"Did you actually believe? Or are you truly naive enough to think, that children stood a chance against us?"
As Lucius Malfoy slowly strutted towards Harry, Hermione bit back a whimper of pain, Dolohov's fist tightening in her hair, his wand digging into her jaw alongside her own.
She should have known better. She knew it was a trap, she had told Harry as such, yet her best friend had still stubbornly insisted on going. If only she had argued harder, made more of an effort to convince him to try contact the Order, then they wouldn't be in this mess.
Now they were going to die and it would be her fault.
There was no way that they could win this. All of them bar Harry had been disarmed and had a wand against their throats. And despite how powerful and talented her best friend was, there was no way that he could take on all of the Death Eaters at once and win.
"I'll make this simple for you, Potter," Malfoy continued as he turned to face Harry, standing between him and the giant archway, a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he held out his hand. "Give me the prophecy now," he ordered coldly, "Or watch your friends die".
Hermione watched as Harry glanced around the room, slowly meeting their eyes with his own emerald orbs. When he reached her she gently jerked her head to the side, making the smallest of movements towards the door as her scalp screamed at her in protest.
As Harry narrowed his eyes at her, she hoped that he had caught her non-verbal plea for him to take the prophecy and run. The Death Eaters would kill them if he did, but if Harry gave them the prophecy then they'd all be killed anyway. Dolohov yanked roughly on her hair as Hermione tried to gesture with her head again, bringing tears to her eyes as the Death Eater hissed angrily in her ear.
Anger flashed through Harry's eyes for a moment before he dropped his head down to stare at the prophecy, the white-blue mist within it swirling and pulsing brightly, the black-haired boy's face illuminated eerily as the sphere bathed his face in light.
"Yes," Malfoy exhaled calmly, as Hermione watched the emotions flashing across Harry's face. "Yes that's it. Give it to me Potter".
The first sign for Hermione - who knew Harry well enough to memorize his tells - that something was wrong, was the way the stiffness just rolled out of Harry's body and he relaxed. The second sign that something was wrong, was the way she saw the side of his lip twitching as his fingers tightened and loosened around the glowing prophecy. The third sign, the one that everyone in the room caught, was the way that Harry just held out the prophecy orb with a bored "Alright".
The look of shock on Malfoy's face was mirrored by everyone around the room, the blond man hesitantly stretching his hand out for the prophecy, looking like he was waiting for Harry to try something. When Harry continued holding it out expectantly, Malfoy plucked the prophecy from his hand, and smirked victoriously down at it.
"This is a clever little trap, Malfoy," Harry began simply, Hermione's eyes widening as she recognised Harry's 'I know something you don't know' voice. "It's just didn't anyone ever tell you?" he asked as his head remained angled towards the ground. "There's one thing you never put in a trap: if you're smart, if you value your continued existence," he explained slowly, his voice light and calm as Hermione saw the small silver knife that slowly was lowered from Harry's sleeve and into his hand. "If you have any plans of seeing tomorrow," he continued as he finally looked up at the suspicious looking Malfoy, "There's one thing you never, ever put in a trap".
"And what would that be, Potter?" Malfoy demanded rudely even as Hermione's mind clicked as to why what Harry was saying was so familiar.
"Me," Harry deadpanned, launching himself at Malfoy, driving the silver knife into the man's eye even as Hermione's mouth dropped open in shock. Twisting on the spot, Harry tore the knife out of Malfoy's eye and slashed his hand through the air, a geyser of blood exploding from the blond's eye-socket and following the movement of Harry's hand as he whipped it around to stab in Hermione's direction.
In almost slow motion, Hermione watched as the unnaturally glowing blood shot towards her, clumping together and crystallizing into a thick shining spear as the words "Accio Hermione" echoed through her ears. A flash of light ripped her from Dolohov's arms and threw her to the floor, the dark red crystal fling over her head seconds later, followed almost instantly with sickening sound of the spear entering the Death Eater's body.
Faster than Hermione thought possible, Harry was spinning around and hurling a 'knife' of crystallized blood into another Death Eater's skull, even as a flash of light from his wand summoned Luna from their hands. Green light made her throw herself to the ground, rolling over in time to see the brilliant acid-green of the Killing Curse striking Harry in the chest.
Bellatrix Lestrange let out a shrieking laugh as she tilted her head back, Hermione's jaw dropping as Harry just shrugged off the effects of the Killing Curse and raised his own wand, pointing it at Bellatrix as the Witch cackled.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The maniacal grin was frozen on Bellatrix's face as the Killing Curse struck her dead on, the Dark Witch slowly toppling over to hit the ground limply. Barely casting Bellatrix a second look, Harry turned to point his hand at another Death Eater, a flash of blood-red magic causing his head to explode. Casting another quick spell at the now headless Death Eater, Harry turned to face the final Death Eater who looked like he was a step away from fainting.
Lashing out before the Death Eater could do anything, Harry threw his blood at the man, snorting in amusement as the Death Eater burst into a whirlwind of black smoke just in time to avoid the jagged spear. A warning caught in Hermione's throat as the Death Eater appeared behind Harry, his wand aiming directly at Harry's back as the word "AVADA!" flew from his mouth. The spell went unfinished however, as Harry twisted gracefully and his palm slammed into the forehead of the Death Eater who let out a shocked choking sound in response.
"That wasn't very nice," Harry deadpanned, a smirk tugging at his lips as he slowly and purposely pulling his hand away from the Death Eater's forehead, causing the man to start gagging and trembling.
Picking herself up from the floor, Hermione nervously stepped forward, not liking the look on Harry's face as he stared at the Death Eater. Opening her mouth to call his name, a strangled gasp escaped instead as blood began pouring out of the Death Eater's open mouth, floating through the air and beginning to hover around Harry's hand.
When blood started draining out of the Death Eater's nose, ears, and eyes, Hermione's hands clapped up over her mouth, the urge to vomit only being held back by her horror. How could Harry be doing this? How could Harry be enjoying this? The look on Harry's face was clear, it reminded her of a tamer Bellatrix Lestrange's, only Harry still thankfully lacked the utter insanity that made Bellatrix Lestrange Voldemort's right-hand woman.
Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed Hermione's arm, making her jump and raise her wand to curse her assailant. "Ssh!" Ron hissed as he snatched her wand from her hand, dragging her behind a rock where the other three teenagers were hiding. "We need to get out of here," the redhead whispered, Hermione unable to take her eyes away from the sight of Harry draining the Death Eater. "That's Blood Magic… Dark magic".
Hermione tore her eyes away from Harry to stare at Ron in shock. Harry couldn't be Dark… not Harry. He was too kind, too loving. He had nothing against Muggleborn either, in fact Harry was more for equality than she was. But… Harry was clearly using Blood Magic… and he was obviously enjoying it.
"Start draining the others," Harry's voice rang out, making the five of them stop and stare at the black-haired boy, the swirling sphere of blood hovering between his hands making Hermione want to vomit again. "If their blood isn't drained before their life-force fades then you'll be the sacrifice in their place," the teenager added warningly, levitating the blood over to the archway and beginning to chant in an unfamiliar language.
As the haunting language sent shivers down Hermione's spine, she bit back a whimper and clutched at Ron's arm when men and women appeared with dark shimmers, all of them wearing the same silver and black cloaks. Obediently following Ron as he tugged her back to the wall and away from the hooded people, Hermione watched in growing horror as the wizards and witches with blood-red trims on their cloaks gathered around the dead Death Eaters, chanting in the same language as Harry had been speaking as they held their hands over the corpses.
"I trust you didn't have any trouble getting in?" Harry's voice asked, pulling Hermione's attention over to where Harry had stepped away from the archway, the ball of blood now orbiting the black stone.
"If six teenagers can get in," a familiar voice began, "Then I doubt I'd have any trouble," Sirius continued as he appeared with a smirk.
"Then you have the Stone?" Harry demanded, his voice dripping with an expectant undertone as the silver-black robed Sirius climbed the dias to where Harry was standing.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing," the dog animagus deadpanned, pulling a large red crystal from his pocket and depositing it into Harry's hand. "One Philosopher's Stone, just as ordered. Ol' Nicky's office wasn't designed to keep me out".
A Philosopher's Stone? Why would Harry need a Philosopher's Stone? And what was going on here? What was Harry doing? Why was Sirius here? Who were these people? And what were they doing with the spheres of blood that they were now setting up around the archway? Hermione had never felt so lost in her life, not even while searching for information on the Philosopher's Stone in first year, or the basilisk in second year had she been this out of the loop.
"We need to get out of here," Ron said softly from behind her, "We need to tell someone, Dumbledore maybe, he'll know what to do. He'll know how to fix Harry".
"Harry doesn't need to be fixed," Hermione countered angrily, still denying the possibility that Harry could be Dark.
"I swear to Merlin, Sirius," Harry's voice rang out darkly, "If you fuck this up, you won't have a soul to burn in hell".
"We need to get out of here," Ron repeated nervously, tugging on her arm and beginning to lead them around the edges of the room and towards the door.
This time Hermione allowed it to happen, the tone of her best friend's voice leaving her unable to deny that something was wrong. As they circled around the room, Hermione kept a close eye on the archway in the center, watching as the 'Blood Mages' drained the Death Eaters of blood which they set in orbit of the archway for some reason. Quickly she realised they were preparing for a ritual, a deep feeling of horror forming in her stomach as she couldn't help but wonder what it was for, her mind coming up with worse and worse ideas.
"Excuse me? But where do you think you're going?"
Biting back a startled scream, Hermione's head snapped back around to where Harry was casually leaning against the wall in front of them, all five of them coming to a sudden halt as they eyed the smirking Wizard cautiously.
"You can't leave now," Harry continued slowly, "You don't want to miss the show, do you?"
"Get out of our way!" Ron yelled from beside Hermione, pulling her attention away from her fearful study of Harry's face. "We're leaving, and you're not going to stop us!"
What little sanity Hermione had found in her friend's eyes vanished as his hand snapped up and clenched into a fist, Ron letting out a choking noise from beside her as he fell to his knees and clawed at his throat. As Ron's face turned a dangerous red, a dark smirk spread across Harry's one, the twinkle appearing in his eyes looking like an evil mockery of Professor Dumbledore's own.
"Harry!" she blurted, "Stop!"
A look of confusion flashed across Harry's face, realisation following it as he opened his hand and Ron gasped for air. "My apologies," the black-haired teen murmured slowly, frustration filling his voice, "Blood Magic does tend to bring out my dark side and lessen my hold on my sanity, it's taking longer than I expected to accustom to it".
Shocked by Harry's apology, Hermione's mind went blank for a moment, unable to link the almost guilty comment to his previous cruel expression.
"Why?"
Harry's eyes snapped past her to where Neville was stepping up beside her, Hermione watching as Neville raised his jaw bravely to stare down Harry. "Why are you doing this? Why are you using Blood Magic?" the boy paused for a moment to take a deep breath, "What did you do to my friend?"
"I'm still your friend, Neville," Harry assured him softly, once more majorly contrasting to his previous bloodthirsty state. "And I have a very good explanation for all this," he added, gesturing towards the black archway and the impending ritual.
Silence reigned between then for a moment before Ron's angry voice rasped out, "WELL?", making Harry blink in confusion before raising an eyebrow at them.
"Well what?"
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" Hermione exclaimed, feeling her already frayed emotions snapping, "I WILL HEX YOU!"
"Fine, fine. I'm about to take place in an extremely dangerous ritual to resurrect the most powerful Blood Mage and Necromancer of all time," Harry explained simply, a proud look on his face. "Then together, we will rise up and destroy this corrupt Ministry and enforce a policy of total equality between all races and rebuild the magical world in our image".
Hermione stared at Harry for a moment, unable to formulate a response to his serious answer. When none of the five reacted to his explanation, Harry just blinked at them a bit more before spreading his arms.
"Surprise!"
Bloodlust
Based off DZ2's The Dark Apprentice challenge.
So I keep getting ready to post it and then wussing out because I think it's a pathetic excuse for a Dark Harry story… I could do so much better than this.
This, by the way, is self-punishment for giving into that side of me and playing around with a Mass Effect OC-Insert. I'm ashamed of myself… :'(
I don't own Harry Potter.