Okay, to avoid confusion and all: You didn't miss anything, the beginning of this chapter looks like you'll fall somewhere in the story, but I didn't really have anywhere I could continue, so I skipped some days . Harry still has five days before school starts again.
Enjoy!
"Shut. Up. I can't concentrate." Harry snapped, and the mad cackling bitch turned to look at him.
"Or you'll do what, bite me?" she mocked him.
The teen grinned. "I know someone who would like an excuse to do so…"he teased, stroking Nagini's scales.
"Afraid to fight me yourself? Will you go running to your Master, little pet?" Bellatrix sneered.
Harry balled his fists and got to his feet. "No wands." He ordered, and she huffed, but stuck her wand away.
"You're making a grave mistake, potty." she told him before running at him.
She wasn't fast enough for him though. He had learnt to evade not only Dudley, but also his much quicker 'friends', so dodging and outrunning Bella wasn't much of a task to him. After a few minutes of avoiding her sharp nails and even landing a few blows on her himself, she snarled and made an unexpected move that resulted in her nails digging in his arm. Instinctively, he twisted around and landed a punch in her face with a satisfying crunch. She howled in pain and Harry froze as she pulled her wand.
"You'll pay for that! You'll pay! Crucio!" the woman screamed, and Harry cried out in pain, writhing on the ground, not knowing how long this was going on. He should have known better than to provoke a fight with Bellatrix. She wasn't one to play fair. Needles pricked his skin and knives slit him open. His breath failed him, and his vision turned black a few times. Harry searched for an escape, anything to get away from here, to break the curse. It was hard to think, and he screamed. He felt something within him snap, and wondered if this would last until he would go mad. Dark coiled around him and the pain faltered for a moment, a piercing scream that was not his own cutting through the air. He looked down on the scene, a woman with black hair lying on the ground as a teen stood up from the floor, his hair falling in his eyes and his head down. Faintly, Harry could make out a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. Slowly, the boy raised his arm and black, smokey snakes came from his hand, devouring the woman. A crazed grin split the face of the teen as the body of the woman became charred, burned alive.
Harry stretched out his hand and touched the face of the teen. The head turned and Harry stared into green eyes, brighter than ever. Smiling, he took back the control over his body, falling to his knees the moment his senses returned, his limbs aching from the torture still. He frowned when looking at the dead body, wondering if he should feel anything. Impassive, he watched Bellatrix fall apart, until only ashes remained. An unearthly sparkle caught his attention, and he brushed the ashes off a shiny object. Fascinated, he traced shining emeralds with his finger. He pulled back and regarded the locket with suspicion when feeling a pulse, like a metal heartbeat. He recognised the magic and turned on his heel, not sparing Bellatrix' remains another glance.
Seeing as his lover wasn't home, he walked outside and, looking up to the sky, he saw dark clouds, the harbinger of a thunderstorm. The air hung heavy and hot around him. He narrowed his eyes when noticing a group of people appear, Marvolo one of them. He rushed towards him and smiled, his eyes litting up.
"Marvolo!" he said.
"Harry…" his lover answered, and leaned close, only to stop and frown at him. "Harry… what happened? Something feels off… and is that fire I smell? Did something burn down? Are you alright?"
"You could say that…" he replied, vague. "I feel better than ever, though I don't know if I'm really okay. I also feel odd… How did the raid go?"
"Good. We managed to seriously diminish the number of Aurors the Ministry has, and made it look like it was their own fault. An experiment gone wrong. Now, what happened?"
"I was hit with a Cruciatus curse."
The Dark Lord froze. "What?" he hissed, his voice turning cold.
"Bellatrix."
"I'll kill her."
"Already done." Harry hummed, intense pleasure rising within him at the thought of her death.
Shocked, Marvolo gazed down at him and looked in his undisturbed eyes. "I beg you pardon?"
"I don't know how, but something… snapped within me. I'm not too sure of to what extent the damage is, but I'm fairly certain it somehow got me over my aversion to killing…" he said airily, not really able to bring himself to care. "I didn't do it consciously, but all that remained was a pile of ash, plus this." He handed his lover the locket.
The man shook himself from his stupor, looked down at the locket in his hand and stuffed it in an inside pocket, regarding Harry with concern. "Come." He said, and grabbed the teen's hand, leading him away to their room. "Sit down. Now, I'm going to delve in your mind. Please try to not throw me out. I'm going to try and see what exactly happened."
Marvolo's fingertips touched his temples lightly and Harry closed his eyes, reveling in the contact. A presence shifted in his mind and he was pulled within himself, seeing memories flash by fast, until he came to a stop, soaring in a dark space with coloured threads.
"Ah, I see." A voice next to him said with a tinge of sadness, and he turned his head to the side to see his lover, floating graciously beside him.
"Is this… in my mind?" he asked, astonished.
"Yes. Now, these threads all reflect an aspect of your personality. Powerful mind magic can sometimes damage these. The Cruciatus curse is also a form of mind magic. It looks like it has severed some strings. Do you feel detached?"
"A bit. I had an out-of-my-body experience before, and now as well it feels… strange… like I'm not totally myself.
"I'm not surprised. Your sense of pity and empathy has been shredded to nothing, compassion and sympathy have been seriously battered, and there is damage on so many other things that I don't even know where to begin. I could try to mend some damage, but I'm not too sure if I can bring you back to the same state you were in before."
"I… I don't think I'd want that either. I can see so much clearer now. I think that all these confusing emotions would have stood in the way in this war. I could hardly stand it to see a person get hurt, be it friend or enemy."
"You understand why I wanted to get rid of my emotions?" Marvolo grinned.
"Totally. I'm just glad that it doesn't seem like my love for you has suffered."
The man's eyes softened and he pulled Harry close. Nothing needed to be said on that, really. "I'll just… start to work on this."
"Sure." The teen said, and watched Marvolo as he touched the strings, repairing the damage. With every piece that was healed, he began to feel different, more like his old self, and all of a sudden, he gasped, and tears filled his eyes.
"Harry?" he heard, but he just shook his head, hugging himself.
"What was that?" he breathed out. "What were you healing?"
"Guilt."
"Ah. I see." He whispered with a small voice, now recognising the emotion that flooded through his veins. Reality came crashing down on him. He had killed someone. She had deserved it of course but… he'd killed someone. He shuddered and tried to shake it off.
After what seemed like eternity, he was born anew, all his feelings newly formed. His lover guided him out of his mind, and when he regained awareness in the room again, Marvolo got up to give him some time for himself, but Harry grabbed his sleeve and looked up to him with despair in his eyes.
"Please. I don't… want to be alone now." He swallowed heavily. "Hug me?" he asked, and sighed in delight as he was embraced in a tight hug.
"Harry?" Marvolo asked after a while, and the teen looked up. It was obvious that the man was burning to ask him a question, but didn't know if the timing was right.
"Yes?"
"That locket you gave me. You found it near Bellatrix?"
"Yeah… it felt like you, so I thought I'd better give it to you."
"It's one of my Horcruxes." He mumbled.
"Really? I wonder how she obtained it." Harry frowned.
"Maybe that thief managed to get his hands on it. My Horcrux told me-"
"Told you?" Harry said, skeptically.
"There is a spell that allows me to communicate with the pieces of soul from a distance. It told me that there was someone who was stealing all kinds of artifacts to sell it from the Order's headquarters. My Horcrux had landed there as well… I'm glad I have it back now… I think I have to go, to inform Rodolphus of the death of his wife. I doubt that he'll think it a great loss, but he was the only one she was close to, plus, well, he was her husband. Do you feel well enough for me to leave?"
"Can I come with you?" Harry asked, tightening his desperate grip on Marvolo's robes.
"Of course. Can you change clothes first? You still smell like fire and… burned Bellatrix."
"Oh, yeah." Harry said, looking down at his clothes. He shrugged his robe off, shooting his lover a glare when he kept staring. "At least have the decency to pretend to look away."
"Why should I?" Marvolo asked, shooting him a lecherous grin. The man got up and came to stand directly behind Harry, trailing Harry's exposed body with light caresses, sighing when reaching one of the scars that adorned the teen's skin.
"One day, I'll make them regret they were ever born." He heard the man mutter.
"Can I help?" he smirked, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
Marvolo blinked and barked out a laugh. "I'm beginning to like these changes," he said.
"Good, cause you're going to have to put up with them, whether you like them or not."
"I will live." The man said.
"Marvolo? I hadn't wanted to think about it till now, but in five days, I'll have to go back to Hogwarts. I probably have to leave even sooner, so I can go to the Order's headquarters." he said sadly.
"I know." His lover answered thoughtfully, his voice tinged with sadness. "You'll probably have to begin thinking of a story. Leaving on your own is not an option, seeing as all of your belongings were still there, and you left your wand as well. Seeing as Dumbledore found my magic at your family's home, you better tell him what he wants to hear, the kidnapping story. Your friends however…"
"I already told them that I was safe. Or at least, that I wasn't really sure whether I was kidnapped or not. I was thinking… are your Death Eaters in a position to withhold information from you?"
"Only if they are very skilled in mind magic. I can only think of three persons who are, Severus, Lucius and Rabastan."
"Lucius wouldn't mind to act as if he kidnapped me to bring me to you and in the end decided he would profit greatly from a friendship with the Boy Who Lived, would he?"
"Sounds like something Lucius would do."
"Indeed. Of course, he couldn't risk exposure, so I wasn't allowed to go out, or practice magic."
"It appears I have found Lucius a new role already." Marvolo said, smiling thinly. "I assume you begged him to let you have a few days with your friends before returning to school?"
"I still need to go to Diagon Alley, and I wouldn't mind seeing the Order's headquarters. Also, I have met a few of their members after the Tournament, but not all of them. So yes."
"I'll miss you." Marvolo confessed, and then seemed surprised by his own words.
"I'll miss you too." Harry said, and flung himself into the man's arms.
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xx GeMerope
