Disclaimer:

I solemnly swear that the literature and works of the Harry Potter Verse belong to JK Rowling, Bloomberg and Warner Bros. The only thing I own are the one-shot ideas that popped into my head and whatever OCs I would create for them. This is a work of pure fiction made solely for fun, constructive reviews will be welcomed, flames will be ignored. Any references to characters in real-life or fiction are purely coincidental. If I could make money out of my ideas, it would be nice...

Mischief Managed Damn It!

Title: A Silent Spell (Working Title)

Posted Date: January 25 2025

Inspiration: Quiet Place, The Last of Us

Tags: Independent Harry, Magic Resistant Monsters, Survivalist Harry, Bad Dumbledore

If one had to describe the scene about them, they would say that it was a very bleak picture of society that was hit hard.

The streets were strewn with abandoned cars with some having been overturned on their backs or crashed into others. Some of the buildings have been damaged from explosions, fires, and what appeared to be attacks from an animal that left large claw marks on the walls, with holes left open for the weather and time to do the rest of the job. Whatever vegetation was in the area had gone wild with vines crawling up the sides of the buildings a few feet away, or completely covering up the benches or chairs next to them.

But what was most disconcerting about the scene was the silence. There were no sounds of birds, animals or even insects.

It was pure silence for miles, even a soft cough would be heard clearly in this place.

'Snap!'

Or a twig snapped by a foot.

The person in question stood extremely still with his companion crouched a few feet away, both looking panicked behind the cloth masks. They waited for a while before they both relaxed enough for the first person to slowly move away from the spot and to his companion. Said companion let out a restrained sigh before giving a subdued glare at his friend for scaring them. The former gave an apologetic expression as best as he could through the mask. They pulled out sticks of varying designs and after a quick look-around, waved them to make the items around them vanish silently. The duo then continued to make their way to the convenient store that had been completely ransacked as evidenced from the broken windows and shelves that had been tossed about and no items left.

One of them kept watch as the other slowly climbed through the window, then they switched roles before the first one waved the wand to make the empty spaces shimmer briefly. With a nod, they made their way to the back of the store, taking care to open and close the doors carefully, and found themselves at the large refrigerator that held some of the food they had stored for the past month. They waved their wands again to cast a silencing ward about them, before they carefully opened the door to check on their stock. They were going against the clock and needed to grab whatever they needed before time ran out.

The only problem? Had they paid more attention, they would have realised they were not alone.

The one closest to the door saw something move at the corner of his eye, and he turned only to be struck down by a bolt of green light. His companion turned at the flash of light and found him on the floor with eyes wide open. He involuntarily opened his mouth to scream only to grab his throat and choked at the feeling of something stuck in his throat, his face going red from the effort to breathe. The last sight he saw as he dropped to the floor and his vision went dark were two men dressed in dark robes and wands pointed at them.

"Finally, I thought we won't get this." The one pointing his wand at the second man muttered softly as he waved his wand to take out anything from their pockets before transforming the bodies into blocks of wood, leaving it to one side to be thrown away later. "We had to waste so much time for this."

"Quit your yapping and grab the stuff. We have been out here too long." His partner snapped while grabbing the dripped bag and moving to the refrigerator. "Oh yeah, we hit the jackpot!" The first man came along to see the bounty and his stomach growled at the sight of the food laid out on the shelves. They had been rationing for some time but were running low, so they had been going out into the open to search for food sources, and chanced on these two who had been sighted in the area. Seeing the refrigerator made it worthwhile to wait.

"Right, grab everything we can get." His friend nodded and waved his wand to make the items fly off the shelves and move towards them, some getting smaller as they entered the rucksacks the two had taken out to store them, and it appeared to be bottomless. Once done, the two went about trying to find other stuff. Then they were going to leave the place with the second guy banishing the wood blocks far away so that they could make a getaway while the bodies would change back for scavengers to deal with the cleanup.

But their departure was delayed from the sounds of clicking and growling that came about their space. The duo stilled and tightened their grips on their wands as their eyes strained to find the owner of the sounds. The first guy glanced at his friend and quietly gestured with his head to move further back into the building, a nod answered his action, and the duo slowly turned only for a sudden gust of wind to blow inside and one of the looser tiles from the ceiling came off and hit the floor with a loud slap.

"Shit!" The guy barely restrained his curse when loud shrieks resounded in the area and the store started to rumble from vibrations being sent their way. "Go!" The two spun on their heels only to feel nauseous from the sudden ringing that came on and stopped the action. "Crap, they are messing with Apparition!"

"Get back inside!" The duo went back to the inner room and shut the doors before waving their wands to seal up the walls and banish whatever items around to the spot to keep anything out. That did not do much as they could hear the creatures moving about and some of the items started dropping to the floor from the slamming going on outside.

"We just need to focus!" The first guy winced as the ringing sound came back that seemed to go into their heads. The other guy was going to answer when he lit his wand and noticed something that made him go pale. He opened his mouth only for a long arm to reach out and grab his face with long fingers and nails that cut into his face, and then dragged him to the roof screaming while dropping the items he had on him. The first guy dropped to the floor and shuffled about while raising his wand and screaming out the first spell he could think of. "Incedium Diablo!" Black sparks came off his wand and soon the cursed flame issued forth with a roar that went through the hole in the roof and other parts of the store. The wizard grabbed the dropped bag and wand before throwing himself out of the window to escape the inferno. He then forced himself on his feet and tried to move only to be knocked down by something hitting him in the bag, and the last sight he could see was a lanky looking creature peering down at him with some clicking before its mouth went wide to show off teeth glistening from the flames.

And then the screams came on as the creatures came forward to tear him apart.

Amid the slaughter going on, the bags that were dropped or the stuff that fell off from the attacks started to come off the ground and hovered a bit before making their way out the window above the carnage and to the alleyway where a hand briefly appeared in mid-air to grab them and vanish quickly, and with all the noise going on, the creatures did not hear the soft pop that came off that spot.

A few miles away from the attack, in the village town of Yorkshire, another soft pop got hidden by the sounds of the flowing river that ran through the place. There were several brick horses that were a little worn out but were still standing strong, even one that had a truck having slammed its way through the front. All the houses in question had varying levels of vegetation overgrowth that covered them up along with boarded windows and doors with markings spray painted to show they were ransacked and all, so nothing of value was worth finding in these areas. And because of that, no one would notice how some of the houses appeared to be joined together in between due to the vegetation, and how the bricks of the more damaged houses seemingly disappeared.

Slowly but surely, the door of the house nearest to the flowing river opened and closed silently, and then the space behind the door seemed to shift before someone appeared on the spot while pulling off a silvery cloak. The person, who appeared to be a young teen dressed in clothing that was both efficient yet soft enough to avoid making sounds, and a beanie to cover his head, shook his body off a little before turning towards the wall that had several thick beams of wood. He slowly lifted one while resisting the urge to grunt from the weight, and secured it firmly on the braces on either side of the door, and repeated the action two times more. Once done, he creeped his way to a room that had been stripped of everything and replaced with thick blankets or carpets that lined the room. He paused at one spot and pulled back one of the carpets to go through a hole that showed a staircase leading down to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he opened the basement door to go through and then shut it behind him, followed by placing the thick mattress that was next to it and secured one end with a string to hold it there.

Only after that was done and he turned on the lamp next to him did he let out a breath of relief.

"Right, let's see what we have." The young man spoke with a somewhat raspy voice as though it was not used for a long while as he went about lighting candles in the basement, showing it too had blankets lining the walls with the odd mattresses pushed up for added padding. He went to the table and placed the bag on the table with a little bit more force but still gentler than one would use, and then started to remove the thick articles of clothing off him. With the last article removed, it showed his appearance to be that of a slightly lanky teen with messy black hair, slightly pale skin and tired emerald eyes that had seen much in his short life.

Shaking his head a little to make his hair loose, he rummaged through the bag and brought out the food items from it, mentally cataloguing all the items.

"Okay, at least there are still some that have not expired." The young man let out a soft hum as he looked at the stuff on the table. While in good condition, some were already on the throes of expiring so he would need to eat those first. There were also the other perishables that he had on hand to finish, although he could attempt pickling them to have them stay fresh longer. He took a look at the mechanical clock he had on the wall and decided to have an early dinner. Sorting out the ones for storage and then grabbing the items he wanted, he went to a room that had been remodelled into a kitchen with the river next to it so he could see the water while cooking without fear of the sounds being heard from the creatures above.

After a hearty meal and washing up, the young man went back to the storage room to make it neater and grouped them based on their expiry dates, after which he went to grab himself a cup of tea to bring with him to another room that opened up at the bottom of the river with a decent view of the water flowing above him. He let out a sigh while taking a sip of his drink, enjoying the trickling sounds of the water above him and the fact he could even sigh out loud in this place.

To think it was coming up to five years since he began hiding from both the monsters and from the life he used to come from. And it all started with him getting a letter to come to a magic school in the highlands of Scotland. He had hoped that it was a way of getting away from his relatives only to find it held a different kind of danger and issues, and the old wizard in charge of the castle appeared to have some agenda to deny him staying over the summer despite the evidence showing. The young boy went to the goblins over the summer of 1992 to ask some questions and got some answers that he did not expect, and considered leaving for a different school, or at least away from the headmaster named Albus Dumbledore.

But that plan got scrapped by the monsters that appeared from the sky in meteorites and began attacking the populace. He never thought that his small frame would prove so useful in going through small gaps and windows to get away from the creatures and hide under the cloak while the creatures rampaged the alley. The goblins proved to be more prepared than the wizards and witches, and went forth to protect the bank with their spears and shields, but were forced to retreat and shut their doors when just one of those monsters was able to tear through their ranks like wet paper.

The young boy then had to find refuge elsewhere since the Dursleys, his so-called relatives, had tried to use the chance to get rid of him only for karma to catch up with them getting ripped to pieces by one of those creatures that bulldozed through the house. The boy got so shocked by the suddenness of the attack that he ended up "popping" to a different part of London without meaning to.

He had been moving about since, scavenging coming easily to him from his time with the Dursleys locking him out of the house at times, and made easier with the cloak that had the additional spells removed and a silencing spell for his body, until he stumbled upon this town that had been left abandoned by the villagers. He had not planned on staying for long but ended up doing so since the creatures were about and he wanted a roof above his head.

During this period, he made a lot of observations about these "Clickers" as some had started referring to them.

Firstly, these creatures appeared to be blind and relied heavily on sounds to hunt, and their hearing was so sharp they could hear a pin drop in the distance. He should know that very well since he had raided a clothing store once and one of the Clickers came running from the other end of the street when he dropped said pin by mistake. For a while, it seemed they would go for anything that would make a sound, but within a couple of months, they were beginning to tell the difference between the shuffling of feet and the sounds of leaves moving in the wind or the gentle flow of water in a stream.

Their speed was also not a laughing matter as they could blitz at anything with almost impossible flexibility if launched into the air, and would bulldoze their way through solid walls if needed. From what he could tell, the shell-like covers on their heads were particularly hard which made sense to protect the hearing organs found there, and when combined with both the speed and raw power of their attacks, the head was certainly something to avoid at all costs.

Their physical defences were somewhat above average, because while they could bowl over anything in their path, it had been shown that with enough range and sufficient firepower from the army, a few of the Clickers could be brought down at the risk of heralding more of them to come after. Fire was not a good option against them, if anything they appeared to get more invigorated from the heat and would walk through the flames like they were nothing.

Arguably the most distressing fact was how magic behaved around them, an observation he made before arriving to the town from watching several wizards attempting to attack the creatures only for their spells to fizzle out near their bodies or ricochet to the side if hitting the head. Transfiguration on them made it worse in the manner that it made them more unpredictable, and potions had limited effect that seemed temporary for a few minutes at best before they recovered and attacked with a vengeance. And while the instances were few, he had the impression the Clickers could sense or smell magic with a couple having followed him around a few times after he had cast a few spells in the areas he had to visit.

With all that said, there were some good bits to note. As stated, the Clickers relied heavily on sounds, so any sufficiently loud and sudden noises would be enough to attract their attention, and living in a place that is close to fast flowing water or near a waterfall would be great if one could not go deep enough into the earth to stay quiet. And for all their defences, if fire was their life, then water would be their Kryptonite as the Clickers avoided deep waters like the plague because they could not swim, their heads ironically making it heavy for them to move in the water. As such, once he found this house and made it more habitable and secured it with the help of some magic books and learning not to use his wand, he began digging into the earth to expand the basement to have more rooms closer to the flowing river, if not right under to make sure the sounds cover his hiding spot.

The young man had been on his own all this time, ever watchful of the world outside whenever he needed to grab more food and information. From the little he could gather, the muggle government was forced out of the country and was currently holed up somewhere, which meant there was anarchy in certain cities and towns. He had to be wary of bandits roaming the towns and villages along with survivors with less compulsions to be merciful.

As for the magical world, he had no clue about their current situation, although the wizards roaming the area to steal food would suggest they were not doing too well themselves. He was a little worried about the lack of contact from his old schoolmates, but considering the monsters moving about, he would have to hope they were busy staying alive. He was certainly getting a lot of magic done having to deal with this on a daily basis.

And yet, despite all the close calls, this was oddly enough liberating for him.

And that was what Harry Potter wanted. Freedom.