so black that you revel in slaughter?"
" What's with the philosophy, Lord Potter?"
Harry replied with another question, " Is this the drug of combat? Already I feel the effect of wanting to fight these monsters endlessly, but would I feel the same if they were human?"
" I cannot answer that for I do not know. All I know is that the entity that stands in front of me with a weapon pointed at me is my enemy. No matter who or what he used to be, or is, or intends to be, he is my enemy now. For that, he/she/it must die."
Harry smirked as he drew the sword given to him, "Well, I just guess we need to make sure those creatures die. Speaking of which, CZ said something about heavy support. What are the dwarves bringing?"
Lazarus commented, " Elemental cannons likely. Magic powered cannons that use the elements to provide long range support. They come in Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus versions."
Harry gave a sigh as the pace began to pick up. A charge was coming. Lazarus smiled, " Well, to battle it is then. Forward unto victory!"
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( The Cold Prince)
The Goblins call him the Cold Prince. He insists on being called CZ, because his name is Charles Zoroark, a name that he hated enough to kill his mother for alone. He's a tall, thin, black haired man, who's crimson red eyes betray a lethal bloodlust. Born with sword in one hand and a pen in the other, he is a natural strategist that would give normal men fits. His absolute ruthlessness to the enemy stems from his past, when all of his lovers either were killed or betrayed him. His anger is directed at those he serves, for denying him the pleasure of death. A manipulator who would make both Voldemort and Dumbledore look like naïve school children, he is also a charismatic leader who hides his own pain and suffering under a mask of indifference and battle fervor.
He surveyed the battle with his cold, uncaring eyes that unnerved even Goblin Kings. With a single sweep of his hand, his front advanced, driving the monsters into a storm of arrow fire aimed behind them. The orange glow of flames began to light up the darkness behind the monsters. It illuminated that fury of the horde, a seething host that cared not for the enemy it faced. Good, because its enemy doesn't care about it either, The Cold Prince thought with his general venom, They will fall, and we will live. Though I have long forsaken my own life, I cannot allow others to die in my name due to my fallings like before….
A goblin archer shouted, " Lord Prince! The enemy has opened a new passage roughly a click away from the rear of Left Flank!"
" Left Flank shall assume the Shuriken formation and order it's spearmen to protect the archers,", Charles ordered from above. The order was only acknowledged by his men performing it. Shuriken was as it sounded, a star formation with the spearmen forming interlocking walls in the valleys of the formation. A little crude for a guy who prided himself on being a master tactician, but monsters that can't think don't use tactics anyway. Just another fight for survival out there. He didn't have the numbers to get fancy with them, nor to just head on blow them away. A fine line indeed. Nothing for a man who laughed during funerals and cried during weddings.
More Goblin Archers began to attack from the walls. Luckily, the lines held firmly. The main Goblin Army was on its way from Khazad, and more goblins were coming from Gringotts and other settlements as well. But until then, it was his show and his show alone. While the fight lulled for a moment, Zoroark let his mind wander to the kid that Lazarus called Lord Potter.
Charles Zoroark had a history that threatened to kill him day in and day out. He could tell that the one named Harry Potter had his own history that was a true burden upon him. Not so crushing as Zoroark's, but heavier than an ordinary man's for certain. The Cold Prince had already begun to see similarities in the two.
Potter was the heir of one of the richest and most powerful families in the Wizard World. Zoroark had been the prince of the most powerful nation in the world. But both had childhoods that caused them to denounce their heritage. Potter had been an abused child, hated by his relatives. Zoroark had been a burden his whole childhood, with his mentally crippled sister and furious hatred of his own family. While it was unfair to compare his own hatred to that of Potter's, for they were for completely different reasons, he could sympathize. Sympathy, an emotion that the Goblins could swear he had never heard of.
The battle began anew, but the monsters didn't seem to be coming with the same fury. It was one of the few times that Zoroark could let his subordinates handle the battle, something the ambitious Goblin Captains beneath him eagerly embraced. He kept his thoughts on the potential that is Harry Potter. The Goblins wanted him to be their Champion. The Cold Prince had been the only human in the room when Varric and Ragnok had fought over whether or not to do it. But he also knew that the Goblins had way too much invested in Potter now to allow him to die.
However, Potter wasn't a conformist to the typical Goblin mindset either. He was too compassionate, too willing to aid those who would show him no support in return. His history attested to this. Killing a Basilisk because a girl he had barely ever spoken too was kidnapped? Traveling time and risking yourself for a man you had only recently learned wasn't trying to kill you? Showing remorse for the death of a man that you had nothing to do with? Rushing into an obvious trap with no strategy and clearly overwhelming odds? This was not the attitude of a champion. A survivor and an idiot maybe, but not a champion. That was why the Cold Prince was even showing interest in a somewhat unremarkable, somewhat skilled, but unremarkable nonetheless, warrior. Potter simple survived on the battlefield. He didn't seek his opponents like a real warrior. Then again, CZ hadn't been a warrior either when he started.
The Goblins wanted a Champion. No one from this Earth could create him. But the Cold Prince, Charles Zoroark, could. With simple revelations of his own past, and maybe some convenient deaths, he could destroy the kind teen who had been sent down. And rewrite him into a monster! No, I can't make him become me. I will not allow him to become me. Nay, he shall become his own warrior. His own Cold Lord. Zoroark thought with an insidious smile that actually made the Goblins standing near him nervous. As the battle began to turn into an enemy rout, the Cold Prince did something that absolutely terrified the Goblins working near him. He began to laugh.
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( Surface)
" So, Fred, mine brother, this be the seventh month of our good boy Harry's imprisonment. What you think he'll be like when he gets out?"
Fred answered his twin's question as he stacked the shelves of WWW, " I'm not really sure. All I ever get from anyone is a scowl or a terrified look. Well, except Dumbledore. He just looks disappointed."
Angelina picked up one of the Day Dream packets, causing George to comment, " Trying to get a new Day Dream for once?"
Angelina huffed sadly, " I keep getting one about Katie joining us. It rather pisses me off. Almost as much as the accident itself. I mean, what the hell was such an artifact even doing in Hogsmeade?"
George deadpanned, " They can't keep an eye on everyone."
Alicia and Angelina both glared at George, but Fred headed them off, " He's right. We're just as upset about it as you two, but we can't let that interfere with our lives. She's not dead anyway….yet."
Angelina's lips tightened into a thin line like McGonagall's sometimes did. Alicia answered, " She may as well be. Healers say she has no chance of recovery, and they can't even comprehend why her family is shipping so many galleons out to a Muggle Hospital to keep her alive."
George leveled on her, " One good thing that comes from having a Muggle obsessed dad is that we know more about Muggles than most Purebloods. We know that Healers can't do much with a damaged mind, but Muggles, somehow they can. It might take years, but there is a small chance that Katie may recover. She's just in a coma after all, and the information we've gotten is that her brain is in excellent shape. The curse wore off. It just might take time. Of course, she might also die tomorrow or never wake up, but beside the point."
Both the girls looked really depressed.
Outside, another man, Damien Greengrass, had taken interest in the conversation inside. Whilst a Lord, he wasn't above jokes and the such. His frequent shopping came as an interesting surprise to the Weasleys, and he even turned down Frequent Buyer discounts. In truth, he found it to be a welcome respite from his family.
The Greengrass family had gone from being completely unified behind him to absolute civil war. His eldest brother had declared himself a Death Eater, and had convinced two of Damien's three daughters to join as well. He didn't know for sure, but he was pretty sure it was Lindsey and Astoria. Daphne still held her unusual fascination with the truth behind Harry Potter, although that might be seen as trying to help the enemy. Damien's sister had rallied the Davis' to help him, but he knew he couldn't rely on another family for aide in a time like this. It would be tantamount to admitting he was too weak to lead them. Unlike most Noble Families, the Greengrass family chose it's head based on worth and merit.
Damien was the youngest of four sons and two daughters. He was a former Auror and Hit Wizard. He had trained beneath Alastor Moody and Moody's mentor as well. He had basically been Moody's heir until a hideous move by the bureaucrats. A sneak attack using imprisoned Death Eaters and he was accused of murder. He got off, but it cost him his position. Luckily, his father had seen this as proof of his ability, and named him heir.
Damien was currently hunting Draco Malfoy. He wasn't sure why, but he had a really bad feeling about the boy. Well, for one, Draco had an unhealthy obsession with Daphne. He didn't know, nor did he care, why. He just knew that it was bad. Secondly, he had been commissioned by the Order of the Phoenix, something he didn't even tell his own wife, whom he now suspected harbored Death Eater sympathies or was Imperiused. His family was basically a symbol of how Britain was. You never knew who was on who's side.
The Order was acting on some information that Hermione Granger, a self-servicing mudblood whore if he'd ever seen one. Given that he wasn't a purist himself, this was pretty strong coming from him. But he'd lost all faith in the wretch during that trial. Nonetheless, any information was better than nothing.
The Information he was acting on was that Draco Malfoy maybe trying to assassinate Dumbledore. The information was a brilliant deduction by the combined brainpower of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Damien didn't think that much better of the Weasley boy either, since he had a propensity for stupidity and idiocy that was offensive to mankind's evolution. Loyal and chess master aside, he could be a real idiot.
Damien took the turn down Knockturn Alley, and followed the Blonde Ponce into Borgin and Burkes. Using Potter's Invisibility Cloak, he snuck into the shop. Sure enough, the shopkeeper was talking to Malfoy about " Their Master" and a " Linked Cabinet." Only idiots talk so openly, unless they are certain they can't be overheard. Damien thought with a smirk, readying his wand and knife. It was at that moment that Borgin hissed, " Whoever's there should reveal themselves now."
Damien cursed, and sent a Stupefy at Malfoy. The Blonde fool didn't see it coming and dropped. He AK'd the Shopkeeper before he could react. Borgin was a foul man who needed to be killed, even though Damien knew he would take some flak for it when it was found out. Damien slung Malfoy on his shoulder, and threw the Cloak on. He pulled out at small stick of wood, and found the Cabinet the idiots had been talking about. He lit the stick up with a match, and set the cabinet aflame. He made sure the rest of the shop caught fire as well. He stalked out of the door.
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( Later)
Damien threw Malfoy down on the ground at Grimmauld Place to a shocked Order. He declared, " I have completed the mission as set before me. Payment is due now."
Dumbledore handed him a bag of Galleons, which Damien promptly checked for Leprechaun's gold. A few years as a Hit Wizard had taught him that trick. Ludo Bagman still wishes he had never tried it. Dumbledore asked, " Do you have any information?"
" That's going to be another five hundred galleons."
Molly Weasley screamed, " You lecherous fool! This is important!"
" I don't care. All I care about is my family, my well being, and their well being. No one else concerns me."
Molly huffed a " Heartless bastard,", but Dumbledore pulled out another bag of galleons. Damien spouted, " Malfoy was indeed going to lead a strike force of Death Eaters into Hogwarts via a linked cabinet that is now in the Room of Requirement. The Vanishing Cabinet was originally on the First Floor. Malfoy got the idea from Fred and George Weasley when they shoved Montague in it last year."
The Weasleys present gasped. Damien sneered. Apparently they couldn't believe that someone in their family might be, however indirectly, responsible for the activities of the Dark Side. Naïve fools, the Twins were darker than most Death Eaters, Inner Circle and Voldemort aside, but no one knew because of how they used the talents. Who would ever use the Traumata curse in a way to produce a Day Dream? No Death Eater, that's for certain, but the Traumata Curse normally was a decisively dark one commonly used for torment. Damien bowed, " Dumbledore, I take my leave. You know where my safehouse is if you wish to contact me."
That was a lie actually. Damien knew that Dumbledore sometimes sold some of his associates out in an attempt to keep Severus Snape, his spy, in a position to learn things of use. Such was the fate of Amelia Bones, who only barely survived an attack on her life this summer, not long after Potter's sentence.
Damien walked out of Grimmauld Place, and didn't even close the door. He apparated away with a low crack, and appeared in what he called the Green Den. The Greengrass family had been an order of Assassins before they became nobles in Britain. This was the old hideout. The wards went up as soon as he entered the building, an underground bunker hidden under a mansion. The mansion had no connection to the bunker, so the owners of the mansion could never enter the bunker unless he allowed them to enter. It was fitting that the Lestranges owned the mansion above, even if they never used it. If anything, the Lestranges were the opposite of the Greengrasses. An old noble family that was slowly, but steadily, losing all of its money.
Damien took a small slip of paper out of the pigeon coop. He smirked at his new target. Lindsey was about to pay for dissolving his family into chaos. Could he kill his own daughter? He didn't know. But he would make her pay. He clenched his fist in anger. She would pay dearly for destroying his family. For corrupting poor Astoria. For Imperiusing Anastacia. For everything.
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( Harry)
" Lord CZ you wished to see me?"
The Cold Prince glared at the door when the dark haired Potter walked in. Harry was instantly unnerved by the Cold Prince's blood red eyes, so like Voldemort's. He motioned for Harry to sit down, which he did. Harry was surprised by CZ's first question, " Do you know why I am called CZ?"
" No,", Harry answered with uncertainty.
" It's because my real name is Charles Zoroark. I am the Cold Prince because I was once the prince of the most powerful kingdom in my world. But I gave it all up for the chance to change the world. It's because of that, I lost everything."
Harry raised an eyebrow, " Lazarus did say you weren't from our world. A Claimed?"
" Not quite. I didn't have a choice in the matter, that's for certain. I was…rescued…from the brink of death by the Goblins. Not that I wanted it. The goblins loved my…charisma…and wanted a leader who could give them victory. I became the Cold Prince of Goblins. But like so many other times in my life, my victories were destroyed by betrayals."
Harry frowned, " Sounds so very familiar."
" It should. I've already run some comparisons between myself and you. You would be very surprised at the similarities."
" Very little surprises me anymore, Charles Zoroark."
Zoroark began to smirk evilly, " Then it is time for you to hear a tale that is wrought with betrayal, filled with death, and consumed by darkness. Bear with me, and save all question for afterwards. I do not want to be interrupted."
" But why are you telling me this?"
Zoroark's smirk curled into a confident sneer, " I give you one piece of advice, Mr. Potter. Everything in the world happens for a reason. There is no such thing as a coincidence. There is no such thing as innocence. Only degrees of guilt. Some men do not reveal their true secrets easily."
Harry sighed, " So it is then. You are willing to tell me your tale, something not even my squadmates will do, but you won't tell me why?"
Zoroark nodded, " That's exactly correct."
" I guess we should start."
" Get comfortable."
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( The Cold Prince's story)
" I've used many aliases in my life, but I think the one I used the most was Charles Argentum. Charles the Silver. Before I became the Cold Prince, I was the Silver Prince. Heir apparent to the most powerful king in the world. I had everything I could ever want. But then my bitter mother kidnapped me, sent me to a foreign land. She hid me in a dark, downtrodden, back water burg. I went from living in opulence to living in absolute filth.
When I turned seventeen, I was finally working my way back up to the top. I had attended a top military academy, and graduated top of my class. The papers called me a prodigy, hailed me as the second coming of my kingdom's founder, Arthur Alesana. I was to become the greatest general in our history. Then, my father found out what my mother had done with me. He brutally killed her himself, right in front of my face, scalping her, forcing me to hear her screams. That was but the first of many times I cried in anger and fury.
Next, I began to fight with a resistance movement calling themselves the Scientists. Using our superior technology, we tore through the enemy. But my father pulled a trump card on me. He sent my former best friend, knowing I still had feelings for her, to the battlefield. Our battles were epic, but they began to destroy my emotions. My feelings. I vaguely remember that I used to fight for my sister, the girl I hardly knew before my mother kidnapped me, but that's all I remember from those earlier days. In the end, I became the Cold Prince.
Without emotions, I struck down my former friend, and killed her. With no remorse, no anything. I began to hate myself at that moment. I guess I was just being a teenager, but it may have been very real. My tears that time, were false. For I had grown to hate my former friend as much as I hated myself.
My father tried again, but failed. I killed him myself. I fell onto the throne of my kingdom an empty shell. I had no emotion. I had no feelings. That's when my second in command, another woman I had fallen in love with, betrayed me. Claiming to have seen that I would become a cruel tyrant who wouldn't stand up for his ideals, she attacked. For three years, the Scientists avoided me, only fighting when necessary. But in the end, I slaughtered them all. I reveled in it. It was in that moment that my eyes turned to red.
The final battles began when my half brother corrupted my sister. She was mentally crippled. She was easily corrupted. She fought against me with every fiber of her innocent being. But in the end, she was no match. Not even my half-brother, who I'd always looked up to, could stop me. I rampaged, killing them all. I left not one standing. I delighted in listening to my sister pleading for her life as I slowly wrenched the blade that killed her out of its sheath. I loved every single minute of it. That's when I realized there was something wrong with me.
I planned it out carefully. I began a victory parade, and paraded my sister and half brother's bodies in front of me. At the end, before the monument of my great ancestor, I drew my sword, and shouted, " I, Charles Zoroark, do hear by repent of all the sins I have committed. I consign myself to you judgment!"
I slammed the blade into my own heart. It slid in perfectly, and I swore I heard it speak, " And I shall drink thine blood delightfully, Charles Zoroark, for you have slain thine kin, and for that, there is no mercy."
I fell forward onto the bodies of my sister and half brother. All I remember after that, was a huge commotion. I woke up several years later, with Goblins standing over me. One was telling me that it was now my duty to use my genius as a strategist. To overthrow the oppressive Human Wizards. Since that day, I've led the Goblin forces against their enemies, and have never lost. But I can't shake the fact that I am no longer human."
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(Harry)
Harry sat looking at the man as he finished his story. Zoroark told the story in a dark monologue that screamed " I just don't fucking care!" but the tears streaming down the man's face told the truth. Either he was a great actor, or he was truly feeling some emotion. The latter was the truth. Telling his own story, something he never even told the Goblins until years later, brought forth the unwelcome emotions of despair and longing. He muttered, " I can help you become what you need to become to defeat Voldemort. I cannot allow you to become me."
Harry sat back in his chair slightly, " What do you mean?"
" My life is my mistake. The epiphany of human error. I am a broken dream. I destroyed myself. I can't let you do that."
Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow, " Are you telling me that the one called the Cold Prince may be interested in my fate? Lord knows, I'm in trouble now."
" Be quiet you fool. You don't know it, but if you continue as is, you will become nothing more than a frozen heart like myself. You don't know what it's like to have everything you ever wanted taken from you. You may be a prisoner fighting for life here, but at least there are still people waiting for you up top. I don't have that luxury. I had to kill those back home, because they didn't trust me enough. I see they were right. I wouldn't trust myself right now."
Harry narrowed his emerald eyes, " You're damn right about that. I know that background stories are an immense sign of trust among most of the Claimed, but this is not what I expected. Are you trying to say you want me to become like, your apprentice or something?"
The Cold Prince lifted his eyes, " That is indeed, what I am trying to say. It is not the healthy man who wakes up everyday wishing today was his last on earth. I am that man. The Goblins robbed me of death once before. I can't let it happen again. I want you to swear though. That you will not become the heartless bastard I am."
Harry frowned, " Very well. I swear I will not."
A flicker of a smirk appeared on the Cold Prince's face, " Good. Now, have you ever played chess before?"
Harry's frown immediately deepened, " Yes, and I am miserable at it. I have a friend who's a prodigy, but I just suck."
The Cold Prince set up his black pieces, " Good. I can see that this will be fun. For me."
Harry moved his white pawn, " Why's that?"
They continued for a little while, and then the Cold Prince moved his king forward before his queen. Harry asked, " Move your king first?"
" A king must be prepared to lead if he wishes his subjects to follow."
Harry asked again, " Where did you hear that one?"
". Heard it one time when I was in Japan, when I met another Claimed just like me. Strikingly similar I might say, with a few differences in our appearance and stories of course. We battled each other into a draw at chess. Goblins said the match was three hours long. He gave me a few sayings."
Harry was now interested, surely the Cold Prince was a one of a kind man? " Like what?"
"That kind of thing. Seems he wasn't particularly pleased with the way his life ended. The Goblins ended up sending him back with another chance, something I didn't know they could do."
Harry gasped, " They sent him back! I thought the Eluvians were one way?"
" Doesn't mean a second one can't be set up to send you back. Apparently, his sister fucked up, and he had to back to fix it. Unlike me, he was not ruthless enough to kill the sister he fought for when she turned on him. But it did drive him to the same suicide, albeit his was staged, as my own. It is ironic that we would meet."
Harry laughed, " Irony indeed. Did he win?"
" He won. He used his ultimate ability to order his sister to commit suicide and he became the Emperor of the country he hated again. Not saying he was a loved man for what he did, but even a so called demon king was better than what the people had been suffering through under his weak and manipulated sister."
Harry cast his eyes down, " That's sad. His sister that is."
The Cold Prince persona shown through again, " She was weak. Naïve and trusting, she wasn't able to stand against the cunning politics required of a ruler. Well, I shouldn't say stand, because she couldn't do that anyway, but she wasn't a capable ruler to say the least. If anything, he should have known better than to have his sister, the one he fought so hard to protect, become his successor."
Harry bit his tongue to keep himself from trying to defend the mysterious man Zoroark was speaking of, something not lost to the Cold Prince, who smirked. Apparently Harry was already beginning to absorb his ideals and the persona that the Cold Prince wanted him to take.
The Cold Prince simply commented on Harry's interested face, " Let this broken dream echo at tomorrow's end."
A/N: The Next chapter takes place on Harry's Seventeenth Birthday. I'm deliberately leaving his remaining five months of service up in the air for good reason.
The Claimed: If it isn't obvious by now, this is the sometimes derogatory term used by the Goblins on the people they conscript from other worlds using the Eluvians. The Claimed themselves use the term to remind them of their homes.
Arthur Alesana: First name is ye olde Arthur of legends. Surname is from the band Alesana.
" I shall drink thine blood gladly…" Reference to the "speech" made by his sword before Turin Turambar killed himself. The reasoning behind it is that Turin killed the blade's actual owner in a fit of rage while he was being rescued. Thus, the blade retaliated. From the Silmarillion " The Lay of Nienor and Turambar" or " The Children of Hurin."