Chapter 5: The Evil Side of Things

If you were to look up wizarding mansions in the Muggle's Guide, you would find a list of different wizarding homes. The list included the Gaunt Family Manor, the House of White, the House of Black, and of course the Potter Manor. One mansion that would not appear on that list, due to common knowledge of it being abandoned since the head of house was taken away to Azkaban, would be the Malfoy Manor. Though the name Malfoy held some respect in the magical world from their many generous donations to the Ministry, it didn't stop the onslaught of rumors, talking about the Malfoy's involvement with the dark lord.

Planted in the middle of some woods sat a manor that was left to rot. The white paint was partially chipped off, moss grew over the columns that stood tall by the front door, the windows were coated in spider webs, and peering out through one of the windows was a wicked looking eye, staring at the spider webs.

"The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout," Inside the manor, behind the window peering out, was a witch with curly black and white hair, who was currently singing a nursery rhyme. "Down came the rain and washed the spider out!" The witch flicked her wand at the window and a thick blast of water shot from the tip of her wand, blasting straight through the window, shattering it to tiny pieces. "Bella! Quit it! I need to focus!" Narcissa Malfoy was currently trying to focus on a plan but her sister Bellatrix LeStrange wouldn't sit still for more than a second.

"Plot, plot, plot. That's all you do, why don't we actually do something for once instead of coming back to this decaying shit hole!" Bellatrix started to lay across a plastic covered armchair sideways while continuing to hum the nursery rhyme. "The dark lord must be found, I must focus on the task at hand in order to resolve our problems." Narcissa tried to close off all noise from around her and focus on her dark lord.

The darkness she was now seeing was changing to a flickering light and a thick gasp of breath was all that could be heard. Narcissa tried to focus harder, to make the image clearer, but a loud clang from the holding cell pulled her away from the light. "Damn it Draco!" The witch stomped her way down the steps leading to the cell and pulled out her wand. The witch pointed her wand at the door and with a click, it swung open. Inside the cell was a concrete floor covered in straw, a spinster wheel with a pile of straw sitting in front of it, and in the far right corner was the little boy Draco Malfoy.

Draco was currently sitting on his bed, gazing up towards the stone ceiling, without a thought running through his head. The witch walked over to Draco and pointed her wand at the boy then said "Imperio!". Draco flinched back as the spell hit him then stood up and walked over to the spinster wheel, picking up a handful of straw and lining the straw up with the wheel. Once the wheel began spinning the straw started to follow the wheel around and when the starting piece made its way back to Draco's hand, the straw would instantly turn to gold.

Narcissa made her way back up the steps, locking the door behind her, and sat back down on her pattern rug, shutting her eyes and trying to focus once more. This time when the witch tried to focus on her dark lord images of the veil of death, a stone archway that looked like to have a thin curtain waving in the middle of it, and a figure towering over the Potter boys, with a bone hand near their necks. With a quick gasp of her breath the witch opened her eyes and started towards a bookshelf.

"Sissy what did you see?" Bellatrix hopped off the armchair and met her sister at the bookshelf when Narcissa pulled back one of the books, opening up a secret doorway. "Ooh, Nicey nice." Bellatrix said, now seeing the dark tunnel that led down into darkness. "It leads to Lucius's secret vault. He showed this entrance the night we got married." Narcissa pulled out her wand and said "Lumos," spouting a small orb of light from the tip of her wand then both the witches descended down the steps.

The Burrow

7:30 P.M.

August 25, 2010

Molly Weasly stood beside the kitchen skin, making sure the magically charmed washwear was doing its duty, when her husband Arthur Weasly Sr came through the fireplace, just now arriving home from work at the Ministry. Arthur was a man in his early forties with fiery red hair and a small pair of glasses that sat on the bridge of his nose. Molly,a shorter and more portly figure, came over to her husband and planted a kiss on his cheek, "Busy day today?" Molly said, now pulling the man's dinner out of the oven. "Yeah, news everywhere about the Potter boys being alive and preparations for Hogwarts security keeps everyone on their feet. Barely have any time to do my regular paperwork." The man let out an exacerbated yawn and slouch in the dining chair he was sitting in.

While the man started to eat his dinner, a small red haired boy came down the nearby steps, and sat down at the table, next to his father, then started to eat some of the fruit that was left out on the table. "How's Ronny doing today?" Arthur asked his son, while talking with his mouth full. "I'm alright, little anxious for Hogwarts." Ronald Weasly tried his best to occupy his time with other things but his mind couldn't stop thinking about the magical school and his chance to do magic. "It'll be here quicker than you think, you'll be begging to go back by the time you get there." The man laughed as he finished his plate, then carried it over to the sink. "You think it's time Molly dear?" Arthur looked over at Ron while he whispered to his wife, "Oh, we've made him wait long enough. Just give it to him."

Molly went over to the table while Arthur went over to a locked cabinet and pulled out a plain white box with holes in it. "Now Ron, we'd figured that since this is your first year at Hogwarts and since we can't afford another owl, we've decided to get you something else instead." Arthur presented the box to Ron, who opened it eagerly, to see a rat.

Malfoy Manor

August 11, 2010

As the two witches descended down the stone steps, the tips of their wands lighting their way, when they came upon a dead end. Narcissa pulled out a knife with a large piece missing out of the flat side and scraped it against the wall, leaving behind a scratch mark on the wall. Soon the wall started to fade out of existence and show an empty vault, speaking money wise, but was filled up with chained up books.

"Look for the book marked XIII," Narcissa said, pulling up a nearby chair in the vault and starting to look at the sides of the books. The daunting hours that were insured with endless rattling of the chained bound books quickly made Bellatrix snap and tear pages from random books that had already been checked. "Are you even sure you know what you're looking for?" Narcissa scoffed at that but didn't peel her eyes away from her pile of books. "It's here, I've seen it here and nowhere else." Bellatrix only rolled her eyes at her sister's words. Soon though, the bored witch began dancing and trotting around the now somewhat spacious vault, when her foot kicked a nearby shelf. "Ouch, my fuckin foot!" The self dropped down to the floor and made a muttered clatter which made both the witches turn their heads.

Bellatrix picked up the fallen shelf and saw underneath it was a book. She picked up the book and checked the spine for the number, "Well you've got to be kidding me". On the spine was the roman numeral XIII, both witches palmed both of their heads for not checking underneath the shelves but Narcissa was just wanting to find what she was wanting. As she opened the book, she began to thumb through the pages, clearly already having something in mind. "Here it is!" The witch said with some excitement. "These ruins are the key to bring him back and get rid of the newly revived Potter's." Narcissa turned the book over to Bellatrix and revealed a page filled with symbols of different patterns, all forming into the shape of a hexagon. "What do we need for this ritual?" Bellatrix asked all giddy, ready to finally make a move. "Not much, just the right timing. Looks like we need to do the ritual before halloween and we're going to need blood, a little too much blood." Both witches cackle at the statement and start their way out of the vault.

The Burrow

August 25, 2010

Ron looked down at the shabby brown rat, it was missing a toe and smelled of dung. "A rat?" Ron said a little disappointed, "We know it's not much but we'd figure since most students will have owls that they don't see, while you'll have your pet rat with you at all times." Molly did her best to smile down at Ron as the boy held the smelly rat in his hands. "Why don't you take him up to your room and settle him in." Ron shook his head in agreement with his father and took the rat up the stairs to his room.

Ron's room was covered in posters of the Chudley Cannons, his favorite Quidditch team, framed pictures of the extension Weasly family and all their red hair, books sat on shelves that have never been read, and of course the ghoul in the attic that constantly made noise. "Well, here's my room." Ron said to his new rat as he sat down on his bed, "Suppose I should name you. Don't know what?". "How about Scabbers?" A voice said seemingly from the air. "Who said that?" Ron became scared quickly but figured this was some sort of prank by his idiot brothers.

"Down here" Ron looked down at the rat and saw its tiny black eyes staring back at him. "Are… you talking to me?" Now Ron was convinced this was some sort of prank, planned out by the twins who found out his parents bought him a rat. "Of course I am, I'm your conscience." Ron blinked at that. He had heard the stories from his mother of children finding their magical animal conscience on adventures but didn't understand why'd he get one.

"If you're my conscience then what am I thinking?" Ron said, trying to test this new query. "I'm your conscience, not a mind reader. I'm here to tell you what's right and wrong, what not to do and all that mumbo jumbo." Now Ron was feeling stupid, maybe he did need a conscience. "So do you have any magical abilities like fairies or gnomes?" Ron had always hoped for a fairy companion but knew the odds of that happening were less than becoming Quidditch captain. "All I can do is speak to you and provide you with advice. I'm not really in the hero business, more of the staying alive kind." Both the rat and Ron stayed up that night, conversating about their future together as friend and fiend.

Somewhere in Albania

It's been said that the deepest circle of hell is the worst thing you could imagine, it's also been said that living with the guilt of your actions was worse than an easy death. If pain could become an old friend to somebody, then it was a bitch to know.

On the floor of an abandoned shack, shivering from the cold and pain, was a lost piece of soul. This piece of soul couldn't find its other halves and yearned for completion. How could the plan backfire? How could this shattered being have been stupid? What could've prevented this disaster? These questions ran through the thought process of the soul every second of everyday for the last ten years. No one was coming for it, no one cared. This is what true death is, slowly watching the earth deteriorate around you and all you can do is lie there in pain.

Outside the shack slithered a traveler, or in this case, another lost soul. This lost soul was bound to a form of a snake. Once a prominent dancer, now trapped in the binds of her inhuman form, searching for a reason to go on. There was this sense in the back of her mind that wouldn't let her give up, some sort of purpose that won't shut up.

Her travels around the world didn't mean anything since the passing of her lover. Doomed to fail, she remembered him saying. No good comes to people; this wicked, rage had turned to mourning, which quickly turned to loneliness. Being a snake, nobody could understand the misfortune lady, and lack of communication to the world only led her to despise those around her.

"SSSSSStoooppp!" A voice echoed around the forest, a voice that was snake-like. Nagini sniffed the air, trying to sense any other serpents nearby. "Hello? Who's there?" The rattle as she hissed the words echoed all around the nearby trees, only just skewing her vision of the fallen apart shack. "Help me! Kill Me!" This voice sounded like death was just hovering over head and was just playing with its food.

Nagini focused on her senses, closing her slitted eyes and using her keen ears to listen for any noise, indicating the creature's whereabouts. Slowly slithering around, the snake eventually made her way into the shack and was seen by the lost soul of Lord Voldemort. Opening her eyes, she could see the magical remnant of a soul left behind like herself. The bonds this person endured were a combination of a child and a snake.

"What's your name, creature?" Nagini could sense the pain this creature was enduring, the constant tearing of the mind, thought streams left unmanaged and no sanity to tame it. "Vold- VOLDEMORT!" This… man bellowed out in pain, barely seeing the serpent staring back at him. "Kill me!" Once again the man yelled in pain, rolling around the floor like a helpless child who caught the flu.

"Calm down, let's see if I can do anything to help-" Before Nagini could finish her sentence, the man grabbed the snake that came into range and began chanting words in an unknown language. "Let Go of me!" Nagini could feel her form changing, once a regular python trapped to the bounds of an earthly snake, now stretching in size to represent this magical gift blessed upon her. Her vision cleared from that of a snake, to now a clear, almost human-like vision. Colors appeared more brightly, smells were more pungent, her ears could pick the smallest ant carrying a grain of dirt. Whatever this man did made her form unique, a snake like no other.

"You have been enchanted to heal me, please give me your milk." The man's words startled the new snake, how was she gonna milk her snake self?

AN1: A little here and there but just something to show that things are in motion everywhere, the Nagini stuff I have plan is gonna be interesting to see as you can probably tell what she is, beside a snake, but Fantastic Beast gave us some backstory to her and the main HP cannon just uses her as a snake and Voldemort's horcrux. I'm trying my best to add more to each chapter but it's difficult until we get to Hogwarts.

AN2: Thx for everyone reading and all the appreciation stuff, I'm gonna try to get atleast one to two chapters out a month.