Little beads of water hung to the spiders’ webs that seemed to hang from ever branch in the woods. The entire forest had a rich earthy smell, the smell of fresh soil and clean air mixed with the crisp fresh tang of new life. The forest was an old one, but everywhere you looked there were young fit trees and ferns springing to life. It was as if something had smashed through here recently up turning half the forest. Old life next to new, dense canopy of braches and leaves mixed with gaps in which one could look up into the dreary gray sky that seemed to be perpetual in this land.
A scream of pure terror echoed in the damp woods, a man lay convulsing on the ground, his limbs violently shaking and his fingers digging deep into the forest floor digging up handfuls of soil and leaf litter. His face was hardly recognizable, a mixture of bloody gashes from the mans finger nails and muck from the ground covered his once clean angular features. The spell cast on him had run its course but its after effects still flowed through his body.
He trembled, a combination of the curses he had been subjected to, the biting cold that flowed into his through his damp robes from the ground, and terror… terror of the man standing over his, the man who had burned his partner alive from the inside out, the man who seemed to be taking a life time to take his own life in a equally vicious manner.
His face was buried in to the soft soil under him. He breathed in its earthy smell thankful for something to cover the smell of burning flesh that seemed to infiltrate every part of the surrounding forest.
“Do you wish for death?” A soft voice asked from above the man, the voice sounded almost sad, sorry for the current situation.
The man rolled over to look up at the man standing above him, rolling so as not to see the charred form of his partner he blinked some soil out of his eyes. The man standing over his was wearing a dark green cloak which enveloped his whole body making it all but impossible to make out any features beyond his height.
”I suppose death is preferable to the alternative for you now…” The man mumbled as much to himself as to his victim.
The broken man on the ground could do little but moan as he saw his assailant raise his arm and point his wand towards him.
There was no spell spoken, no sound at all as the flash of copper coloured light flew from the wand to the mans chest. Even as the curse connected the victim could do little more than let out a wheezing splutter. His hands still bloodied and dirtied from clawing at his face and the ground grabbed madly at his chest trying in vain to pull away the steel bands he could feel crushing his chest. In the back of his mind he knew it was useless, he knew there was no physical object closing in around his chest, knew that it was the cloaked man standing in the shadows of one of the towering trees surrounding his own personal nightmare that controlled the curse on him.
The cloaked man let out a soft sigh; it sounded half satisfaction and half resignation at the situation. The curse he was using was variable in the speed in which it could be used, it was usually used to quickly crush a victims chest leaving them unable to vocalise and spells and inflict enough pain to not let them think of countering it. Yet the cloaked figure had an exceptional amount of control over the curse even though he was breathing in short gasps, whether through his own pain or pleasure, the tortured man couldn’t tell and didn’t care.
The forest was devoid of all animal life for miles around, everything having fled when the first man went down in all consuming flames. The only noise was the gasping breath of the cloaked man and the pained gurgle as his prey spat up a foam of blood and bodily fluid. Over the staggered sounds of both men there was the audible sound of ribs snapping, each one causing the man to convulse is pain until with one final crack the man curled forward before collapsing back, hands still grasping at the non existent metal bands around his chest.
The green cloaked figure slowly lowered his wand hand, he was shivering slightly and still breathing in shallow gasps. He stood over the bodies of his victims for several minutes before looking up suddenly and looking through the thick undergrowth.
With hardly a sound his cloak twirled and he disappeared from the scene.
Just a few minutes latter several figures dressed in the same robes as the two dead men made there way towards the nightmarish scene.
“What is that smell?” A female voice asked as she stood not twenty feet from the charred corps. She had a refined voice that spoke of wealth and class.
“Nothing good…” One of the men with her murmured looking for the source of the smell.
“Oh Merlin!” The youngest member of their group yelled before stumbling back several steps, turned and emptied the contents of his stomach.
Both the man and woman quickly strode past the young man who was leaning with his hands on his knees spitting the last of the bile out of his mouth.
“Do you think it’s them again?” The woman asked looking down at the burned corps who she had spoken to just the other day.
“I don’t know. But who ever it is wants us scared, we can’t let word of this spread like last time” he said walking over to the other body taking in the layer of red spittle that covered the mans mouth.
“Eugene go back to ministry and tell Thurston to get here right now, tell no one what you’ve seen” The older man said with an implied threat. He heard the loud crack of the younger man leaving, taking no care to soften the sound of his departure.
“What will the minister do?” The female asked finally stepping away from the scene, the smell finally getting to her.
“I don’t think we want to know” He said following her away from the scene to wait for Thurston.
~~~
After a stop off in a magical saturation point the cloaked man appeared in between a small cottage and a hedge that appeared to run around the boarder of the unkempt section.
He opened the door with barely a way of his hand shrugging off his heavy cloak letting it drop carelessly to the floor. Rubbing his right arm through the sleeve of his long sleeved shirt he made his way to bathroom. Opening one of the cupboards set into the walls he pulled down one of the flasks before closing the cupboard. Pouring some of the lavender coloured brew into glass left on the edge of the basin he downed the potion in one letting his head fall back and exhaled. He stood there with his head lulling back letting the potion work its way through his system.
Exhaling a breath he had been holding as the potion did its work he reached into the shower stall in the corner and turned on the water. Giving it a minute to warm up he undressed before stepping in. Letting the water run across his head and body washing away the stench the day’s activities he grabbed a grubby bar of soap off a tray and started to absently soap up his body. He stood in the shower letting the warm water massage his muscles until he felt it going cold. Not bothering to go cast a warming charm of the water cylinder he got out and dried himself with a towel thrown across the top of the door.
He walked over to the basin and looked into the mirror set above it, several days worth of stubble covered his jaw line and bags were noticeable under his eyes, bags that had been there for so long now he doubted he’d ever be rid of them. Only his eyes were the same as they had always been, he’d heard many times that you could tell a lot about someone by looking at there eyes, that they showed ones life, ones experience, that someone who had seen as much death and suffering as he should have eyes that seem haunted. Yet his were the same as they had been for as long as he could remember, bright, shining with life, almost a mockery of his current situation.
He reached up to move some hair away from his eyes, stopping with his fingers brushing across his forehead he looked at the reflection on his arm in the mirror. The black stain that seemed to cover half his lower arm, a solid block of sickly black with several small arms reaching out from the stain and snaking up his arm. The flesh looked dead where it touched, corrupted flesh, an ever lasting reminder of the cost of victory. He ran a finger across one of the arms noticing it had retreated back down his arm past the elbow from where it had been this mourning.
Dropping his arm with an angry snarl he looked at the scare that could now be seen through the hair plastering his forehead and sneered.
Picking up his discarded shirt he shrugged it own before walking out of the room grabbing the flask of potion on the way out.
Tonight had just been a warm up, tomorrow was when the real work began…
~~~
While this is not the first thing I’ve written it’s something in this genre. I wanted to do something different to the standard HP story. While I find post OOTP stories interesting there are far to many of them out and most of them are poorly written and cliché riddled.
I guess I have numerous inspirations as an author, mostly other fanfiction authors and novelists. But I would say my biggest help as an author has been ones like Kinsfire, Abraxan and the many slash and fluff writers out there. I merely ask my self “Is this something Abraxan might like?” Or “Would Kinsfire write something like this?” If it is I quickly delete is and try again with out the vomit inducing crap those authors load their stories with.
I would appreciate reviews about the lay out and characterisation in this so far. I don’t know the update rate. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time but this prologue took quite awhile to write.
I’ve been reading fanfiction for about three years now. When I started I like many people started reading basically anything over 100k. While I read a few romance fics that like the vast majority of that genre I know realise were utter crap I quickly grew tired of them.
I don’t like slash. I’m not going to justify that by saying I have no problems with gay people but don’t want to read about it. Screw that, slash sucks and anyone who reads it is either fat fangirl who has no chance of getting a real guy and since they can’t get with Harry or what ever fictional character they get off on they make them gay so no one woman gets them either. Any guy who likes slash obviously has a Daddy who was a little to hands on while tucking them in at night…
Independent Harry fics are my favourite by far but it like many is clogged up with so much cliché riddled crap that its almost not worth reading it anymore. Infact there is only about 4 fics I bother to read any more.
While I think JK had a great idea with the HP world she quickly screwed it up. Books one to three were good. Four and five had there problems but were readable. Book six while horrible had some good points, I for one like the idea of a Horcrux. I liken it to the splitting of an atom, something that takes a lot of work and is a huge achievement. It shows just how amazingly bright Voldemort was.
Book seven (and I say this with out any hyperbole) is the worst book written in human history, past, present or future in this or any other reality for now until the end of time. Times infinity… plus one.
My taste in Fanfiction has nto really changed a lot. I have always liked powerful smart Harry and disliked emo weak Harry. I guess I have got a little more refined.
I have many plot bunnies but am only going to be writing this one which ha been forming in my head for a long time now pulling bits from other bunnies into it.
Well I think that’s all.
Sree is gay.