The Hybrid
Chapter 8
It didn't take long for Dumbledore to dismiss the student body from the Great Hall, sending them all off to bed. Well, at least that's what he intended to do. It would still be a few hours until Zack got any sleep, not that he really needed much. "Hey! Parker!" Zack yelled, chasing after one of the Slytherin Prefects.
"What do you need Corvin?" Parker asked. Parker was a tall, broadly built boy, standing even taller than Zack's 5'9" and growing height. However, even at Parker's taller status, he always felt like the younger boy was looking down his nose at him, and it bothered Parker to no end.
"What's the password to the Dorm?" Zack asked, cutting to the chase.
Parker raised an eyebrow at Zack. He knew from experience that when Zack didn't go with the rest of the student body to the Slytherin Dormitories, or rather, to the common room, he was up to something. Shrugging it off, Parker answered "Sorcerer." With that, the older boy stalked off, his robes swirling around him. Parker had learned that little trick from the resident Potions Master.
"Thanks Parker!" Zack called back to him, jogging over to where his friends and family were waiting for him, near the doors of the Great Hall. "Draco, the password to the Common Room is Sorcerer. Speaking of, where is Dahlia?" Zack asked, not seeing the child with the others.
"I sent her along with the other first years. She needs to learn like the other first years, after all," said Hermione. Zack nodded, excepting the older girl's explanation. Like Luna, Hermione had been born very close to the cut off line, and would have been a 6th year had she been born a few weeks earlier.
Discreetly the group of 5 split up, Seri having left for her dorm, knowing better than to go all together. Dumbledore may have been easy to manipulate, but he wasn't stupid. At least, he wasn't stupid enough to believe that nothing was going on if Zack Corvin and all of his friends, including his 'sister', were seen running around the castle together when they were supposed to be going to bed. 15 minutes later, they all met up again in side a plane, but cozy room with three sofas all surrounding a blazing fireplace.
Luna lay down on one sofa, resting her head in Zack's lap. Hermione and Ginny took the sofa to Zack's left, and Draco to the one to their left. "So, who wants to explain?" Draco asked leaning forward on the sofa, elbows resting on his knees.
Zack growled something that no one except maybe Luna could hear, running his hands through is hair, making it spike up in odd directions. The fact that it was down was still driving him crazy. "This is a really hard story to tell guys," Zack finally muttered, assuming a position similar to that of Draco, his hands supporting his head, while his hair hid his face. Not lifting his head, Zack began his story, starting with how Harry Potter had come into existence, and what he had to do with it.
He then continued on to the abuse of the Dursley family, and his parent's rescue. The deeper into the story he got, the more Zack felt his emotions start to boil under the surface. For years he had suppressed all that had happened to him, from his first paper cut, to being attacked and nearly mauled by a group of rival Vampires or Werewolves or Lycans, to his nightmares. After so many years of suppressing his emotions, he felt it getting ready to boil over, but he just didn't know how to stop it. After all, if you hide your feelings long enough, you eventually forget how to show them.
As he continued, his hands started to shake. Luna seemed to notice this, and had repositioned herself in his lap, hiding his tremors as he continued. He even went into detail of how he and Serenity had escaped the house the night the wizards attacked. Too say that by the end of the long, involved story that Ginny, Draco and Luna were shocked was an understatement.
"So, by magical adoption you are Harry Potter, and Dahlia and Holly Evan's cousin. Holy shit Zack! Have you even realized what this means?" Draco burst out. Zack just continued with his soft tremors, soothed by Luna's presence, but still noticeable to the well trained eye. "This means that, by adoption and marriage, you are Snape's cousin!" Draco burst out.
Zack nearly fell out of his chair with that statement. Trust Draco to latch onto bits of information that were totally irrelevant to the subject. Hermione, Luna and Ginny snickered at Draco's silliness, and Zack's disbelief. It was obvious to the girls that Draco wanted to lighten the mood, and had done so by the rather silly, but true statement.
"I have a question though. How would Petunia Dursley know whether or not her children would be muggle or not?" Ginny asked. Zack shrugged.
Hermione stepped in. "It's the eyes."
"What do eyes have to do with anything?" Luna asked, resuming her previous position on the sofa, her head in Zack's lap. She said nothing as Zack started absently playing with her hair.
Hermione grinned. She knew that she'd come up with something clever. "I did some research on the Evans family a few years ago, after I'd learned about Zack's relation to Lily Evans. The Evans' family weren't a completely muggle line. They were intermarried with the decedents of Salazar Slytherin's Aunt on his mother's side. The Khaki family was well known for their green eyes. Every one of their children that were magical always had green eyes at birth. As the line went down, the magic died out, only to resurface in Lily Evans. Her mother, Rose Evans, knew the story, and passed it down.
"I'm guessing that when Petunia saw the green eyes that both Holly and Dahlia had, she knew what they would become," Hermione explained, grinning happily.
Zack cracked a smile, and shook his head in disbelief. "Only you Mione, only you," he said with a laugh. His boiling blood had gone down to a simmer, lowering more and more with every stroke of Luna's hair.
"I can't help it that I'm totally brilliant," Hermione commented. The others nodded, knowing Hermione was right.
"Hermione, I have a question. If no one knows that your family is how they are, how is it that even in the wizarding world people know that the Corvin family is dangerous?" Ginny asked. She was twirling a strand of her hair around her finger, something she always did when she was thinking.
"How long do you think it took Voldemort to spread the fact that the Corvin family were allied with Vampires and Werewolves?" the group looking up to see Serenity entering the room. "I followed Dahlia to her dorm, to make sure no one tried anything stupid around her," she explained.
"Anyway," Seri continued. "After he was brought back with the Sorcerer's Stone, he wanted to attack a prominent muggle family, with magical ties. The last thing he expected was to be confronted with first the Order of the Phoenix, and then hundreds of Vampires and Werewolves. Of course, the Vampire and Werewolf thing didn't go very far, but everyone knew something was up, so they just stayed away from us."
"How is it that my sisters are more observant of this stuff than me?" Zack muttered to himself. He'd always thought wizards had left his family be because of how far back their name went. "Want to put in your two cents as well, Kitala?" Zack invited. Kitala made a growling noise from his shirt, but didn't move to say anything.
Zack shrugged. "Well, I figured out how it could be that Dahlia and I are Parselmouths but Holly and Seri aren't." Hermione looked intrigued, and Ginny and Draco looked shocked. They hadn't realized he had been speaking in Parseltongue when he was talking to Dahlia. Luna and Seri were indifferent. "When Voldemort fired the Killing Curse at me, it mingled with the magical bond I had with the Evans family. Since Dahlia was pulling from that same pool of magic she got the same abilities out of it that I did when she was first conceived," Zack explained.
"What about Nathan and Natalie?" Hermione asked.
Seri took over once again. "It was a different pool of magic. Why it only mingled with only the Evan's line I'm not sure, but I'm 30 percent convinced it had something to do with Lily taking the first Killing Curse for Zack. At least, if this theory is correct," said Seri.
"You know, I used to think my life was complicated," Draco sighed.
Luna jumped in. "Why do you think Dahlia was sorted into Slytherin? She really doesn't seem to have the personality for that house."
"The Sorting Hat is quirky like that. It doesn't always sort based on the person's characteristics, but instead where they would do better. The Hat might have put her there so that Draco and Zack could protect her," Hermione explained.
"Why Slytherin though? You guys could have done much the same in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor," said Draco.
Luna snorted. "Our house mates hate us for the most part. Seri and I share a dorm with Hermione near the prefect's bathroom just so we don't have to intermingle with the others in our year. The people in your house however, respect if not like you. She'd be better taken care of in Slytherin," said Luna.
"Think of it Zack! We get a chance to mold Dumbledore's golden girl into a little Slytherin," said Draco deviously. It was no secret that Draco couldn't stand the old man.
"Right. Well Draco, you and Zack conspire on how to corrupt Dahlia, I'm going to bed." Zack looked down at his watch. It was after 1 in the morning.
Zack and Draco groaned. "You could have warned us how late it was getting," Zack growled. Not long later, the group had split up, leaving Zack to go to his own room. As he lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, Zack contemplated the day's events. The last thing he'd expected was to find out he was related to a whole group of people he hadn't even known about. He had nearly had a total break down when he had been talking with Hermione. His emotions were starting to get out of hand, and he knew it.
'What will happen if I blow my top? I've seen Vampires and Lycans both go insane because of things they've seen. I don't want to turn out like that, in prison for slaughtering dozens of people because I had a break down. I need an outlet, I just don't know what that outlet could be!' Zack thought. The whole situation was frustrating him, and it scared him. It had been years since he'd come across something he couldn't handle with ease. Ever so slowly his mind shut down, sending him into the realm of dreams.
DreamThe room was uncomfortably warm. Zack could feel his sweat tickle his neck as it made its way down his body. Zack observed that he was in a room full of people. There were men and women, young and old, and children. All were huddled together in the small room. Some of the children were crying in fear, but none made a sound. Even their breathing was almost silent. In the front of the room, near the door, stood several figures robed in black, hoods up. There was one, however, that did not have his hood up. He was a tall man, over 6 feet in height. Carefully brushed gray streaked black hair sat on the top of his head, bringing out his orange and red tinged eyes.
At the foot of the tall figure was a child, maybe 8-years-old, crumpled into a ball, not breathing. The child was abnormally small, with a mop of blond hair on his head, drenched in blood. The boy's dead blue eyes stared at Zack, as if asking why he hadn't helped. One of the women, a blond, blue-eyed beauty looked at the child with shocked eyes and a pale face.
The man at the front of the room, Lord Voldemort, stared at the woman as if daring her to try and avenge her dead child. And she did try, but was struck down immediately by one of the Death-eaters at Voldemort's side. The other cloaked figures laugh maliciously as the Death-eater that struck her down started to kick her. Her screams tore through Zack's skull while he watched in contained horror. None of the others dared to move, knowing their fate should they try to help the young woman.
The kicker stopped, and then bowed before Voldemort. "Master, if I may?" he asked. His question puzzled the other victims in the room, but Zack and the other Death-eaters knew what he wanted.
Voldemort looked disgusted down at the woman. "If you must, but don't make too much of a mess," he hissed. The woman screamed and kicked as the man dragged her out of the room. The walls did nothing to drown out the woman's pleas and screams as the Death-eater had his way with her. Zack visibly flinched when there was a loud wet crack, followed by silence. The Death-eater had snapped her neck.
The children huddled between the adults had no idea what was happening, but the adults had figured it out very quickly. From the state of them, they had only been in captivity for a few hours, but Zack knew that by the end of the night they all would be dead or worse.
Voldemort, having already tortured some of the people in the room, took his leave. The other Death-eaters bowed as he left, and then turned to the 20 or so men, women and children huddled together in the room. As the torture started, Zack began to shake. He sat on the floor, rocking back and forth, his hands over his ears as the echoing screams of the men, women and children burned through his skull and drilled into his brain.
By the time the sun came up, lighting the stone room dimly, 4 were left. One was a woman, obviously part Veela with blond hair and clear eyes. The second was a teenage girl with dark brown hair, and fierce brown eyes. The other two were children, around 5 years old with dark hair and blue eyes. They were twins, and if Zack didn't know better, he'd have said they were Nathan and Natalie.
Zack watched, unable to move from his spot at one of the Death-eaters began to assault the Veela. Her eyes ran red in her anger, but she wasn't powerful enough to take several men, each with wands. Instead, she stood protecting the teenager and twins. Zack couldn't take it. He could feel one of his suppressed transformations coming forward, as they always did during one of these dreams.
He grunted and growled as his body changed. His canines extended, his fingernails turned into talons that could rival a raptors, and his eyes darkened. The transformation continued, and dark, demon like wings sprouted from Zack's back , causing him to scream in agony. His arms became bulkier, and large, sharp spikes shot from the outside of his forearm like razors. His skin darkened to a dark shade of gray, and his ears grew pointed. At every point that something pierced his skin, blood poured, making him look even fiercer.
With his transformation complete, Zack snarled. The Death-eaters couldn't see him, and continued on with what they were doing. Zack attacked, going at the Death-eaters as fiercely as possible, his Vycan instincts controlling him. He went through each Death-eater, causing no harm, but in his mind, they were being ripped to pieces like the people that they had killed this night.
In the end, the Veela was killed, the teenager taken to be a slave to one of the Death-eaters, and the twins left with the bloody corpses of the dead that the Death-eaters had left. Zack knew that the Death-eaters would forget about the two youngsters, and they would either starve to death, or die of some kind of sickness. All his energy spent, Zack crumpled to the floor of the dungeon, sobbing tears of pure blood. "I'm sorry!" he cried at the two children, wishing that he could help them.
As the dream came to an end, and Zack slipped out of his transformation, he was very surprised. A robed figure stalked into the room. The scene faded, but before it was gone, Zack saw the figure force something in to each twin's hand, and they disappeared.
End DreamZack woke with a start and a yell. The sun shinned into his room, and his watch showed it to still be early. Sitting up in his bed, Zack clamped his hands so hard, his talons, which hadn't quite disappeared yet, sunk into his already blood soaked skin. "Damn it!" Zack screamed, knowing no one could hear him. The room had more spells on it than the Room of Requirement. Standing from his bed, he made a beeline for the shower. As he passed the mirror he flinched, seeing the blood that covered him.
It took several minutes, and lots of scrubbing, but eventually Zack got all the blood out of his hair and off of his skin. Standing under the spray of the shower, he sighed, and then punched the wall. The tile shattered and then returned to normal, thanks to an unbreakable spell the House Elves had place on it. He didn't even bat an eyelash when his knuckles began to bleed. Rinsing the wound once, Zack turned off the shower, and started to get dressed. The wounds, both self inflicted and from his nightmare transformation were almost fully healed.
The House Elves had already invaded his room, cleaning the blood from the sheets and the floor. Everything was just as it when he'd entered it the night before. By the time he reached the Great Hall, breakfast was in full swing, and classes started in one hour.
Luna, Draco, Hermione, Serenity, Ginny, Dahlia and black boy named Dean Thomas sat at the Gryffindor table. Zack sat in between Luna and Dean, and slightly more than a foul mood. "Nightmare?" Luna whispered in Zack's ear. He responded with a deep, mean growl. Luna shrugged, returning to her meal. If Zack was angry enough about something to growl at her, he needed to be left alone.
A few minutes later, the morning post swooped in. Four things were dropped in front of Zack. The first was the Daily Prophet. The headline was "TWENTY-FOUR GO MISSING IN ATTACK OUSIDE OF OXFORD!" Zack quickly discarded the paper. The other three were letters from Nathan and Natalie, and his parents. Nathan and Natalie's letters were written in the barely readable scrawl of children their age, but Zack was able to make out what the two letters said. Nathan had also included a crayon drawn picture of Zack, Draco and Ginny, or at least that's who Zack assumed the people were, playing Quidditch.
Selene and Michael's letters had been the standard letters, asking him about his nightmares, and if they had reached the school okay. Even if the letters were starting to become repetitive, it warmed Zack's heart to know that his parents cared about him enough to write to him. He knew it was corny, but it was true. Folding Nathan's picture, Zack put it in his pocket. Nathan, and sometimes Natalie's, innocent drawings always made Zack feel loved.
Though, the questions about his nightmares were starting to get annoying. Everyone knew he had nightmares, but they all assumed they were about his life before his parents had managed to track him down. They were very wrong. His nightmares, if you could call them that, showed him what Voldemort did in his free time. It was taking its emotional toll on Zack, but he was hell bent on not letting it show to anyone.
Not long later, Zack departed from the rest of the group for his first class of the day, a double dose of Care of Magical Creatures. Draco had dropped the class after being 'attacked' by one of the creature Hagrid had been showing. In truth, it was totally Draco's fault. Even Draco had admitted it, but only after raising a fuss with the Headmaster.
" 'Ello there Zack! What'chu been getting up to these days?" Hagrid greeted as Zack made his way to the Giant's hut.
Zack smiled pleasantly at the Giant, the night's nightmare melting away as the day went on. "Same old, same old Hagrid. What do you have there?" Zack asked.
Held tightly in Hagrid's massive hands was what looked like a dragon, but was only about three feet long, and one foot high. "Ah! This be a Wyvern Zachary. This here is the closest you can get to a real dragon now a days. You want ta hold 'im?" Hagrid asked. The Wyvern was struggling him his hands, desperate to get loose.
Zack shrugged. "Sure," he answered, knowing he would do a better job calming the Wyvern down that Hagrid could. For all of Hagrid's good intentions, he really couldn't handle animals well. Generally he used more force with animals that didn't need it, and less with the animals that did. The Wyvern was one such animal. It was about as dangerous as a Dragon Fly, yet Hagrid was holding it like it was a deadly serpent waiting to strike.
Hagrid nodded, and placed the Wyvern in Zack's arms, instructing him to hold I tightly. Zack did as he was told, up until Hagrid turned around. "Calm down!" Zack whispered in Parseltongue. That was the good thing about Parseltongue that few knew. It worked on everything with a forked tongue.
Immediately, the Wyvern calmed down and Zack set him on the ground. Kitala, who had been sitting on Zack's shoulder since breakfast, jumped down as well. Zack sat and watched the two animals interact. Hagrid, who had been greeting Gryffindors after giving the Wyvern to Zack, turned and nearly had a coronary. "ZACK! What'er u doin'? That thing be dangerous!" Hagrid yelled.
At the sight of Hagrid, the Wyvern turned and hissed a thing stream of fire, warning Hagrid not to come near him. "Chill out Hagrid. It's a Wyvern and they're more or less harmless. The worst it can do is burn someone, and I don't see that happening if you stop scaring it. If you want it to do something, tell Kitala," Zack said, motioning to the small fox at his side.
Kitala, for all the years that Zack had had her, hadn't gotten any bigger than her kitten size. However, she could manipulate her size when needed, growing as big as an elephant at one point. Normally, however, Kitala was content with her being pocket sized, if only to mooch rides off of Zack.
Hagrid looked like he wanted to argue, but didn't once he saw Kitala and the Wyvern talking in dragon tongue, something Zack couldn't understand. Joining the rest of the class, Zack groaned. It was a completely Gryffindor class, and he was the only Slytherin. It was an accident waiting to happen. Dean, of course, wasn't a problem seeing as he was dating Ginny and didn't want to get on her friends' bad sides. It was Ron Weasley, Ginny's older brother, that he was worried about.
If Zack had ever thought he'd had a bad temper, it was completely erased from his mind as soon as he really got to know the youngest Weasley boy. Unlike his brothers, all of whom Zack had met, and generally liked, Ron didn't have his own character. He was constantly trying to pull one ups on his brothers, something that wasn't going to happen any time in the near future. Each of his brothers had very different and interesting personas.
Bill, the oldest brother, was an expert curse breaker for Gringotts and had been Head Boy in his year. Charlie, the next oldest, was a dragon expert in Romania, and the best Seeker Gryffindor had had in years. Percy, who had graduated the year before, also graduated Head Boy and was working for the Minister of Magic. And then there were Fred and George. The twins were pranksters, and planned on opening a joke shop in Diagon Alley once they graduated, a fact that they were keeping well hidden from their mother. Even Ginny was better off than her brother, having friends in every house and in the top three in her year in Dueling.
Zack held back the urge to strangle the boy when he felt him behind him. "Think you're so special don't you?" he whispered in Zack's ear. He really didn't need to. Hagrid may have been a friend, but Zack was still a Slytherin, making him a walking target. "Think you're special because you're friends with Harry Potter's cousin? I know what you're doing. You're just trying to get a bite of her fame. I bet you even rigged the hat so she could be in Slytherin." Zack suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Trust the youngest Weasley brother to act like that.
"You're just mad that she isn't in Gryffindor so you can exploit her for your own benefit. Honestly, you would have done well in Slytherin," Zack shot back.
Ron turned a bright red color. "You fucking mudblood!" Ron yelled. Spinning Zack around, the taller boy took aim for Zack's face. Ducking down Zack caused Ron to over balance, and hit Dean instead.
Everyone in the class turned to look at Ron, and saw Dean Thomas holding his nose and eye, blood gushing between his fingers. Now, several people knew that Dean was a muggle born, all of them in Gryffindor. To see Ron Weasley, a well known pure blood, yell an obscenity like that, and then hit another one of his house looked very bad. Now, understand, had he not missed, and actually hit Zack, no one would have cared, except maybe Snape.
"Ron! What the hell are you doin'?" Hagrid demanded. By this time, Dean had dropped down to one knee, letting to blood from his nose drip over onto the ground. Hagrid reached into one of his many pockets, and removed a white cloth. He handed it to Dean, who wrapped it around his nose.
It was then that the bloodied boy unleashed his own wrath on the redhead. Ron's head snapped back pleasantly as Dean under cut him in the chin. Ron was in such shock he didn't even try to block the punch. "I'll show you what a mudblood can do!" he yelled. If it weren't for Zack stepping in, the black boy probably would have beaten out what little brains the redhead had left.
"Chill out Dean," Zack said, standing in front of Ron, who'd been knocked down from the force of the hit. Dean, knowing that Zack had his best interest in mind, stepped back, and placed the soiled rag back on his bleeding nose.
"Zachary, you take Dean in tur see Madam Pomfre'. I'll get Ron up tur the Headmaster," said Hagrid. He dismissed the class leaving Zack to take the injured black boy to the infirmary.
(A/N: As I write to you now, I'm in Cocoa Beach with two of my best friends, Matt and Jeremy. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. After Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is released, I may go back and change a few things to make it more relevant to the book. However, if I don't change anything, I reserve my right not to be complained at. This is, after all, a fan fiction, and as far as this goes, things in the books aren't that relevant anyway. Also, this may not make much sense now, but I'm setting stage, so it will. Well, it's late and I have to get up early. Later.)
Review responses:
ShAdOwAdRiA: Thanks.
Angelkitty77: Thank you, and will do.
Japanses-jew: Dahlia's parents are dead. Selene, Michael and company killed them. I know I wrote that in there somewhere, I think. Dahlia is still a kid, and doesn't know anything about their deaths, other than it happening. She doesn't even know when it happened. For all she knows, they could have put her up for adoption because they knew something was going to kill them. Kids are really dramatic, and can create some pretty weird scenarios of things. As I said, the whole abuse thing isn't the whole reason. If you were in Zack's position, you'd be a little bi-polar too.
Applebottoms: I changed my mind about getting the book from K-mart, seeing as I won't be there. There is a hurricane that might be rolling through the Keys, so we're going to West Palm Beach. I went ahead and pre-ordered it from 'Sam's'. They have the best price on it anyway. Have fun being at Boarders in your costume. Dare I ask why you'd wear your costume there?
Land-Bloodrose: Thanks.
Monaki-cheung: I'll see what I can do about lengthening the chapters.
Grey8: Thanks.
MidNite Phoenix: Maybe…
Jbfritz: I meant to have this up sooner, but my comp wouldn't have it.
Enchantedlight: Thanks. I'll try.
HecateDeMort: Thanks.
The1TRUEST3heir2of7SLYTHERIN: Thanks.
Merle Elendil: Don't feel bad, I don't think anyone knows what's happening yet. Of course, you can always re-read to catch up.
Black blade1: Thanks.
Kenza Slytherin: I can't wait either…LOL!
B-A-Hplova22: I think you'll figure that out if you've gotten this far…I hadn't seen one either, but people say they're out there, I just haven't looked.
