Chapter Four: It Landed With a Thud
“Look into my eyes.” I looked up into the blood red eyes and focused, willing myself to see the information contained within.
I was comfortable, sitting on an opulently carved oak chair padded with fine leather. Riddle sat before me on his throne-like seat, looking at me, his long fingers wrapped around the wand in his lap. We were alone together in the cavernous room I recognised from my previous dreams. I had my wand now, but I wasn’t afraid. I wanted to be there.
The red in his eyes leapt out towards me, embracing me. It enveloped my vision, transforming into shapes, forms and patterns. I could see a wand, arching through the red ether in a precise pattern. Words were forming in the red hue. I couldn’t hear or see the words; I felt them. Alacritas Sommes. The words penetrated my mind accompanied by imagery. A decaying corpse rising from a grave, pulling itself from the dirt and shuffling forward, obeying my whim. An Inferus of my own! Os Estus. The inferus’ rotten eyelids were torn open and his eyeballs bubbled and smoked, melting before me and dribbling down the ruined face. Solum Frendo. The ground beneath rose up and encompassed the inferus, dragging him back beneath the dirt and entombing him in his own grave once more. On and on the visions went, more and more spells flashed through my mind becoming part of my awareness. It was all to hazy. I needed to see more; I needed more spells.
“Enough.” I was shaken out of my vision and felt my body return to the luxurious seat. Riddle’s tight mouth tore open in a macabre smile.
“You are learning quickly. Soon you will be ready.”
I shook. It wasn't fear. It was an all encompassing loathing. What had I become?
“You shall retire now. Do not leave your quarters until you are summoned.”
I wasn't under the Imperius. There was no dreamy floating, no pleasant feeling as I rose from my chair and headed out of the room. My will was my own.
I awoke in a cold sweat, my sheets moist and my hair clung to my face with damp. I reached for my glasses on the floor beside my bed and pulled them on. The room was dark with a few glimmers of morning light seeping around the curtains. The relative tranquillity of the early morning was breached by loud snoring originating from Ron’s bed on the other side of the room, the aforementioned redhead sleeping face to the wall.
I rose from my bed, pulled on a robe and opened the door, careful not to make too much of a noise. I crept down the stairs and into the kitchen and begun making myself breakfast. Alerted by a noise, I look over my shoulder and saw Hermione emerging from the corridor looking at me with concern.
“You’re up early,” Hermione said, looking like she was stifling a yawn.
“Yeah. Had problems sleeping. What about you?”
“Oh, the same. Thinking about going back to Hogwarts today,” she said smiling “You haven’t been dreaming about Him, are you?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. Just trouble sleeping.”
I couldn’t tell her what I’d been dreaming about. A part of me knew I should, but I didn’t want to. I knew what the dreams meant; it was obvious.
“If you are dreaming about him, you can tell me. You know that don’t you?”
“Of course,” I said, smiling now. She cared too much.
I had cracked open some eggs and had placed them in a pan above a hob. I pulled out my wand and tapped the hob to light it, causing the pan to start spitting and spurting.
“Err Harry, you shouldn’t have used your wand like that. I know it probably won’t show up as spell-use, but you should be careful. Especially with the Ministry trying to catch you...”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. The trace on me was removed back in June.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell us?” Hermione’s voice was rising in both pitch and volume alarmingly.
“I guess it just never came up.”
“Harry, you’ve been here the whole holiday and barely spoken a word to us,” Hermione began ranting, the quiet whispering having long since been replaced by a whining screech. “I know you need to time to make sense about what happened to Sirius and to yourself, but talking about it would really make it easier-“
“For who, Hermione? For you? I don’t care. Just leave it alone for once, okay?” I was raging at her. Her stupid high pitched squeaking combined with a lack of sleep had shortened my temper.
“I’m sorry. Just... just calm down. You shouldn’t get angry. Remember your occulumency.”
“I don’t need occulumency anymore,” I retorted. Who was she to lecture me on losing my temper? She was a slave to her emotions.
“You don’t need occulumency anymore?” She asked, quietly now.
“I managed to push Dumbledore out of my mind alright.”
“He tried to use Legilimency on you?” The high pitched squeaking was back.
“Yeah. Not really his expected modus operandi, eh?”
“That – That’s a bit surprising.”
“Uh huh. Fried egg?”
We sat down together and started on breakfast in silence, neither particularly wanting to start a conversation it seemed. Hermione had probably lost some of her faith in the world. It was about time.
“I think I’ll go back to bed, Harry. You should probably do the same.” Hermione's face was troubled as she got up from the table and began to clear away her plate.
“Maybe. Do you have any books on Apparation?” I asked, out of the blue.
Her dark, foreboding expression was replaced by one of curiosity. “Yeah, I’ve got a couple. Are you interested in the theory or the practicalities?”
“The practical aspect.”
“Well, okay,” Hermione said, looking at me a little uncertainly, “hold on, I’ll just get one from my room.”
After Hermione had retrieved the book and handed it over she wished me good night and headed up the stairs to bed. She was giving me strange looks as she left the kitchen; probably quietly hoping I wasn't going to try and apparate on my own.
I walked out the front door, sat down on the lawn and began flicking through the book under the light of my wand.
“Harry, dear, you should come in now. We need to make sure everything’s packed for the train!” Mrs Weasley’s voice shook me out of my rage.
“Coming,” I replied wearily. There was a dead gnome at my feet, its head having been obliterated by a reductor curse I’d fired in anger. The stupid creature had bitten my finger when I was practising apparition. Unfortunately now my face and the front of my robes were liberally coated with gnome goo.
I scourgified my robes and face, vanished the remains of the gnome and begun walking back to the house. I’d managed to get myself apparating around just outside of the Burrow’s ward boundaries. It had only taken a few attempts using a mixture of the instructions in the book and my own memory of instinctively doing it. The book didn’t mention anything about people picking it up for themselves, even in stressful situations. I found it more likely someone had taught me in my memory gap...perhaps I would dream about it soon. I didn't want to think about who would have taught me. I’d been trying hard not to think about my dreams, they were disturbing and the meaning was all-too-obvious. I didn't want to know what had happened. I felt sick thinking about it.
Upon entering the property I was immediately overwhelmed by the bustle of the kitchen. Wards kept the noise from within from leaving the front door, probably to ensure there could be but a small amount of peace in the garden. Hermione and Ginny were calmly sitting at the table reading the newspaper and eating breakfast respectively. Ginny threw me a glance before turning back to her food. We hadn't really spoken the entire holiday. She probably felt I was torn up about what had happened to Sirius. I hadn't corrected her.
Hermione was too engrossed in the Prophet to notice me walking past and up the stairs to pack my trunk.
“I don't get why you're being such a prat about this,” Ron said loudly, over the chatter of the room.
My grip on the fabric of the chair tightened as I seethed. Ron was looking at me from the opposite side of the compartment with an expression of incredulity, perfectly unaware of the stupidity spouting out of his mouth. The noise in the room lowered as everyone focused on the two of us.
“I'm not restarting the DA because it was pointless. What did we achieve? The aim was always to arm ourselves to fight and we were fantastically ineffectual. We were all crap at the Department of Mysteries, and the rest of you wouldn't have been any better had you bothered to turn up.”
“Harry, that's not really on, mate. We would have helped if you'd gotten the message out. As far as I heard you didn't even want the others to go with you,” Terry retorted. He was standing in front of the compartment door crossing his arms. He was squeezed in with the rest of the DA Ron had managed to rustle up to back up his argument.
“And I was right, wasn't I? More people would have gotten hurt. I'll say it again in case you didn't hear me: we were all crap in a fight.”
“Surely that's a reason to train harder then. And besides that our OWL grades were fantastic. Most of us in this room scored 'Outstanding'.”
“I have no intention of wasting my time on a homework study group. Hermione. If you want to start one, you're welcome. The DA was about combat. It failed; I'm calling it quits. The rest of you can do what you like.”
“We'll do it without you then. I wasn't all for the whole fighting thing anyway, I'd prefer it if it was more academically oriented,” Corner suggested.
“We're not starting the DA without Harry. It's his organisation and it always will be.”
I seethed again. Ginny's blind faced adoration was wearing thin. “I don't care if you want to start it without me. You're welcome to it.”
“Harry-” Hermione tried to intrude.
“No. I've said it. Start the damned club if you want to, I don't give a rat's ass. I'll have no further part of it.”
“I think we'll be doing that then, right guys?” Ron said, looking at everyone but me.
The room descended into meaningless chatter once more as the DA started arguing among themselves. I rose from my chair, gently shoved Terry out of the way and left the cabin to find a space for myself.
I sat with my eyes closed, seated between a couple of scared first year boys, trying to remember more of what I'd learned during my dreams. Spells, details of conversations, anything. Caput Evolvo. The words flashed through my mind, accompanied by a dizzyingly hazy wand motion. Curl and upward flick. Curl and upward flick. Caput Evolvo.
I opened my eyes and drew my wand from my robe intending to test the spell on the compartment door. The First Years' eyes widened as I drew my wand but they didn't say anything. Neither were muggleborns; they knew who I was. I wouldn't be interrupted.
Just as I was bringing my wand around in a curling motion the door opened with a click and Hermione's face appeared in the gap.
“There you are. It took me ages to find you. I thought you might like some company?”
“Sure,” I replied.
With a look the boy to my left rapidly vacated his seat and ran out the door. Hermione scarcely noticed. She probably had more important things on her mind.
“I convinced the others not to restart the DA without you.”
“I wasn't lying when I said I didn't care. Honestly, if you want to keep it going as a homework club I don't mind,” I said.
“I know, Harry, but I agree with you. If you think our time could be better spent doing other things to prepare then I'll go along with you.”
“Right.” I didn't want to argue any further. There could be no preparation. She'd realise soon enough.
Realising that I had nothing further to say on the topic, Hermione pulled a textbook out of her bag and began reading from about halfway through. I glanced at the title, Tobias' Tremendous Telescopic Treatise, and snorted.
“Is that an astronomy textbook?” I asked, somewhat in disbelief.
“Yeah,” She replied, seeing me looking at the title, “Like the name?”
“Couldn't you have found something with a slightly less stupid title?”
“Oh, no, not really. All the books have names like that. The Magical World seems to have a bit of a thing for alliteration. I think it has something to do with-”
Hermione's explanation for the absurdity of the name would probably never be known as ,at that moment, she was flung from her seat and into the opposite wall. There was a loud screeching noise as the train rapidly decelerated.
I instinctively held myself in my seat with my feet and drew my wand. Adrenaline started coursing its way through my veins.
As soon as the train had fully stopped I walked over to Hermione and checked her. She was still breathing but knocked out cold. There was a large lump forming on her forehead where she had hit the wall. One of the first years had started crying, the other was looking around in shock gabbling. Ignoring them, I walked out the door and into the corridor. Pandemonium reigned.
“Harry! What're you going to do?” Ron had found me pretty much immediately, the tall bugger.
“I was planning to find out why the train had stopped and-”
“Everyone's saying there are Death Eaters Harry! Apparently they felled a tree on the tracks. There were five Aurors on the train up front according to Dean. They're holding off the Death Eaters until reinforcements can come. We're meant to seal the doors and keep everyone inside.”
“How many Death Eaters?”
“I don't know. Dean said there were about fifteen but he didn't get a good look.”
“I'm going to help,” I said automatically.
“We're coming to. The DA can help,” a girl's voice said.
I looked up and saw Ginny and Neville standing behind Ron being bustled by the panicking masses. “Whatever. I'm going to help,” I said as I walked past the group towards the nearest exit.
Bright flashes of light came through the window of the door I approached. I glanced outside and saw a group of Aurors, back-to-back not ten meters away, trying to keep figures in black cloaks from getting near the train. There were, as Ron said, only about fifteen Death Eaters, but it was more than enough. In front of my eyes, two Aurors fell. One to the sickly green light of the Killing Curse, the second simply hurled through the air.
I tried to yank open the door but it wouldn't budge. It was spelled shut. I blasted the door off its hinges and jumped onto the ground. I was immediately assaulted with a half dozen curses. I threw myself to the left to avoid them and landed badly, cutting my arm on a loose rock.
I angrily rose to my feet, feeling magic help push me up. Two Death Eaters turned away from the remaining Aurors and began walking in my direction, firing off spells rapidly.
I pulled my wand towards me as a cutting curse approached, 'captured' it using a subtle twist and redirected it back by swinging my wand back in the direction of the caster. I could feel the Death Eater's intent in the spell at the moment it had been cast, I could overwhelm it. It was a subtle mixture of wand movement, intent and emotion which normally only those practised in dueling could master, but I knew how. It was instinctive; I'd been taught.
I dodged, dived and deflected about five spells back at the Death Eaters before one of them realised what I was doing. He started focusing on his spells, watching and concentrating on them as they approached me. I couldn't redirect them back. I dodged to the side and erected a shield as I ran. Spells smashed into it, lighting up the area around me and slowly buckling the shield. Magical residue was dripping off what remained of my shield like brightly glowing fluid, singing the grass as it landed.
“Stupefy!”
“Incarcerous!”
“Impedimenta!”
I looked up and saw Hermione, Ron and Neville walking through the remains of the train door, loudly incanting spells and waving their wands wildly. It was amateurish, but it distracted the Death Eaters.
Caput Evolvo. Curl and flick. The memory assaulted me, this time though he haze had left. The movements were clear and the words sharp. I turned back in the direction of the Death Eaters, pointed my wand at the one nearest me and began the incantation.
Caput. I curled my wand. I felt a pressure building on the wand, I could feel it gripping something, pulling. I could control it, manipulate it. The world slowed down as I gripped the magic. The Death Eater I was spelling turned at me, his eyes alight in horror and his neck taught. I pulled. Blood began dripping out of his mouth, contrasting macabrely against his white mask. He started raising his wand. It moved painfully slowly, itching upwards. His mouth was trying to form words even as the blood escaped his lips, slowly dripping down his mask and through the air.
Evolvo. I flicked, upwards and toward the sky. The Death Eater's hand jerked and his eyes widened again. More blood escaped from his mouth. I felt resistance as my wand flicked upward terrifically slowly. I pulled harder, willing it to move upwards. I noticed Ron looking at me curiously out of the corner of my eye. I finally overpowered the resistance in my wand and it moved like lightning. There was a stunted cracking noise, like a gun being fired into the ground, and the Death Eater's head flew off his shoulders trailing part of his spine. Blood erupted from the remains of his neck as the flesh was torn away and the body fell to the ground forwards, lifeless.
The head landed with a thud in front of me. The bloody mask fell onto the dirt.
The world sped up again. The sounds of screaming and crying erupted around me. Hermione was on the floor screaming and twitching, held under the Cruciatus curse. Neville was desperately trying to shield himself, backtracking toward the train. Terry, Michael and Ginny were firing spells ineffectually from the train door. The Aurors had all been incapacitated. The Death Eater I'd killed was the only one they'd lost. Ron was looking at me in shock, oblivious to the carnage around him.
My left shoulder erupted in pain as a slicing curse carved into it during my distraction. I turned back, seeing red. It didn't hurt. It was humiliating. I ran forward towards the Death Eaters, deflecting spells back at them, shielding when I couldn't and dodging what I couldn't shield. My memory had clarity now. I wanted them dead and buried. I didn't care in which order.
Solum. I twisted my wand, instinctively. The twist was subtly different to before, but it made sense. I wanted the ground, I wanted the earth. I had to ask it. It understood. Again I felt it, I had it. I lifted it up, pulling and willing it. A patch of ground half-way between me and a trio of Death Eaters ahead of me began to ripple. Waves began spreading outward from the point I was concentrating on. I was still running forward, dodging spells which were coming towards me. I could feel the spells coming before they got there, they were moving so slowly. I could feel everything. The surface of the ground I was pointing at broke and dirt began rushing upwards. Tonnes of it. It formed a massive wall in front of me, impossibly high and dense. The Death Eaters tried desperately blasting at it. It worked but it made no difference; the gaps were filled by more dirt faster than they could blast away at it.
Frendo. I pushed it downward onto them. It fell faster than gravity would have caused, rushing downward inevitably. One of the Death Eaters raised a shield. The dirt shattered through and engulfed them. I pushed it down with all my will, squeezing. I gave in when I sensed it couldn't be squeezed any further.
I surveyed my creation: a compressed mound of dirt 10 feet high, as hard as stone. Adrenaline was rushing through my veins, my heart was racing. I felt so alive. It was better than flying, better than anything. I felt dizzy from it, I wanted more.
I turned back towards the train, idly deflecting a spell with a small flick. It was all so easy. The DA were nowhere in sight. The Death Eaters were all mine.
I heard a soft pop. I felt another head rush and raised my wand. There was more I could control. Would I bury them? Detach their skulls from their necks? Pull their hearts from their chests? I could do anything.
Clap...Clap...Clap
I turned in the direction the pop had come from. He was clapping slowly, sarcastically. He wore no mask and was wearing robes of the finest cut, trimmed in silver. There wasn't a speck of dirt on him.
Riddle.
A/N
Not exactly one update a week. Oh well. Got a bit stuck writing this, next chapter should be quicker to write.