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Act III - Birth Of The Demon
Chapter 6: There In The Darkness Part 1
Crap. This place is a mess.
Ignotus had told him how Death had ravaged this place. It explained the rotten structures, the desolate buildings and the blackened Hogwarts. It didn't at all explain why the forbidden forest had grown to at least twice its size, and sprawled all the way into the Hogwarts grounds and the Quidditch pitch. If Death had killed every single thing in here, surely plants were no exception.
Death-affected or not, it was terribly eerie, walking through the forest in the dark. There were sounds around him, from the sigh of the wind to the rustle of brush caused by the shrubs as he moved past them. If he had his wand, he could have conjured a lighting spell to illuminate the way forward, but as it was, he was limited to treading carefully amidst the forest floor. The ground was undulating and uneven, with stones tripping his feet, as did ground-hugging vines, thorns, branches and roots.
There was no chance of locating direction either way, and the canopy made it difficult to spot stars in the sky. His only solace was the dark silhouette of the castle against the moonlight, which frankly, wasn't much. Especially with this strange, hostile presence in the darkness that had him tensed.
It began as a low, sourceless anxiety, one he barely noticed against the backdrop of all the perfectly rational anxiety he was carrying. But as he continued his journey, it got worse, maturing into a fluttery panic that made his heart beat faster.
Steeling himself against the psychic pressure, Harry continued at the same steady pace. If he let it get to him, if he wound up panicking and bolted, he would probably end up as a victim to something. In fact, that was probably what the presence had in mind.
Tonks had told him that his spirit animal, or animals for that matter, would find him. But currently the presence was content to just watch him from afar. For some reason, it made him feel worse than actually being attacked.
What he was about to do was not very different from his episode with Ananta-Shesha. He hadn't mentioned it to McGonagall or the others, but after that trial against the golem, Harry had been a little inquisitive about such things. Such rituals were derived from ancient shamanistic practices, where a given trible's shaman or Wise One, would set out into the wild and seek out a place of presence or power, and then invoke the spirit residing in the place and draw its fullest attention. The ritual that followed was an introduction, a challenge, a staking of claim and a battle of wills merged into one. If successful, the Wise One would be able to form a partnership with the spirit and use it to perform sorcery.
If the Wise One failed to form a partnership, then the spirit could turn malevolent and cast grave effects on him, which could range from driving him insane to killing him outright. Harry assumed that something similar happened when Animagus aspirants met with their spiritual animal forms.
Interestingly, the name Wizard had its origins in Middle English, meaning Those of the Wise.
Granted, not everything was the same. Like Tonks said, he already held a Nexus, or was a Nexus, bypassing the entire spirit animal step. This journey was simply to form a connection with the animal and that was that. That said, there was no saying as to how this animal β thestral or otherwise, was really going to react to him.
McGonagall had described a process called Spiritual Invocation, which Harry believed, works along the same lines. It was just like Ignotus said, it was all a subject of Intent. If his intent to conquer the spirit was stronger than the spirit's intent to frighten and weaken him, he would emerge as the victor. If notβ¦
Well, best not try to find out that hypothetical outcome.
The sound of hooves galloping alerted him to danger nearby, before an invisible force tore through the dense shrubbery around. A screech-owl let out an absolutely alien-sounding cry from so nearby that he almost jumped out of his skin.
"Cheap shot," he muttered, and tried to peer into the darkness. He had definitely heard the sound of hooves, and given the entire invisible thing going on, it was probably the thestral fucking with him. Closing his eyes, he regulated his breathing, and relaxed himself.
The owl screeched again. A wildcat let out an ear splitting howl. A pair of wolves set up a howling chorale in the distance.
"Enough" he said, filling his voice with his will. Intent, Ignotus had said, was everything. "I am Harry Potter, one of the Wise, and the Nexus of Death. Show yourself."
The sound of hooves approached again, but this time, he was ready. He focussed his magic, and instantly apparated five steps away to the right, as an invisible force smashed into where he had been standing moments ago, tearing one of the tree trunks into splinters. He mentally sent thanks to Severus Snape for his horrible training regimen with the bludgers. If nothing else, he had rapid point-to-point apparition to depend on, even if he didn't have his wand with him.
Which meant that magic worked in this place.
"Listen to me," he called out, his voice sharp and precise, strong and resonant. "I have come to make you mine. Bind your spirit to my spirit. I am the Vessel of Death, just as you are its spirit. Together, we become complete. Let us be complete. COME FORTH!"
He was repeating lines from the shamanistic rituals he had read from the Lair's library. If it was good enough for the African shamans, he figured it wouldn't be too bad for him either. Establishing a bond with spiritual beings was enforced by clarity, by determination, by being true in one's desires. If the spirit found one's will lacking, or their words hollow, they could retaliate dangerously.
And, like an instant later, a bolt of raw power permeated the forest. The bushes rustled, and even the taller trees swayed. Amidst the darkness, he could feel something moving towards him in slow, calculated paces. The sounds of deep breaths reverberated, as the rest of the forest went deathly still, and then Harry saw it. The quadruped, reptilian features, with the massive, fleshless body with nothing but black shadowy hide clinging to their skeletal form. As it approached him, Harry realised that this was possibly the largest thestral he had ever encountered. Easily reaching ten feet, the massive draconian head looked down at him, its empty socket-like eyes staring at him, an invisible, primordial power in them, gazing deep into his soul, as if measuring him. Harry felt its presence trying to push through his skull, his Death-powers for once not stopping the intrusion. Gritting his teeth, he bore through it all until the intruding presence died away.
"Right," he said. "I get you."
The thestral walked closer to him. Despite every bone in his body telling him to flee, Harry stood still, telling himself that he had been in worse conditions than this before. Yes, he was without a wand, and wasn't able to do any kind of wandless magic, except for maybe Death, which he doubted would work on the thestral. Yes, this thing could just trample him underfoot and there was no one here that could save his sorry arse if that happened. Yes, he was trapped all alone in the Anima realm, and not even his blasted Apparition technique could get him out of this place.
But, he also knew that he was Harry bloody Potter and that luck was always on his side. Even if it was the most obscure and violent sort of luck imaginable.
Then it stopped roughly five feet away from him, towering above him.
Following his gut instinct, he repeated what he had done with Ananta-Shesha before, Harry bowed his head respectfully. After a tense moment, the thestral mirrored his gesture, bowing its own head in reply. When it looked up, its head turned briefly towards the gates.
"Youβ you want me to leave?"
It met his eyes in silence.
The owl from before screeched again in the darkness. Harry looked up at the trees, trying to spot it, but found nothing. When he looked back, the thestral was gone. The strange, alien presence it carried with itself still lingered, but it was no longer determined to drive him away.
Exhaling, Harry turned around, satisfied with how things had turned out. Guess the DOM was right. His animagus form was indeed a thestral. At least it wasn't unexpected this time, which was possibly as normal as he could expect. Sighing, he turned around, and took a step towards the gates whenβ
The owl screeched again, only this time, there was something else in its tone. There was a feeling of intense longing, of anticipation and of fear. Of what, he didn't know, but he knew it was there.
It was coming from the direction of the castle, no, the Black lake.
And it was calling for him.
No! Harry warned himself. Don't! You got what you came for. You got it, now be happy and walk away. Don't bother with what-ifs and what else is there in this forest. Not even if it reminds you so much of Hedwig'sβ
Harry stilled. He had almost forgotten. McGonagall had told him that no person ever had a single spirit animal that resonated with him or her. The reason Tonks was so certain of the thestral was because it was the Peverell totem, and he was the Peverell vessel. But like he had said Ignotus, he wasn't just Death's avatar, was he? He was also a wizard. He had refused to take sides, choose Death over magic or vice versa. And here, he was about to do just that. He had chosen the thestral, chosen the creature that resonated strongly with his Death-powers, but what about his magic? What about life? Was that whyβ
A second screech, this one filled with desperation, echoed through the forest.
"Oh fuck it," cursed Harry, and ran into the darkness of the forest in the direction of the lake.
Contrary to what she had told Harry, this wasn't the first time Tonks had been summoned to Hogwarts. Even when she was a student here, she spent her Halloween nights with the professor, helping Animagus aspirants test their luck and will against the Anima realm. Just like McGonagall had described it, as a metamorphmagus, she was the concept of Change made manifest. Her unique ability to transform into any creature also made her uniquely capable of sensing and connecting with every single form of spiritual energy that could trespass from the Anima realm into the mortal world during this night, a power that made her absolutely indispensable in training aspirant animagi.
And with due reason too.
She hadn't been exaggerating when she had mentioned about the dangers and potential aftereffects of the animagus ritual. Yes, almost all aspirants were scared to hell and back by their time in the Anima realm, but truthfully, being just scared was one of the more benign and better outcomes of the process. Statistics said that ninety nine point two percent of all aspirants were viciously attacked by their spiritual predators, and maimed to lethal degrees. Half the visitors in Janus Thickey's ward at St. Mungo's were actually animagus aspirants that couldn't deal with the psychic trauma and lost themselves in acute dementia. There were even cases of people suffering from cardiac arrests days after their ritual, and of course, Poppy Pomfrey always maintained a rather large stock of Dreamless Sleep potion to counter the general effects of insomnia and countless nightmares that plagued the aspirants for months after their ritual. But compared to the others, it was practically mellow.
Tonks shivered, remembering that one time when an aspirant was possessed by a particularly malevolent shade. Subduing that one was a real pain in her arse.
And then people wondered why there were so few animagi.
That Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew all became animagi together was nothing less than a freak of Nature, Liquid Luck be damned.
Well, not so much for Sirius. The Black family was notorious for naming their children after constellations, and ever-so-subtly shaping the identity of their spirit animals. After all, with a name like 'Sirius' of the family 'Black', was it any surprise that his animagus form was a large, shaggy black dog, whom some people also mistook as a grim?
That said, the Department expected things to be better in Harry's case. All their studies into Family Magic suggested that Harry should be able to get his spirit form without the least trouble. In fact, chances of a skirmish between him and his spirit animal were close to zero. On the other hand, the idea of a vessel seeking out his animagus form was unprecedented in recent history.
Which, from Tonks's experience, could mean one of two things. That the entire thing would pass without a hitch and Harry would be back before she knew it.
Or.
She, McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore would be gearing together to face some eldritch monstrosity because everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong.
"Nymphadora?" asked Minerva McGonagall. "Everything all right?"
It probably said something about her inner anxiety that she didn't even take slight on being called by her first name. "I'm⦠fine," she said. 'Just worried. Something about this feels weird, like something else is going on that we didn't foresee."
"It is Halloween," said Minerva. "Disruptive shades come in and out all the time on this night, and I'm certain whatever creature Potter resonates with will be anything but common."
That Tonks could agree with. Nothing about Harry Potter was ordinary. Ordinary people didn't get noticed by the DOM or branded with the Warlock tag.
And yet her senses were screaming at her that something terrifying was about to happen. Something about its energies felt physically painful, but that was nothing compared to the ebbing, invisible energies swirling all around it. She knew that whatever spiritual predator had taken note of him was not benign, if the shade of Harry's potion was any clue, but this wasβ¦
Wrong.
"Think he'll be fine?"
"He will be," said Minerva. "I've viewed some of Severus's memories of their sessions. Tell Potter he can't do something in an infuriating way, and he will prove you wrong. He has lived with confrontation and that is where he shines. He is a fighter, plain and simple. His anger and determination can drive his magic to limits others could hope for. If there is anyone that can master this test, it will be him."
Tonks suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. She had read the dossier on Potter, as well as talked about him at length with her mother and Sirius. For all of her praise, Minerva McGonagall didn't so much as lift a finger to grease the wheels for Harry, calling it part of growing up and gaining experience. Not because she had anything personal against Harry, but because she was unavailable for students outside of classes, whether in the Common Room or in general.
If anything, she tended to be harsher on her own House, but never did anything to stop the rampant bullying from other Houses or against Snape in general. Yes, she had offered Harry private instruction, but that was only because he was unable to do any standard transfiguration in the first place. From their interaction, it was clear that Potter considered her teachings in high regard, but what he thought of her as a person thoughβ¦
That was up in the air.
"That may be," she said. "But tell me this, but how do you explain that?"
The transfiguration professor looked taken aback, and looked at the potion. It was true. Surrounding its periphery, were deposits of solid black, forming an undulating surface all around it, and slowly spreading radially outward.
"Is thatβ¦. Ice?"
Right then, Tonks's attention was suddenly diverted by a soft, clattering sound. She looked down and to her surprise, it was her wand, resting on the table that was shaking. Within seconds, the intensity of the vibrations grew to the extent that her wand fell off the table and rolled down across the floor. That was joined in by the violent rattling of the hangers and the curtains, the window opening and closing and the door making a strange, haunted, creaking sound. Whatever was about to come was nothing but absolutely malevolent.
Quickly, she looked at her professor, only to find her stuck, her face cold with growing panic. She followed the professor's gaze, and found her eyes stuck on the potion.
Gone was the serene, stable potion. In its place, was something dark, and frothing.
The forest had only gone darker. Harry didn't think that was physically possible, but there it was. Even the cacophony of the dwellers had gone completely silent, proof of their awareness of a predator in their midst.
Harry wasn't the predator. That said, he wasn't prey either. He only wanted to reach the lake, and find what was beckoning him from afar. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, the anticipation of what he would find there hammering at his temples, and an odd fear settling in his stomach. Much like the thestral, there was a presence in the forest, but unlike the former, it beckoned him towards it. It wanted him to walk into its lair, seek it out. Whatever facet of his core personality this spiritual animal resonated with, Harry did not know, but he sure wanted to find out.
He had to stay true to himself after all. Something told him that choosing lightly or hastily wouldn't do a favour to anyone, least of all himself.
And that was when every hair on the back of his neck suddenly rose and stood on end, all the way down to his heels. Goosebumps erupted all over his body at once, and a primaeval wave of utter terror flickered through his brain, utterly dislodging every rational thought in his head. He didn't even have the time to turn around. There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly something long and hairy seized him by the waist and lifted him off the ground. Hanging facedown, struggling, and utterly terrified, Harry tried his best to break out but the massive acromantula was too strong, its pincers too hard for him to break out of. Before he knew it, it took him deeper into the darkness of the woods, with tiny spiders swarming all over the place, down the trunks, surging over the leaves, clicking and skittering across the forest floor.
They were approaching a hollow in the woods. Aragog's lair, he remembered. The thin beams of moonlight trickling through the canopy only made it look fiendish β spiders the size of cart horses, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, gigantic; spiders the size of his head, swarming the floor in hundreds if not thousands; spiders that looked tinier than ants but were working together to form tentacle-like things that were entwining around his legs β all of them closing around him, ready to devour him whole.
He had to act right now, or never.
Grabbing its pincers tightly, he yelled β
"MORS EXESA!"
It wasn't quite the same as casting it through the wand. The power that erupted out of him wasn't the focussed, radial shield that he was used to seeing. It flared all around him in varying concentrations, and spread through the pincers and into the spider's body. The creature staggered and fell forward, its pincers releasing Harry, who hit against a tree trunk, and slid down, groaning. The bare trunk had slashed against his left arm, bruising it heavily, but he hardly had the time to consider that, for the furious scuttling noises and the clicking of pincers grew louder, as more spiders lunged at him.
Harry hit the ground at a roll, and tried to come up running, only to trip on a damn twig. He half-strangled himself and fell, and instantly rolled to his right, just in time to avoid being impaled by a pair of massive pincers.
He could have attempted another attempt at the spell, but he doubted it would work against the army of acromantula on his trail. So he spun around and leaped, crouched, and rolled his way through the dark forest, hoping against hope that he'd not fall into a ditch and break his legs. Merlin knew not even Death could save his life.
He apparated for a second time, just in time to avoid a massive pincer crashing into the very place he had stood. Appearing barely ten feet or something away, he dashed towards the lake. But no matter how far he ran or how relentlessly he pushed his legs to keep moving forward, he could never outrun the never-ending sound of angry scuttling of spiders, nor the sounds of the clicking pincers that crept closer and closer every time he so much as took a breath.
There was absolutely no doubt that he was going to get himself killed in the most horrifying way possible and the only way to get out of this was to get out of the forest in one go. Unfortunately, he didn't have his broom with him, and he doubted the Anima realm would have its own version of Arthur Weasley's flying car.
He could see the silvery waters of the lake from afar, bathing in the moonlight. Focussing on the location, Harry apparated a third time andβ
"You've got to be shitting me."
Floating above the lake were scores of dementors.
Harry inhaled shakily, struggling to ignore the biting cold and the onslaught of unhappy memories, (and the sudden shrieks of his mother trying to save his life from a cruel voice). While most of them were flying around in seemingly random patterns, one dementor remained perfectly stationary over the lake. And while he couldn't see its face, Harry knew it was putting its hood back, having sucked someone's soul away.
He couldn't help himself.
He took another step forward. The identities of the fallen body along the shore became clearer. He could see the shaggy hair, the tattered robes, and the absolutely gaunt features of the man that had given him a place to call home, given him family. The man who had escaped the horrors of Azkaban and survived dementors just to keep him safe from Pettigrew. The man who was his parent in every sense of the term.
Fallen on the shore, his eyes glassy, lay Sirius Black.
He knew this was an illusion, just a ploy made by the Anima or Death or whatever was fucking with him in this place. This place was supposed to show him his worst nightmares, and he had prepared for it. And yes, he knew what was in front of him was nothing but a trick of the mind, played upon by this world, to get him to freak out.
How do you know? Something whispered in his ear. You bleed. Yet you feel. You apparate, and you kill. The dementors affect you.
Another body fell down on the sand. This time it was Hermione. Her eyes, glassless. A broken time turner lay next to her. Another body joined. Ron β his face pale, his eyes accusing Harry even after death.
"This isn't real."
Do you know for sure? The whispers grew stronger, more convincing, more real than anything else. How do you know what you think is even true? Look at it. Sirius is dying. And with him, so will your chance at family. They're killing himβ
βKilling himβ
Daphne joined. An ear-splitting screech followed, and then Fleur fell next to her. Their bodies, little more than husk.
βKilling them β
"I never had a chance, did I?"
"Don't make promises you can't undo β"
"Please! Spare him, not Harry! Kill me, not Harry! Not Harry! NOT HARRY!"
The voices kept resounding within his mind. The sounds of clicks grew louder from behind. The spiders were here. The screams in his ears grew louder. Just like they did every other time he was near a dementor.
Harry hated being afraid. He hated it more than anything else in the world. He hated being made to feel helpless. He hated being bullied, yet somehow, nobody seemed to get the memo. The Dursleys, Draco Malfoy, Voldemort, Skeeter, Fudge and his cronies, and now Deathβ every single one of them wanted to bully him, wanted him to dance to their tunes. It didn't matter what he wanted, so long as he gave them the reactions they wanted, they didn't care about him. Likeβ like he was little more than an animal behind bars in a zoo.
Images of a certain boa constrictor came to mind.
Bullies made him mad β and Harry was known to do some foolish things when he was angry.
" βNo one will come to save you now, Potterβ"
" βYou are alone and helplessβ"
"Bow to Death, Harry Potter β"
He began to breathe faster.
The dementor was now turning to look toward him, as if it had recognized its true prey. The sounds of spiders clicking had grown louder. And somewhere between all of that, this realm was trying to make him feel loss, feel pain.
And it was making him furious.
It was making him lose control.
His chest started heaving, and his eyes got wider.
"You want to show me my worst nightmares, do you?" He rasped, his voice ringing with scorn. "You want me to show you my worst?"
Something snapped.
His chest stopped heaving.
"Fine. You got it."
And then his world shifted into monochromatic grey.
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