Mind Tricks
By
Prince Kael'thalas
Chapter Two – Voldemort's Greatest Fear
"Reality is always controlled by the people who are most insane."
Scott Adams, Dilbert
Harry woke up to the sound of the burning fireplace. His eyes roamed around the pale room, which held little furniture save for an armchair in front of the fire, with a huge snake sleeping upon it. Harry gasped in surprise, and frantically looked around for any indication of who or where he was. He got out of the hard bed or tried to. Instead he let the exhaustion catch up to him, and letting out a long breath he fell to his knees.
A few seconds of pain and he tried once more to get off his knees, this time squinting in concentration. Wondering again where he was, he instinctively made his way to the door he knew led to the bathroom. How do I know that? He wondered as he opened the gold knob of the door, and walked in.
He felt exhausted.
Incredulously, he examined his reflection in the mirror, shocked by how young he looked. He certainly didn't feel it. Running a hair through his messy hair, he let out a deep breath and washed his face. After that he changed into the jet-black robes placed on the handle bar, properly ironed of course. He expected the best of service from his followers.
Again he looked at the pale reflection in the mirror, and noticed a jagged scar running like a lightning bolt over his left eye. He ran a finger over it, and was immediately assaulted by a pack of memories that hit him like a bludger.
The Dursleys bullying and starving him in the cupboard….
His friends, Hermoine and Ron studying together in the library…
The DA practicing spells against each other in the Room of Requirement….
Dumbledore duelling with Voldemort in the department of Mysteries…
Sirius…
Harry gasped, and vomited in the sink. His thoughts were erratic, jumbling from one thing to another as he started hyperventilating.
He remembered.
He was not Voldemort.
He was Harry Potter.
I have to get out of here!
That single thought was etched into his mind. He could not stay here, and frankly he did not know what possessed him to do something this stupid. In fact, how did he do this? His thoughts went back to yesterday, where he remembered Voldemort breaking into his house and casting the killing curse. Then it was just a big blank for some reason.
I survived the killing curse, again. Harry slowly blinked his eyes, willing himself not to go in shock or faint. This seemed so… unrealistic, like a really lame fantasy novel. Harry shook his head, concentrating on not thinking anything. It was just too much to take in.
Going back into what he supposed was the bedroom, he wondered how exactly he got here. Looking around, he saw the snake, Nagini, was awake and looking at him with deep concentration. Wary of the enormous anaconda, he took a step back, and raised the yew wand. But the snake hadn't moved.
It was just staring.
He was starting to feel creepy, especially since he didn't know if he could actually use Voldemort's wand. It felt strange in his hand, nothing magical. It just felt like a cold piece of wood. He took another step back, and decided to see if the wand worked. If it didn't, he was going to run as fast as possible away from the monster of a snake.
It was nothing compared to the basilisk, but it's hypnotic yellow eyes looked like it could take anything on. And Harry didn't particularly want to test his mettle against the snake.
He raised his wand, and pointed it to the fireplace.
"Incendio!" The wand gave a jerk as the orange spell shot out, and lit the fireplace The fireplace roared with new ferocity. It was powerful, of that there was no doubt. His face formed into a sly grin, as he examined the snake.
Nagini was a snake he had seen in many a vision, a constant companion of Voldemort much like Fawkes with Dumbledore. Harry had no doubt she was as loyal as they came. He recognized it as an African Anaconda, with green markings and patterns on its otherwise black scales. He had done some research on it. Well Hermoine did anyways, but the result was the same.
Harry was cautious.
He took another step back, his spine touching the dark wall opposite to the bed. His wand was held in a proper duelling stance, waiting for the snake to make the first move. Harry searched through his mind of a way to kill the snake. He searched his memory to see if he had done anything like this before.
The images that assaulted him made him clutch his forehead in pain, and drop the only weapon he had. That was when Nagini struck, her body moving faster than the eye could see. In an instant, the snake was poised, ready to strike with it's deadly venom.
Harry moaned, trying to get rid of the mental images of men and women brutally tortured, of children getting beheaded in front of their parents and all the dark things that Voldemort had done. He couldn't properly examine the memories or glean any knowledge from it. They were like photographs, or movies. They came one instant and was gone the next with Harry feeling a faint distaste in his mouth.
His eyes fluttered open, and widened in terror. Nagini had crawled up his body, and her fangs was ready to strike at the weakest spot of the human body. The neck. It would directly take the venom into the nervous system, and from there…
"Stop! Please!" Harry frantically shouted at the snake, tears of terror, and sweat covering his face. While he was brave, something in him did not want to face the possibility of death. He did not want to die.
Surprisingly the Snake stopped, and curiously looked into Harry's eyes.
It spoke a single statement that made him shiver in fear. "You are not my master, thus you must die." Then the snake struck, it's fangs sinking into Harry's neck
At first Harry didn't feel a thing, but then he could feel the movements of poison going through his veins. He was going to die.
That thought struck a spark of fear and immense rage in his heart. He would not die! He was Lord Voldemort, and he couldn't die to a bloody snake!
Stretching his fingers, he grabbed the wand, and shouted a quick dark curse at the snake. He did it naturally, instinct formed from habit.
"Piscapio!" An icy blue wave of power shot out from his wand, decapitating the snake in half.
It was too late.
The venom was already injected in his blood stream.
He was going to die.
A/N: Chapter shorter than I intended. I was originally planning at least five scenes in here, but due to lots of advice on taking it slow, I wanted to flesh it out.
Chapters will get longer. Do not doubt that.
Thank you for all the reviews you guys gave, it was much appreciated. If you could be so kind as to review this chapter, I will be very happy. I will try to answer all reviews as soon as possible.