-8-
The Book of Death.
By TimeTraveller-1900.
-8-
"How can Dobby ever repay him?" Dobby the House Elf who had formerly belonged to the Malfoy family asked Harry, gazing with adoration up at the young wizard as if blasting Lucius Malfoy down a corridor to land on his back was an everyday occurrence, but it highlighted that House Elves were extremely powerful.
Harry gave a brittle smile. He was extremely tired after he had gone out of his way to stop the monster unleashed by the possessed Ginny Weasley (it mystified him why Dumbledore wasn't going to at least help the girl, or provide her family with the aid and resources to actually do something worthwhile to get her the help she needed after having moments of her mind blanked out, while the likes of the young Voldemort stole her body and used it to control the basilisk, but what confused him so much was just how….nonchalant her parents were about it, and right now he was more concerned about the long-term effects of that possession), only to spend the last few hours in Dumbledore's office.
The old fool had asked for the same story over and over again, and all the time his residual adrenaline had been fading rapidly before Malfoy senior had come in. McGonagall, once more proving to be utterly useless, had not even taken note of his ragged appearance and his obvious exhaustion, did and said nothing.
A proper teacher would have either had him sent to the hospital wing or sent him home to recover properly, not keep him locked up in an office, forced to repeat the same story several times in a row while being dead on his feet.
Harry could understand Dumbledore's need for information, but there were limits.
In any case, the good news was, with the occlumency he had been learning, and the additional spells from the books he had picked up from the Room of Requirement, among them the grimoire belonging to Gormlaith Gaunt, a vicious dark witch and a prime example of an extreme blood supremacist, Dumbledore had seen the memories he had wanted him to see, and not the truth. If he saw the real battle, then things would change.
Harry considered the House Elf carefully. He had learnt the Potter family had House Elves in their charge and employ already, but someone had put a spell on him to prevent them from coming to him when he called or when they were needed, and he hadn't had the time to get around it by bonding to a new House Elf. While he had found ways of sneaking around Dumbledore's control, there were some things he hadn't been able to circumvent.
Not one to ignore an opportunity, Harry decided to make Dobby his Elf.
"How about you take me to the hospital wing, please, Dobby?" Harry began, "I'm extremely tired after fighting the basilisk, and then we can talk."
Dobby took one glance at him, and he clicked his fingers. Apparition and magical travel were something Harry despised mostly because of how rough it could be. At the same time, he was often unprepared for it since it felt like he had been plucked by a giant fishing line, and thrown through the air.
How could he stand with that?
Madam Pomfrey was alerted to his presence quickly; her petrified victims were long cured and now gone after being given the clean bill of health (it concerned him greatly that the patients had spent months here when they could have gotten or ordered the mandrakes months ago; there wasn't a sliver of doubt in his mind if someone like Parkinson or Malfoy had been petrified, they would have been cured, no problem, and none of the teachers would have batted an eyelash at the bigotry). "Mr Potter, what-?" Whatever she was going to ask died on her tongue when she saw the state of him. Instantly she was fussing over him. "Merlin! What the hell happened to you?" She flicked her wand out and levitated him onto a nearby bed.
Harry sighed in delight as his back hit the bed. He rolled up his sleeve, exposing the wound. "I was bitten," he pointed at the circular wound, "You'd better examine it. You'll find out what it was."
He knew from his research Healers were taught spells to detect poisons and venoms, and they could quickly determine what kind of magical beast was responsible.
Slightly confused and looking extremely worried and concerned, the nurse did as she was told. Pomfrey's eyes widened in shock and horror as she got the results. She had to do it again to make sure there wasn't a mistake.
"You have basilisk venom in that wound, Harry," she whispered in horror. "You fought a basilisk?" Her voice actually squeaked in horror.
Harry nodded. "Fawkes the Phoenix cried in the wound."
His words triggered Pomfrey to examine the injury even more. It turned out when she explained it to him the basilisk venom and the phoenix tears were now the most powerful substances in his body. But now his blood was tainted, toxic; it wouldn't kill anyone whom he fathered, but it would make them more powerful.
However if someone were to kidnap him, or ask him for a blood donation, without Phoenix tears to cancel out the potency of the venom, it would kill them.
For Harry, the venom and the tears were like having an inexhaustible chemical reaction in him. The venom would continually try to kill him, however the power of the tears would keep him going; combined, he had just received a massive boost to his magical power. Phoenixes and basilisks were both exceptionally powerful magical creatures, and now he'd inherited their best powers. He would heal more quickly, and his command of parselmagic would be far better.
After asking the nurse to keep it quiet as he didn't know what Dumbledore would do, Harry spoke to Dobby. While he chided the House Elf for his reckless methods, he did commend him for his bravery, and offered to make him one of his elves; he warned Dobby about what Dumbledore had done, but Dobby assured him it wasn't a problem, as he was a new elf, and he quickly accepted.
Now that was done, the two planned while he was kept in the hospital wing. Poppy wanted to run some more tests to see what the long-term effects of the two substances in his blood were, and she was apoplectic with rage when she discovered what Dumbledore had done. Harry should have gone straight to her, not be kept in an office for hours when he could have toppled over because of the two powerful substances in his system.
It took the Gryffindors a few hours but eventually, they figured out where he was, and after they were gone, Harry had made up his mind to leave the school for good. But he realised he would have to tell Madam Pomfrey, as she could tell the healer of the next wizarding school about what happened, and what his needs were when she told him that he would need to see a healer every once in a while which made logical sense, but he would need specially brewed potions to work against the basilisk venom.
Pomfrey was stunned by the thought of him leaving Hogwarts, but she understood where he was coming from. After two years of seeing him struggling against dangerous events and having him in her hospital wing, and her oath as a Healer to protect and nurture life instead of taking it, she was obligated to see the dangers he had seen and would have wanted him protected anyway. And she had dozens of doubts about Dumbledore's so-called leadership and decisions in the running of the school. She promised not to tell anyone, even swearing on her magic to keep it to herself.
-8-
Once he was discharged, Harry attended the end-of-year feast. Last year, he had been surprised by Dumbledore's unfair last-minute award of points, and so he wasn't surprised when the old man did it again. Harry had been developing a very small intelligence network for himself over the last couple of years since he arrived, a few galleons here and a bit of influence there, and he had himself some information, plus there was his added use of rune clusters and the RoR which allowed him to witness moments from the past which kept him informed; he knew Dumbledore's reasons for the last minute points were politically driven. Many lords and others he was trying to gain influence with had been growing tired of Slytherin winning the cup since Snape came in. They wanted a change, but Dumbledore hadn't managed to counter it.
Many people would argue for Slytherin, Harry being one of them, but in truth, Snape had been abusing the House point system for years, so seeing him taken down a peg or two was a good thing.
The end of the year was always chaotic, which was the primary reason for Harry's decision to plunder it for more knowledge and power. One of the first things he did was to look into the potential futures the Room could show him , and he didn't like what he saw of the next couple of years should he decide to stay. And by the end of it, Harry was delighted he was going to leave.
Aunt Marge was coming this summer with Ripper.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Harry was over the moon that the Dursleys were a small family, although truthfully he wasn't entirely sure, but Marge was one of the worst. On top of that, Sirius Black was going to escape from Azkaban in the next couple of months after seeing a newspaper article and that would be enough to make his reprobate godfather leave the prison, forcing Fudge to send dementors to the castle. Dementors? Was the man insane? If anything went wrong and a pureblood heir was kissed, then that was it for Fudge. He couldn't brush it under the carpet, and nobody in their right mind would just ignore it.
But for his fourth and fifth years should he stay in Hogwarts…
Once he memorised the events as they were spread out in front of him, Harry made notes, and he began finalising his plans to leave the school for good. He would finish them when he got to Gringotts.
When he was finished, Harry looked around the room. While he had books on arcane forms of magic, he didn't know if he wanted to read them and spend his whole life going through them, only to discover they were not much use.
"I need something to deal with Voldemort, Dumbledore, and everyone else who wants to hold me down, to control me. I need something that can end them before they end me," Harry said aloud.
To his surprise, a plain black book appeared nearby.
"Eh?" Harry picked it up hesitantly, seeing it was a leather-bound book, and it looked ancient. Flicking it open, Harry's eyes widened when he saw dozens of names written down inside it. All of them had their names with a line through them. Next to them, and this was the weirdest thing about it, there was a detailed but brief section which described…how they were supposed to die.
Confused and more than a little curious, Harry looked at the front of the book. It took some time for him to learn that shinigami were wizards from ancient Japan who dabbled in necromancy, and the one who made this book had been looking for a simple way of killing people. His primary motivations was he had dozens of enemies, who were doing the same thing. While they looked for spells, potions, and runes, he considered the simplest methods to be the best.
Using spells similar to the ones that made up the Room of Requirement, the shinigami sorcerer devised a way for the book to derive an image out of the writer's mind, and then influenced events to make them die.
More than a little bit curious and more than a little sceptical, Harry used the Room of Requirement to look up the events around the deaths of some of the victims.
For two hours, Harry watched as the names were written down, and they died in the same way as described. Once he left the RoR, he was a true believer, and once he did, he decided he would use the book in much the same way he had used the RoR to help him change the future. When the Philosopher's Stone had been in the castle, Harry had largely ignored the mess by not seeing the little dragon hatch, but Dumbledore had still tried to find ways of putting him in detention.
But now he would truly have a way of disrupting the future. But nobody would suspect him unless they really wanted to.
Taking the books, including the Death Note book, Harry left.
-8-
Harry got off the Hogwarts Express for hopefully the last time. He had spent the trip with Weasley and Granger, acting like nothing had happened and doing the usual things for them without giving them a reason to be suspicious. But all the time, he had the Death Note notebook safely hidden away in his pocket, he would write the names of the Dursleys into the book just before he got into King's Cross, and he would use the distraction to get to Gringotts without any problems. He had already told Dobby his plans.
Using a change to go to the toilet to freshen up, Harry had quickly written the Dursley's names inside the book, and then he got off the train. Once he was out on the muggle side of the platform, he held back the urge to smirk when he saw people crowding around Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley, and he quickly summoned Dobby, who silently took him to Gringotts.
Once he was there, Harry met Bloodbringer, his family manager, and within the hour he had changed his name and soon he was on a plane towards America.