(TW: There's a thing in this chapter and it's tortured. I dunno what to tell you. I felt bad for it, and now there's a trigger warning.)
Welcome to the Show, Dr. Villain
If you could see inside my head
You would know the feeling of regret
If you could be me for one day
You would probably try to run away
If you could live inside my head
You'd see I'm barely hanging on by a thread
If you could find your way inside
You'd have to find a way to stay alive
(WELCOME TO THE ...)
WELCOME TO THE SHOW!
(Show me in...)
Welcome to the show!
Dark Arts had been temporarily suspended on the grounds of the murder of its professor, so Harry spent his first lesson on Thursday sitting in his room, repeatedly searching the map for the Dark Lord or Nagini.
'Where do you think they are?' He wondered.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Tom said.
"I wish we could still look in his head."
"You and I both."
Harry's mind wandered to his Horcrux and then to what Tom had assumed: that he could pull them undetected into Voldemort's head.
"He dislikes us as much as the Dark Lord does."
"Hear me out, though. What if he didn't?" Harry said, "It's not hard to guess what he wants."
He could feel Tom's mind kick into gear, practically whirring like a jet engine, "You are right. You're right?" He laughed, standing up and pacing. "I can work with this."
Harry grinned, giddy to have contributed to the war effort.
His second lesson was with Lydia, in the hospital wing, for the first Healing class. Hufflepuff joined Gryffindor, Hannah Abbot following the matron around as she scurried through cupboards and levitated several draughts, lotions, and potions free from within.
"So sorry, lost track of time last night," Lydia muttered, and Harry smirked. He'd seen her on the map with Cassiopeia.
Reed stood beside him, Ruby beside her, neither of them saying anything.
He didn't heal, didn't attempt to. Again, he was frustrated by his magic and by the Dark Lord's insistence that he still attend his classes, even though Tom seemed to know the content like the back of his hand. The entire process was an exercise in boredom—unable to practice for fear of his own power.
History of Magic with the Slytherin's was, for once, slightly less boring. Taken over by an angry, passionate, and balding French man named Fernand Chevotet. He spoke with his hands, flailing as he talked, red in the face, spit flinging everywhere—describing the first goblin uprising.
"Ten Galleons, he has a stroke," Draco muttered beside him.
"On," Tom said immediately, "Your Galleons."
Chevotet didn't stroke out in the end, the blonde Slytherin forking out ten Galleons in the Great Hall at lunchtime.
Hermione, Seamus, and Lavender were in the hall, a rarer and rarer occurrence, avoided by the Gryffindor house almost as avidly as Harry himself was.
Finnigan and Granger didn't take their eyes off him as they'd entered, and Harry had been feeling savage enough to wave sarcastically as he sat down, something Tom found nearly hysterical.
He'd been checking the map periodically, searching for any sign of the Dark Lord and finding none. A strange anxiety came with it.
'What do we do if he stops soothing my Horcrux?'
'It makes things harder.'
'He would stop though, wouldn't he? Out of spite?'
'Absolutely.'
Harry chewed his tongue, frowning at his untouched lunch.
"Have you had the blood class yet? I dropped out immediately," Draco asked. "She's horrifying."
"Who? Eugenia?" Harry looked over at the twins—sitting across from them, Pansy and Ruby chattering while Pollux and Reed stared unblinkingly into each other's eyes—then at the staff table, though Professor Sallow wasn't there.
The blonde nodded, looking ill.
"First one is tomorrow," Harry said, "Why is she horrifying?"
His eyes bulged, and he said, "You'll find out."
"Are you talking about Hemolurgy?" Luna's voice drifted in behind them, and Draco winced.
"Luna, please, can't we just sit at the Gryffindor table…?" Neville danced foot to foot, begging with his eyes as she sat down.
Harry felt bad for him. He'd been there at his last Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson, seen him threaten murder, grinning like a maniac. His girlfriend still insisted on sitting with the Slytherins. With him.
Neville squeezed his eyes shut as he sat down beside her.
"Yeah, Luna, Hemolurgy," he said.
"Professor Sallow knows a lot." She nodded, though there was a ghost of a frown on her face. "Neville dropped out before he even went."
"It's blood. You said that she… With the skin and everything," Neville shuddered.
"It's not real skin," Pollux said, not tearing his eyes from Reed, "It's a simulacrum."
"…Whatever it is," Neville muttered.
"What are we talking about?" Harry asked.
Draco looked as though he was one wrong word from being sick on the table. "Sure as hell looked like skin."
"Oh, right? That was revolting. I'm never thinking about it again, personally. And no eyes?!" Pansy exclaimed.
"Eye cells are a different matter altogether. No point expending the time," Pollux said, finally looking away from Reed to blink at Parkinson.
"There's some point," she said.
"What are we talking about?" Harry repeated.
"I don't want to talk about the skin monster anymore," Draco said.
"I love the skin monster," Ruby said. "I wish I could make one."
"Mother says you could if you stopped using your own blood."
"She says blah blah blah all the time," Ruby snapped, crossing her arms and glaring at the bread rolls.
"Skin monster?" Harry asked.
"…Bets that Harry will drop out?" Draco asked.
"I dunno, he's kinda… I don't think he will," Pansy said.
"I don't think he will either," Luna said. Malfoy looked at her simultaneously like she was insane and as though he'd forgotten she was there.
"I doubt it," Reed said. Ruby agreed.
"I still don't know what you mean by skin monster? We are talking about blood magic, right?" Harry asked.
"It's grotesque. I love it." Ruby repeated. "Mum uses it to demonstrate. You'll see."
When it was time to gather outside the Slytherin Common Room that night, Harry had to fight palpitations. He knew Ginny was in there, waiting with Eris and Avalon, and that he'd be in the Chamber with her if she decided to join. If her previous behaviour was anything to go by, she would go wherever the necromancers went.
There was also the nerve-rattling adrenaline that came with being face-to-face with the Dark Lord. He hadn't soothed his Horcrux in two days, so there was no way Voldemort was in a good mood.
'Probably drunk, too,' Tom added to his stress spiral as he descended to the dungeons with Draco, Reed, Ruby, and Pollux.
'Great.'
'I am going to pick a fight.'
'What?'
'I aim to get things started with your Horcrux as soon as possible. He can give us an advantage. A fight serves several purposes and is all but guaranteed if I acknowledge your Horcrux.'
'…What purposes?'
'I'm sure you have noticed, Harry, how hard you are when you fight him?'
He coughed, choking on air before he thought, '…Right. It's mutual.'
'And if I defend your Horcrux's honour after acknowledging his existence…' He didn't finish his thought, so Harry assumed he was going to think something offensive.
'What?'
'What?'
'Acknowledging his existence, what?'
'The palm of my hand: Eating from.'
Harry snorted, rolling his eyes. 'Sure of yourself.'
'I cannot believe I did not consider it earlier.'
'Yeah, because I considered it first.'
'An obvious weak point,' Tom ignored him, '…I also want to fight him. Doing so in front of the class, Cassiopeia, and Lydia, decreases the chance of death and submission considerably.'
"You're scoffing a lot," Draco muttered.
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks," Harry said.
They'd reached the great metal snake, and he hissed it open before he hesitated and bolted from both the Dark Lord and Ginny.
He was surprised to see that Zacharias was already inside, and that he'd returned at all. The Hufflepuff glared at Pollux, then at Harry, his arms crossed over his chest, chin in the air.
Draco sniggered before he was laughing into the back of his hand. "Alright, Smith? Something the matter?"
Ginny seemed to be heavily focused on pretending he wasn't there, talking to Avalon and turned away from him. The older necromancer kept glancing at Harry as though she was trying to get the youngest Weasley to notice he was there, but he knew she'd registered him. He let her avoid him, working instead on swallowing the lump in his throat. Eris also stood glaring with his arms crossed, a posture almost shared by Zabini—lazing in a leather chaise beside Greengrass.
A few Death Eaters had already cleared the common room, and Harry's guard joined them by the door at the top of the stairs.
"Golden Boy and his asslicker," Zabini said, making Eris snort.
Ginny stopped talking and went still.
Tom laughed softly, locked on Blaise. "How original. I am forgetful; remind me, which of your mother's seven dead husbands is your father? She is married again, I hear. I only ask because, to her, it seems life has a price tag. I have plenty of gold."
While Tom had delivered most of the speech, Harry triumphantly threw in the gold bit. Draco snorted repeatedly in the shocked silence.
"Good, stand up, Zabini," Tom was grinning while the Slytherin's face contorted with rage.
"Now, now, save it for downstairs. Fucking pissing contests," Cassiopeia said from behind him, entering with Lydia and Hannah.
He held the grin while he opened the wall, taking a vial of adrenaline from Harry's pocket and breaking the top off. He drained it, still smiling, heart attempting a jailbreak.
On the other hand, Harry was wildly nervous, not keen to pick a fight with Voldemort directly after making him allegedly furious. Particularly in front of everyone. In front of Ginny. Who hadn't looked at him.
'When did 'make my Horcrux like us' turn into fighting the Dark Lord?'
'You thought he would allow us to befriend your Horcrux? He will hate it as much as any other thing we have done. He will lose control. A good thing, trust me.'
'Don't see how it could possibly be a good thing; it's never a good thing.'
'Trust me,' Tom repeated, practically vaulting out of Slytherin's mouth into the water below, legs shaking, limbs numb, grinning. "Hello, Harry. Voldemort."
He'd purred Harry's name and spat the Dark Lord's, approaching casually with his arms crossed behind his back. His Azkaban robes had repelled the water, Tom's idea to wear them.
Voldemort stood at the centre of the narrow walk, unmasked and stunning. He seemed genuinely confused before his eyes narrowed.
By then, the rest of the class had dropped in behind him.
"What did you just say to me?"
"I was not talking to you. I was addressing Harry's Horcrux. He is in the room, is he not?" Tom smiled.
As predicted, he was immediately incensed, his entire stance a warning, "Do not speak to it."
"It? No wonder he loathes you."
"What's going on, hissy boys? Starting to look a lot like another pissing contest. Hissing contest. Because they're hissing at each other. Get it, Lydia?"
"Cassiopeia," Tom and the Dark Lord said simultaneously, both briefly looking at her before they refocused on each other.
"If you do not cease this insubordination, I will start dropping bodies," Voldemort said.
He grinned again, closing the distance, arms still behind his back. "I think one of us protests too much."
"You."
"You."
"Shut—your—mouth."
Tom's smile became manic, the curse wrapping around his hands. "…You."
He was ready for the explosion of light and for the Dark Lord's attempted tackle, sidestepping it and using the darkness as a shield. Wards had already been erected around them, probably by Cassiopeia.
Tom was laughing, dancing on his feet. The curse winding from both arms like wings, translucent green lighting the blackness from within, spreading inside the dome of magic. All of it hid the way Harry's legs threatened to drop him, the way his pulse thundered in his throat.
The dark was ripped apart by the angry, gold-red magic where it made contact. Beams and jagged snakes of light bit shreds loose, disintegrating like mist. The Dark Lord's chest was heaving with fury, laser-focused on him. Larger bubbles of light imploded in his hands, audibly popping, shock waves vibrating Harry's heart and eardrums, Voldemort's shoulders jumping with the force.
Tom didn't wait for another explosion, clouding as much of the wards as he could to sprint at him in darkness. He connected, swinging with his left arm, bluffing, then uppercutting the Dark Lord in the jaw with his right. He was rewarded with a burst of light to the chest, stumbling him back.
"Come on, Tom; surely you can call him Harry," Tom cackled when the Dark Lord body slammed him. His laugh became a squawk when he hit the stones, and the air escaped his lungs.
"Who has more self-control?" Tom choked an inhale, streaming the darkness like a flood to wrap it around them. "Who has more patience? You or me? Harry m'appartient et vous êtes affamés." He laughed while he spoke, melodically switching between English, Parseltongue, and French. "We'll see."
Voldemort head-butted him between the eyes, pinning both of his arms beside his ears while the room tilted. Tom was still laughing, slightly garbled by the probable concussion, eyes rolling.
"—Aren't you teaching a lesson?" Harry asked through giggles that weren't his and gasps that were. He started wriggling when he fully registered that he was being straddled by the Dark Lord, that the only thing shielding them from onlookers was the curse pouring from his hands. His face was so close to Harry's he could reach with his tongue if he tried.
"I will be teaching you a lesson, yes." The rage in his eyes became something else, ravenous and insane. The Dark Lord stood abruptly, and the same agonising empty feeling struck him, as though he'd been stripped of his skin.
He had thankfully not been burned to nakedness; his Azkaban set holding up under hellfire. He could definitely feel burns, though, all over him despite the charms on his robes. The curse and the light dissipated, and he attempted to get to his feet.
"Asshole," Harry muttered.
The Dark Lord swiftly kicked him in the ribs, and Tom caught his leg, yanking it out from under him and pinning him the instant he hit the ground. "Careful," Tom said, "You'll make a mistake."
Voldemort hadn't made a sound when he landed hard on the stones and laughed at him when he spoke, blasting Harry into the air with three consecutive Bombardas, breaking ribs, winding him, and tossing him so high he had time to frantically think:
'Does a Horcrux reanimate spaghetti sauce?'
He windmilled his arms and legs, refusing to scream as the water and the stones rushed toward him, shielding his face, though it would likely make no difference.
It took him a little over a second to realise he hadn't impacted when he should have, and removed his hands in time to be dropped three feet into the water.
"…Cassiopeia."
"I didn't feel like pancakes for breakfast," she said. Harry looked up, his head soaked, to find the vampire with her wand drawn; the Dark Lord was on his feet as though he'd never been knocked down.
"Ilvermorny, Almadrasat Alsihria Kom Ombo, and Beauxbatons have accepted my invitation," Voldemort turned to the stunned, silent class, standing bug-eyed beside Lydia.
"Beauxbatons focuses on theory, training extensively in arts pertaining to transmutation and transfiguration. They are unreasonably well-funded, a bottomless pit of gold at their disposal."
Harry could hear the edge in the Dark Lord's voice as he slowly moved to stand in front of the statue of Slytherin.
He waited a few more seconds before he pulled himself up, pouring water loudly from his robes and shaking his hair, ignoring the blooming pain in his chest and everywhere else.
'Did that go well?' He wondered. He could feel the Dark Lord staring holes through him and ignored it.
'Time will tell.'
"…Ilvermorny are competitive; they will deploy underhanded tactics; they will aim to leave with a win. If you are chosen to represent Hogwarts, know I expect you to do whatever it takes," his eyes were on Harry as he sat down next to Lydia, the first to sit. The healer dried him off and cast diagnostic and healing charms over his back and ribs while the Dark Lord glared.
Harry could feel all their eyes flicking to him, the shuffling audible as he stared at Voldemort.
"Almadrasat Alsihria Kom Ombo," his eyes narrowed as he said it, "The students are hand-selected by the school's founder, and they are indebted to him as a condition of acceptance. They are rigorously trained in magic—their expertise in funerary rituals, divination, and protective magics—they are also versed in art, language, science, culture, and politics. They are bound to him, extremely intelligent, with cause for ruthlessness. Home to many oracles and seers, there is not much they do not see coming."
"Ohh. On the subject of Har…" Cassiopeia said, sheepish. She was the only one still standing, reaching into the top of her dress and pulling out a letter with a small box tied to it. "Remember last night when I said about the letter…? Well, I probably should have hung back on saying anything about the first one because I got another one?"
The Dark Lord's eyes were so narrow it was a wonder he could see. "…And now is the time?"
"I mean, I don't care, so," she opened the letter and began reading, "Uh, salutations…! Sluts. He said sluts. I thought about not saying it, but we're all old enough to hear the word slut. Salutations, sluts! I know this letter finds you desperately clawing at the walls of your self-constructed enclosures, so I will keep it brief, my dear and otherwise British friends. Inside this box is a gift, a token of my goodwill. It will assist in your world domination, death-walker. Call it strings-free, and consider me, henceforth, your avid benefactor. Whatever you need, you need only ask. We deeply look forward to witnessing December."
The Dark Lord looked exhausted, rolling his eyes and then his head, "There was absolutely no need to read that now."
"…Inside the box, Dark Lord, is a Babel Fish."
"A what?"
"It's like you don't even read. It translates any spoken language into English."
Tom's eyebrows shot up, and so did Voldemort's. He snatched the box from the vampire, jamming it into his inner robe pocket, his eyes less narrowed. "Delacroix. Pollux." He gestured at the walkway lined with giant snake heads.
Avalon hesitated briefly while Pollux wandered to the far end as though he was just taking a stroll, his hands occupied with the puzzle he almost always carried.
Harry realised the Basilisk skeleton had been removed, all signs of it gone. Something that Avalon seemed to have already registered, warding herself with her wand drawn as she slowly approached the nonplussed hemomancer.
Tom analysed them both openly for Harry to see with his mind's eye. He decided that while Pollux was not fast, there was no way to know his next move. He had no tells or pattern, making it impossible to guess where his focus lay.
Avalon was far more reactive, her movements announcing her before she cast. In the end, she hit the stones, tripping over herself and yelping, yielding with one hand up.
"Putain de merde, qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?" She stumbled to her feet, frowning deeply and dragging herself to Lydia and Hannah.
'She essentially said: 'What the fuck is this?'' Tom thought.
"Malfoy… Potter."
Harry's head shot up, blinking at the Dark Lord. He was smirking, bright-eyed and obvious.
"No," he said. "I'm not doing that."
The Dark Lord grinned, teeth bared, "I could have him expelled. Right now. No longer under your protection, simply another expendable Death Eater."
"You'd kill Lucius' son because I didn't fight him?" He directed the question at Tom and Voldemort.
"Yes." Was the answer from both, in thought and Parseltongue.
'I don't like his new 'just expel them' idea,' Harry thought, slowly standing up and giving the blonde Slytherin a look that he hoped simultaneously said 'I'm sorry,' and 'Go down fast.'
Malfoy shook his head minutely as he followed, his face calm. "It's fine," he mumbled as he passed, taking the chamber's far end.
Harry debated duelling without the curse, but Tom immediately shot the idea down.
'He will not allow that.'
He turned away from Draco to face the Dark Lord, pointedly making eye contact as he blew up, letting the curse tear from every inch of skin, barrelling through the air like smoke after a bomb, consuming the back end of the chamber. Harry let it drop almost immediately, having felt Malfoy collapse in the darkness.
"Good?" Harry spat, stalking back to sit by Lydia and forcefully not looking at Ginny, more difficult as the mess escalated.
Draco got to his feet and took himself to Lydia, neither unconscious nor vomiting, though he was sweating bullets and white like a sheet. He gave Harry a slight nod, frowning as he fell into a seat beside Avalon.
"Satisfactory," Voldemort was smug. "Harlow. Jager."
"Whoa, that's a terrible match," Harry blurted.
"Is it? Why is that?" He seemed to know exactly why, appearing as though he might genuinely laugh.
"Er. Because…" Something snapped in his head, rage bubbling over everything else, "Fuck you fucking dickhead, that's why, actually," Harry realised he was standing, "You're… ruining- Are you damaged? What is wrong with you?"
"Ohoho," Cassiopeia giggled behind him.
The Dark Lord was still grinning, savage, as he gestured for Eris and Reed to stand up. He crossed his arms and sucked his teeth as he watched them take their positions, eyes flicking to Harry, gleeful.
It was almost immediate; the necromancer drew his wand on Reed, then pointed it at himself, digging it into the soft underside of his jaw.
Then he dropped it, and the cerebromancer spun rapidly to blink at Harry with wide, startled eyes.
"You son of a bitch," He ran at Voldemort, furious that he'd purposefully outed him as a Horcrux, that Reed knew everything Eris did. That he and Tom were far more than just sharing a body.
He was stunned rigid before he reached the Dark Lord, hitting the ground with a solid thud. He got a good view of Eris tackling Reed from behind, still shocked motionless and staring at him, until she was on the stones being punched in the back of the head. She yielded quickly.
"Greengrass. Magnus." The Dark Lord was standing over him like a hunter with his kill. "Give in to me, and it is done," he said in the serpent tongue.
If Harry could speak, he might have told him to fist himself, spitting fury against the body lock, wisps of the curse steaming from his skin.
He wasn't released for the remainder of the lesson, watching sideways as May decimated Daphne, a wicked blur of offensive magic, not afraid to employ the Cruciatus several times. When Greengrass was a sobbing wreck, the Dark Lord called the duel.
Zabini did poorly against Ruby. A sanguine tornado, blinding him with crimson before she had him violently vomiting his own blood.
"Yay!" She clapped as she came back, tilting her head to the side when she waved at Harry.
'I think she might be demented,' Tom thought.
Harry didn't answer, fuming, heart pounding in his head.
Magnus duelled twice, again winning the fight in a manic flurry, this time against Zacharias.
He hadn't been released from the stun, increasingly feral under the binding. No one was excused. Instead, the Dark Lord reached down, digging his nails into the back of his neck and Disapparating.
Harry reappeared face down in frosted grass that he recognised. He was levitated into the little cottage with the green wards, released from the stun once inside, and dropped on his face.
He snapped to his feet, eyes bulging, curse ready, to find the Dark Lord standing casually next to a heavy chair, sat beside the desk. Built-in metal shackles jutted from the arms and legs. Instantly, his rage was knocked out of him, replaced with shock while Tom assessed.
Then he was laughing, bent at the middle and snorting high-pitched, shocked guffaws.
"Do I look like I am laughing?" Voldemort spat.
"Looks like you might laugh, yeah," Harry said, sighing as he fought the giggles and frowning at the chair in disbelief. "That for me?"
"It is certainly not for me," he hissed. "Sit down. Nothing is funny."
He grinned as he did as he was told, putting both arms and legs within the shackles and not breaking eye contact, "Scared."
The Dark Lord flicked his hand, and the shackles clamped shut.
'Odds are good that they will suppress our magic.' Tom didn't sound concerned, coming to the same conclusion that Harry had.
Voldemort was doing this because he was feeling particularly weak; he was attempting to retake control.
He tried to cast and found that he was right; nothing came to him.
'Don't give him what he wants. Alright?' Tom thought, 'Focus on me.'
'Yeah,' Harry thought, nerves finally bubbling as Voldemort lingered behind him, '…Easy.'
"You know-" He began. The Dark Lord had apparently been waiting for him to open his mouth, springing forward and locking a thick fabric strap between his teeth, yanking his head back violently and tying it with excessive force.
"What were you saying?" He snarled it in Harry's ear.
He bit down on the strap and laughed, muffled by the fabric and how tightly it cut into his face. The chair was designed to be uncomfortable, and the image of the Dark Lord spending two days creating a terrible seat made him laugh harder.
Voldemort sat at the desk, holding his temples with his eyes bulging.
For some reason, the sight stopped the giggling, a frown worming its way onto his face instead.
He grabbed Harry's wrist, grinding the bones together and glaring straight ahead.
In the end, he didn't need to resist or defend himself, apart from the few times his head lulled backwards suddenly enough to nearly break his neck. The warm bliss—he would never admit it out loud—had been sorely missed; his muscles had bunched up as the hours built, his constant irritation easily becoming a rage in the flutter of a second while he craved it, popping into his and Tom's thoughts incessantly, increasingly. The relief was palpable, and though the seat and the gag were meant for otherwise, he'd never been more comfortable.
The Dark Lord sat in still silence for the first hour at least, almost unblinking, before he took out a scroll of parchment, the quiet broken by the intense scribbling of a quill.
Voldemort hadn't released him from his bindings until nearly three in the morning, and Harry had almost thought he planned to leave him there, the shackles not popping open until the Dark Lord was nearly out the door.
He'd been gone by the time Harry yanked the gag out and reached the frame.
He was a strange combination of smug, furious, and bizarrely, inexplicably guilty as he Disapparated.
He hadn't slept, both he and Tom rehashing the plan of attack now that they would likely be bound every time he soothed his Horcrux. While the shackles meant that Voldemort was definitely affected, it also meant they could no longer effectively affect him.
All through Herbology Draco had told him that he didn't want to talk about the skin monster, which Harry took to mean he couldn't wait for him to see the skin monster and report back. Though the Dark Lord pinning him against the Malfoy in a duel was meant to drive the Slytherin away, he hadn't even mentioned it, appearing entirely unaffected.
When Herbology ended, Draco shot him a meaningful look as he and Pansy split off for their next class.
Harry had Hemolurgy with Ravenclaw, so he got both twins and their mother. And apparently, a skin monster. The class was held in the dungeons, and though Ruby had been in his Herbology class, she bolted past him in the library annex, literally running away from into the transfiguration courtyard.
'Reed must have said something,' he thought. Though they'd bound her from explicitly saying what she'd learned, she could still warn Ruby and Pollux off.
Eugenia Sallow was far more alert than the last time he'd seen her up close, her posture ramrod straight, even her gait was somehow stern. Her eyes burned through every student that entered the room, though Ruby got a full three seconds extra; Eugenia's cheeks sucked into her teeth before she abruptly barked at the room.
"Hands forward."
Pollux and Ruby had already extended their arms, and half the room seemed to do so as a knee-jerk reaction.
"All of you, hands forward," she snapped again. The rest obeyed. She flicked her wrist and lowered her centre of gravity, yanking over a cup full of blood from every extended hand in the room.
There was immediate, startled shouting. Though Harry knew it was possible to do it painlessly, she hadn't been gentle, the sensation akin to being munched on by a giant, aggressive leech. She brought the blobs together at the front of the room, and at least four people were crying, two more stumbling out of the classroom.
"If hemolurgy is discussed, it is a narrow discussion. Those who hear of it assume it has but one application. Pollux."
He stood up when she said his name, his eyes locked on the massive, writhing bubble of blood in front of his mother.
"Hemolurgy and hemomancy—blood divination—are only as limited as you are. With aptitude and intelligence, there are many possibilities." She was twisting her hands with her eyes on Ruby. The liquid responded, vibrating, taking a vaguely human shape, "With magical influence, the cells can be forced to behave differently."
He watched the skin form, and the crying got louder when it formed a 'face' in the loosest sense of the term—a bleeding, sagging, gelatinous mess of holes.
"Not too much this time, Pollux; we don't need it questioning the universe," Eugenia said.
"Yes, ma'am."
Harry nearly gagged as it grew arms and legs, wobbling until it gained some kind of jagged, protruding internal structure.
"Oh my god," someone behind him said, the door opening and closing twice more.
Once the freakish flesh golem was stable on its feet, Pollux approached it, put his hand on its head, and nodded rhythmically—like he was counting a beat. The golem shrieked, a hideous, wet sound, nearly animal. Pollux frowned and tilted his head, closing his eyes.
The golem abruptly stopped, clenching its crude hands. Its non-mouth moved almost like it was trying to speak.
"Stop there. Well done." She directed her son to sit down. "You can, of course, take all the blood out at once." As she said it, she pulled the blood out of the golem she'd just created—a cloud of red mist—and it fell to its knees, motionless. "You could put it back in, nothing quite as jarring as the moment your brain and heart realise there is no blood. Guaranteed to incapacitate; potentially fatal."
She put the blood back in the golem, and it screamed again, flailing on the brickwork.
"Blood is far more than just a life force; it is a carrier for your magic. If you are attuned to it there is virtually no limit to what can imbue it with." She pointed at Pollux, and he had the golem screeching a third time, toothless, tongueless mouth gaping, holding its head like Zacharias and Avalon had.
"He uses his visions and a certain creative flair to cause a hallucination-induced psychosis. Ruby enjoys making birds fall in love."
"It's so cute, though," she muttered, making her mother's face twitch. "Little nests."
Runes, despite the Dark Lord's bizarre interest in his taking the class, was boring and uneventful. He was too tired—and distracted by both hemolurgy and his new Horcrux plan—to pay attention to the new professor, a man named Rowan Cooper. He seemed mild enough. The sides of his head were shaved, he scowled a lot, and he had a propensity to stare at Harry far more often than he thought was reasonable, dark blue eyes trained on him as he intoned about ancient and uninteresting symbols.
He didn't make it to Astronomy with the Slytherins that night, the Dark Mark burning as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon.
(AN: This chapter blew out on me. It's Friday, you know what time it is. It's delay time. I mean school visit time. Two back-to-back, double-length (or, let's be real, more) chapters are up next; delays are inevitable now as I'm no longer on break. (Kill me xx))
