Unfinished Journeys, Untraveled Roads - 10 - Hardships
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by Polydicta
A selection of unfinished tales that have been abandoned.
Each 'chapter' represents a single story.
Ongoing warnings for smut, language, character death, bashing, torture, mutilation, religious/social iconoclasm and reader brain damage. Brain bleach is highly recommended.
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Disclaimer:
All fiction is derivative and fan fiction doubly so. I make no claim to own any part of any of the following, all I have done is an attempt to put together the elements in a novel fashion, using words and ideas like Lego ™ bricks.
There is no money involved – all I do is to share what I do for my own amusement.
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Unfinished Journeys, Untraveled Roads - 10 - Hardships
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Sirius is recently dead and Harry has been returned to the tender mercies of Stalag Luft IV: Schloss Durzkaban.
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WARNING for extreme violence, torture and gory death.
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Chapter 1: Chapter Title
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"Hermione, thank Merlin you're here … it's Harry …"
"Tonks, what's … ?"
"He's dying, Hermione … he's given up, his magic is allowing him to die …"
"Noooooooo!"
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Hermione couldn't believe what she saw. The thin, pale body on the hospital bed lay there bathed in his own blood. As she watched another scar simply opened up and let out more of his blood, and there were so many scars … more than their adventures at school could account for …
She knew he was dying and she knew who was to blame - Albus too-many-bloody-names Dumbledore.
She knew that time was limited and she needed him to know …
"Harry? Harry … please? I … I don't want you to die … please, Harry?"
Her frame was wracked by sobs.
"Harry … I don't want to go on without you. I love you, Harry. I … I love you so much. I n-need you so much … I …"
Her voice trailed off, lost in her tears. Harry's hand moved slightly and weakly caressed her cheek … played with a stray curl of her hair, and relaxed completely.
There followed a renewed bout of heart-wrenching sobs from the girl.
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Three weeks before:
Harry had been told by the headmaster that he was to return to Privet Drive for the summer. For some reason, the old man wanted him to suffer ever more. His greater good wore rather thin after a while and Harry couldn't see how his being miserable was any good to anyone other than a vindictive and sadistic headmaster.
So here he was, climbing into the back of his uncle's car. For some reason, the top of the line company car had been replaced by an old model. Harry was more than a little wary of the fact that it seemed to be permeated by the stench of booze.
The absence of Dudley and Aunt Petunia concerned him a little.
Five minutes later he was even more worried. His uncle's erratic driving spoke of the alcohol smell coming from him. Uncle Vernon was gripping the wheel tight enough to make his knuckles show white, his face was set in a scowling, straight-lipped grimace and the vein in his temple throbbing erratically.
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Arriving at Privet Drive, Harry released Hedwig so that she could hunt and stretch her wings. He barely made it in the door when he felt a crashing pain before bouncing off of the wall. He woke up crammed in the cupboard under the stairs alongside his trunk.
There was barely room to breathe and certainly no room to move. Harry could feel a trickle of blood still running down his face and his head felt as though his hair was matted with blood.
Two hours later, Malfalda Hopkirk entered in her log that someone had performed a major healing charm in the house where Harry Potter lived. The sensor attuned to Harry's wand, however, showed no activity.
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The next morning, Harry was woken by the lock on the outside of the door being opened. The door was flung wide and Harry was dragged from the cupboard by a meaty fist and thrown along the hallway. His school trunk was dragged out and taken outside. After another beating, the semi-conscious Harry was forced to watch as his belongings were doused with petrol and burned.
A series of small explosions heralded the expiry of various magical artefacts within the trunk.
"And there's an end to your freakishness, boy. Never let it be said that Vernon Dursley ever let a Devil's Spawn to go un punished."
Harry was again systematically beaten, Vernon delighting in the sounds of bones snapping before throwing Harry back into his cupboard in the hope that he would die.
Malfalda Hopkirk reported to Amelia Bones the fact that a large number of heavy-duty healing charms were cast in Harry Potter's home that evening.
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Harry roused the following morning, still aching but seemingly none the worse for wear. The house seemed to be quiet barring a strange mewling noise and the basso rumble of Vernon's drunken snores.
"Heeeeeeh! Heeeeeh?"
It sounded like someone trying to speak.
"Dudley?"
"Hnnn. Ssssss!"
"I'm listening, Dud."
A pained whispering came through the gap at the bottom of the door, almost unintelligible.
"Dad lost his job two months back. He started drinking. He was beating mum and me. He's hurt me bad an' I can't speak properly. Mum's disappeared. Haven't eaten in two weeks, Harry."
"Can you get out the house, Dud?"
"Nnnng, no. Can't walk and he's put extra locks on everything. Phone's ripped out, too. How you holding up, Harry?"
"Dunno, Dud. Can't see any injuries for being covered in blood."
A wet coughing noise told Harry that Dudley had tried to laugh.
"Harry, If'n you can get out, get help … please?"
"Okay, Dud, but I don't know if I have the strength. I was hurt pretty bad yesterday."
" Uh, 'k. looks like we'll be seeing each other wherever then…"
Harry heard his cousin dragging himself off up the stairs, and he was left to his thoughts … guilty thoughts over the death of his godfather, vengeful thoughts over Uncle Vernon and Albus Dumbledork, worried thoughts about Ron and Hermione, both of whom were hurt at The Ministry.
Stomach gnawing, Harry fell into a fitful doze, only to be awoken by a newly drunk Vernon in order to receive a further beating before being thrown back into the cupboard. All the while, Vernon kept up a verbal assault, a mantra that Harry was a waste of air, that his presence had blighted Vernon's life and that he should have the decency to just die.
The list of healing charms reported by Malfalda Hopkirk grew longer each day as Harry's body repaired itself while he slept.
Harry lost weight dramatically. As a wizard, he needed to supply energy to perform magic and, even though his magic was able to get creative by pulling energy from the environment – mainly the wards around the house, he was still in deficit. The missing calories came from his own body.
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A weak and delirious Harry Potter felt the wards around the property fall, giving him a much needed boost as he was able to take back the residual energy from the failing protections. It also gave him access to the ambient magical energy, small though it was.
Malfalda Hopkirk was frantic and haggard from three weeks of worry, but now that the wards had fallen, she could report the address to Madam Bones.
Amelia Bones saw the address on the report and swung into action. She knew that Auror Tonks was friendly with the boy, so she sent her to investigate Privet Drive.
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Arriving in the street she saw Hedwig perched in a tree in a neighbouring garden. The Snowy Owl swooped down, agitated. Tonks recognised that the usually open window was firmly shut.
Mundungus Fletcher, petty thief, vagabond and professional layabout was asleep under an invisibility cloak, oblivious to anything outside his own dreams. She stunned him repeatedly in order to keep him out of her way.
Getting no answer to the door bell, she reducto'd the front door and was immediately struck by the stench of decay. The smell of death long past.
She hurried upstairs to Harry's room and used magic to unlock the door. As the door swung open, she caught the full blast of the smell. On the bed lay a body with mousy hair. She gagged and slammed the door. She recognised the meticulous clothes and general form of Petunia Dursley, although she seemed to have been beaten to death by an artist of pain.
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Entering the other rooms she stepped over the last earthly remains of Harry's cousin, Dudley. The boy, recently dead, seemed to be one single, enormous bruise.
Heading downstairs, Tonks found the purple-faced, snoring architect of the mayhem she had so far met, one Vernon Dursley.
Something triggered a memory, Harry mentioning a cupboard …
She saw the lock on the odd-shaped door. A simple charm unlocked the door and when it swung open, she simply stood and cried.
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Pulling herself together, she fired off a message spell to her boss and another to St Mungo's. Amelia Bones arrived with several grim-faced aurors at the same time as the medical crash team.
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