Red Vapor

The sun cast strange shadows over the Malfoy house. But on the rooftop, no one was watching the sun; all eyes were focused on the patriarch. Lucius crouched low, breathing heavily, with a steady stream of red blood dripping from his eye.

His haggard voice rasped out uneasily, "It felt so good to kill that muggle-loving bile-blooded piece of raven's crap..." By the end, he fell forward and gripped his eye.

Draco stared uneasily at his father. "Da..."

"...I... bring me a cauldron, boy. We have no time to lose."

Draco stiffened up at once, as he always did around his father. "Yes, sir." He snaked down the steps to his second floor and to his father's room, where he found a cauldron. With a minor jinx the thing was floating behind him, as well as his father's spell-compartment cabinet. He returned to the roof to see a red glow coursing through the horizon.

Blood red, he thought to himself, before coming to his father's side. "What spell are you going to cast, da?"

"Silence, brat! I haven't spent the last month in Azkaban to waste my time with your foolish questions!" Draco sank back, sitting down on a hard chair, and watched as his father went to the spell components. He saw him reach into compartments Draco had never even seen before, and utter incantations that mystified him.

He could sense power from it, though. A lot of power.

Draco watched and after several long minutes, he could feel a climax building up. Finally, a surge of red vapor erupted from the cauldron and swirled around Lucius, and the man began breathing in deeply. The red vapor that didn't get sucked into the pale man dissipated, merging with the bloodied skies.

Lucius began to laugh, falling to the ground and sending the cauldron rolling to the side. "Hehehe... now... Now, Dumbledore, I don't need my master anymore... I will... I will kill you all... HahaHA!" His veins began to sizzle along his arms, as his hunched form grew.

"Dad?"

The man wasn't listening now. "I need..." his rasping voice continued, now turning to a growling roar, his back surging up and his shoulders expanding, "I need... blood..."

"Dad...!"

Lucius lunged forward and rammed his claws into Draco's chest. "Son, don't worry. It's for the good of the world. With your sacrifice, we will rid this world of mudbloods and muggles once and for all!"

"Dad..."

Second

Ron lay in bed. It was hot today. Even though it was dark. Why was it so hot today, Ron thought to himself.

Jeez, I'm thinking about the temperature in my bed at night. No wonder they all hate me.

They don't all hate you, a voice echoed in Ron's head.

Shut up Hermione, they all hate me. Can't you just agree with me for onc--what was that sound?

Ron leaned up, the darkness of his room pressing down on him as the sound of masked voices and creaking floorboards echoed overhead. With only Ginny and himself still in the house beside his parents, the place only rarely got very loud.

He got to his feet, but didn't need to wait very long. The sound of someone crashing down the stairs came near him--right outside his door. His heart stood fast as the door burst open, a chunk of wood containing his door handle flying onto his bed, and his mother stumbling in, gripping her chest.

"Ron..." Molly Weasley whispered, collapsing onto the floor. She let out something akin to a gasp, and fell face first onto the ground.

"Mommy-dearest!" Ron screamed, and leapt to his feet. His wand, where was his wand?

And then Lucius Malfoy stepped into the room... but it wasn't really Lucius, no. This was a monster. The beast towered in size, with red veins streaming up and down his body, his robes looking like a muscle shirt, and his wand having somehow merged with the top of his hand.

"AH, THE CHILD," Lucius roared, but it seemed to be more like his common speech. A gargantuan, toothy grin spread across his face, and he ripped forward, the new claws on his feet biting deeply into the thin Burrow wood.

Ron didn't even have time to scream before the claws gored him, pinning him to the wall. "AH, THE SECOND! WHO WILL BE THIRD?"

"You," a tiny voice hissed, and before Lucius could turn around, a kitchen knife sunk into the back of his head. As Ron watched, his entire body seething with a dull silence, his destroyer stooped to the floor and died.

"Ron!" Ginny screamed, running up to him. "You're going to be okay, Ron! Don't worry! It'll all be okay!"

Ron smiled, whispered, "I love you, Ginny," and closed his eyes.

Alex

She sobbed when she got the news. Her parents understood when she locked herself in her room for a few days, only coming out for meals. The school year still hadn't started.

Even once she came out of her room, it still was too much. She went to the library.

The library was a safe place--her muggle library, with muggle books. Her own private world... no, more like universe... away from Hogwarts. Sometimes she didn't even miss it.

Sometimes she didn't even write, or read. She just sat back, watching the place.

Of course, she didn't come here too often. She couldn't study her hogwarts books here. That would be just too risky.

Oh, there's Alex. He came here almost as often as she did, sharing in her own private world, but never touching on the other one. He never touched on her magic. That was probably why he'd never connected with her. That was probably why she never connected with any muggles. She even still called them muggles.

Sometimes, if she didn't pay attention, she called them humans instead. But she always tried to avoid that, because it seemed to insult wizards somehow. And yet...

Alex sat closer to her, this time. His pudgy features and short, bleached hair always seemed to dissuade her. But, today, she noticed he wasn't quite that pudgy guy with bleached hair. He was muscular--he'd worked off some of his fat, and his hair, while still short, had a sort of orange glow to it. His natural hair color. He was the exact opposite of Harry, and moreso of...

Ron!

She could barely stop her tears this time. His funeral would be next week, but she still hadn't come to accept it. How could he be dead! How could his mother be dead! And after Percy still hadn't recovered, and Fred and George moving out...

It was just Arthur and Ginny in that house, all alone.

"Why don't we ever talk?" Alex muttered, looking up at her from the corner of his book. "I mean, we've been seeing each other at this place for years. We've had conversations, but we've never really talked. Why is that?"

Hermione paused. The thought of Ron still had her on the verge of tears, but she couldn't let her feelings get in the way, or blow her cover. Her parents would never really do anything, and the school really wouldn't care with everything going on... but she would punish herself. As she always did.

"I... I don't know..." she whispered, putting the book she hadn't been reading down.

Alex picked up his book and sat down next to her. He had something like a scowl on his face, but it was more like a look of confusion. "Do you ever get the feeling that you never really know anyone?" he asked. "I get that all the time."

She stared at him. She herself had been thinking similar thoughts just a few moments ago, although in slightly different terms. "Well... yeah, I suppose. Sometimes." She paused. "But, other people, I feel like I really do understand. So much that their actions are..."

"...predictable," he finished for her. He grinned. And, despite the waterfall of emotions she was feeling, she grinned too.

"Maybe I do know you," she whispered.

"Maybe."

She looked down at her book, and with a mild look of hesitation, closed it.

"Hermione?" Alex asked.

"Yeah?" She didn't look directly at him.

"Do you know what it's like to be free?"

Hermione

Now she knew. Now she knew what it meant. Staring at the ceiling of his room, she knew what it was to be free. What it was she'd been missing all these years. What she'd been longing for, what she'd been striving for, in vain.

She just wished it didn't have to be through drugs. But she'd tried everything else... books... friends... nothing worked. Nothing let her feel free, only sealed her in more, into her own little cells.

He was smoking something now, and she recognized it, even though she didn't think she should know what it looked like. Weed. To some, everyday stuff. To some, an illegal drug. To her, a forbidden fruit, something she'd never seen, or tasted, or really even imagined.

But she doubted it was much compared to the opium. That beautiful stuff which set her free, which let her plunge through those barriers which had held back her mind for all these years.

She wondered if the school would hate her for this.

She wondered if they would hate her, for doing this, in the wake of Ron's death. But had she ever loved Ron?

Had she ever known Ron?

Yes. And he was too damn predictable.

She looked over to Alex, to the joint he was smoking, and purred, "Let me take a breath of that." Her voice sounded strangely foreign--distant.

He stared at her through glazed eyes.

She crawled toward him, her hand lunging, reaching for the leaf.

He let her come, until she was beside him, and then he gave it to her.

She sucked it, and didn't breathe out for a long time. She rolled over, and set her head in his lap, and rested there for a long time, slowly blowing out the rolling white smoke.

"I think we should've started talking a long time ago," Alex whispered.

Hermione didn't really want to speak. Her mind was wandering...

They weren't really talking. They were just thinking. Together. They didn't need to talk. With wizards, she always had to talk, she always had to justify her existence. She couldn't just be there with them.

More and more, though, she wondered how much that was true. With every new human... muggle, I mean... invention, it seemed more and more everything had to be justified. Everything had to be utilitarian, and poignant, and powerful.

Or pointless, pornographic, or blinding.

That was it... there wasn't a middle ground, any more. You were either this, or that, liberal, or conservative, republican, democrat, white, black... where were the moderate, green-party Asians, eh?

Or people didn't care any more. Like those people who wouldn't vote. In all the elections, it showed the amount of votes each person got, but it never said how many people voted, and how many didn't. Which is worse--a world where everything's dominated by the radical--even conservatives could be radical--or a world where no one cared at all?

Where am I, she asked herself. Why do I care? I'm a wizard anyway.

She felt Alex growing restless, so she leaned forward. She swung around, so that she was sitting beside him, opposite him, with her head just turned a little to the side to look him right in the eyes.

"This is the world I've been too scared to show anyone," he whispered.

She liked the way his eyes were looking into hers. They were brown. So... normal.

She felt his hand touch her knee, and for a moment she realized that she was wearing a skirt suddenly. In her opium-cloud-mind, she vaguely recollected that no one touched her, really. Viktor was just a pen-pal. There were those vines, in first year, that made her feel so alive that her mind awakened, and she managed to stop them all. And there was the cat-hair, that one time... when was it?

His hand is moving up my leg, slowly. He wants me to consent. He wants me to say okay. He wants me to let him... let him...

Let him...

Her hand slid up and touched his, and with the lightest delicacy she guided it up, away from her thigh, and past the usual place it would go as an afterthought--her breasts. She guided his hand to the forgotten place, of these days, in both wizard and human...

...muggle, oh forget it...

Worlds. She felt his... beefy? No, powerful. Yes, not thick, but strong fingers, yet not rough. Against her cheek, her cheek so smooth.

She still was watching his eyes. They never left her.

She moved in, and kissed him...

...Ron, forgive me...

...and with her second hand, guided his left hand to her thigh.

Hunting

Harry had received no news from either Hermione nor Ron. Again. But, honestly, he was expecting it now. With Voldemort back, there were certain things Harry just couldn't do. Like, pretend he had a life outside of Hogwarts.

He felt different around them these days, though. Dudley especially--last year, he'd gotten into boxing. Now, though, he was like a tank. He'd evolved, Harry realized. He'd become something more than he was before. If anything, that engagement with a monster from Harry's world, from last year, had only managed to make him work harder, fight faster, build his muscles higher...

Uncle Vernon loved him for that. Once, Harry had heard him call Dudley the "Prodigal Son."

There was something else going on within Dudley, though, Harry realized. And Harry didn't quite know what.

Uncle Vernon, on the other hand, had become a pig--fatter, stupider, and lazier than ever. But, really, that was nothing new, was it?

Aunt Petunia, though, she seemed to be noticing Uncle Vernon's change a lot more than the others. And with each passing day, she was more of a stick, while Vernon became a stump.

Yet, Aunt Petunia didn't really seem to be going toward the opposite of Vernon mentally. He may be getting stupider, but she... she was losing it altogether. It was the little things, really--a forgotten cake in the oven, a confusion about what hour it was, waking up earlier, going to bed later...

And then, Uncle Vernon said they were going hunting.

"I'm glad you're coming with us," Dudley said in the car.

"That coming from a guy named 'Dudley Dursley...' Wait, you're being serious." And here Harry was, having finally come up with an insult of the day. Dudley Dursley was a pretty funny sounding name.

Uncle Vernon seemed dead as he drove the car, and Aunt Petunia was obviously trying to be looking like she wasn't listening.

"Yeah," Dudley said. "I realized some things over the last year..."

Harry really didn't know what to make of this, as the car pulled into the park. Uncle Vernon got out, and went to the back, where he began to pull out all four bags. First, Harry's included in a family vacation--now, Dudley's being nice? What... what happened?

Harry had never seen Uncle Vernon nor Aunt Petunia hike, and they didn't seem to be very good at it. But, Dudley... he set off like a rocket ship.

After a few moments along the trail alone, Harry realized that he was alone. This was okay, for a few minutes, but then he began to realize where he was.

In a forest.

With a thousand places to hide.

And some things that didn't care whether he was a wizard or not.

So, Harry began hiking faster. It was hard work, work that between residing in the Dursleys' home, and flying on a broomstick, he was strangely unfamiliar with.

There was no way he could keep up with Dudley, though, and there was no way he'd let himself fall behind to Petunia and Vernon... Harry found himself pushing himself further and further, trying to get near Dudley.

Trying to get near Dudley? Afraid of the woods? What am I?

It's not the woods I'm scared of though, is it? No. It's what's in the woods. Or more, who could be in the woods.

He pushed himself to Dudley a little more.

Hours passed, each feeling longer than a day. Harry realized sometime within the day, that although he managed to get sight of Dudley every now and then, he'd completely lost Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

What was the plan? "We'll hike out in the woods, and once out there, start hunting. Even you, Harry. Maybe killing something will let you know what type of life you've been honored to receive from us, boy." That's what Uncle Vernon had said. Harry wondered now, though, whether or not it was Uncle Vernon's true plan.

The sun had set when Harry came across Dudley at the side of the path, sitting on his bag beside a roaring fire. Harry assumed this must be camp, and set his pack down across from the beefy boy. As he sat there, looking at the sun, and knowing how far Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia must be, Harry wondered whether or not the two might not just set up camp somewhere further down the trail, since they obviously weren't going to meet them while the sun was still up.

And Harry was left sitting across from Dudley, a fire between them, and the skies overhead turning a dark shade of red.

Vespers

"Harry Potter."
"Dudley Dursley."

"Harry... have you ever wondered if, just once, you wouldn't want to be called 'Dursley?'"

Harry blinked a few times. "What?"

Dudley looked down. "Did you ever try to make mom and dad like you?"

Harry was staring now. Dudley. Using the words, "mom" and "dad?" Not being sickening around Harry. There was something different here. Something very, very wrong.

"They hate me," Harry stated without very much emotion.

"They hate me too."

Whaaaat? They worship you, Dudley. What are you... stupid?

"Well," he continued, "Not in the same way. But, Harry, they act like they hate me. All that flattery, all that love--it goes right out the window when you're not around. Especially with mom." He shook his head. "I never would have told you any of this, but..."

Harry looked down at his pack, and for the first time, he realized that Uncle Vernon had packed a rifle there. Harry had been very aware of it, while carrying it's weight along the trail, but the fact that it was there, for him to use, just dawned on him. The implications there, the trust there, was stupendous.

Was the notion even possible? Was there something there that Harry just had not seen? Something not just below the surface, but deep down? Even conceivable?

"Harry, it's been a long time--but, did you ever even give me a chance?"

Harry looked up again. "What?" he asked. "What! How can you even say that!" His hand was shaking. "You've been butchering me... my, life, for... how can you even say that!"

"Harry, do you even trust me?" Dudley asked.

Harry was stupefied. There were not words to describe his shock, his incredulity, at these questions.

"Harry, you know... I've been thinking, and..." Dudley trailed off. "Get out your gun."

Harry couldn't stand it, this sudden change in behavior. So, he did just that--he got out his gun.

"Load it. Cock it. Everything."

Harry did.

"Now, go ahead, point it at me."

Harry raised his gun, and aimed it at Dudley. He wasn't even sure what he was doing any more. This was crazy. This was totally insane.

"See, I trust you, Harry."

Harry's hands were shaking now. Slowly, he put the gun behind him, on the ground, and wouldn't look at it.

"Now, Harry, do you trust me?"

Harry was staring into the flames for a moment. In the center, where it burned the hottest, the flames were red. Looking up at the sky, those hottest flames matched the color of the most distant sky. Like some sort of twisted cycle, a cycle where the largest things met the smallest things, and both were the same.

"Yes," Harry said. His voice was distant.

Harry heard the cocking of a gun, the readying of Dudley's rifle. And finally, Harry was staring down the barrel, and it sent shivers down his throat.

"Dudley..."

"See, Harry, you trust me too." Dudley paused. "All these years, I've been a bastard to you, Harry. But, we're adults now Harry--we can solve our problems. Maybe Dad and Mom... maybe they're too far away, too set in their ways. But we can change."

The forest seemed quiet, even with all the birds. No, wait, the birds were gone, weren't they. That was strange. Why were things so quiet all of a sudden?

The sound of a twig snapping brought Harry's attention right up, to a small hill above them. Between two trees, the face of death appeared.

Voldemort.

Here. In the woods.

"That's..."

"A demon, from your world?" Dudley asked.

...he's already raising his wand...

"Yes!" Harry screamed.

Dudley swung his gun forty-five degrees, and pulled the trigger.

Harry never even heard the explosion that came from the barrel, he only saw Voldemort's head explode. It was like...

What was it like? To have your worst fears instantly realized, and then, to have someone who had been one of your worst enemies save you from that fear. Harry wanted to say that it felt like being saved from a piranha by the hook of a fisherman, who then threw you back into the water with a bleeding gum, but that only managed to match the level of confusion.

"Who, or what, was that?" Dudley asked.

"That was... my worst enemy... Voldemort... Lord Voldemort... perhaps the most powerful demon ever conceived..." Harry spluttered.

"So he's the reason you've been staying with us? He's the reason that mom is scared? He's what that old guy said would come without you?" Dudley asked.

"Well... yeah..." Harry whispered.

Dudley slowly began to reload his gun. "So, really, the world is safe now?"

"Yeah..."

Dudley finished reloading, and at once swung the gun back forty-five degrees, aimed at Harry's head. "Good."

As Dudley walked away from his supposed brother, he neither cried nor felt remorse. Instead, a strange sort of relief pulsed through his veins. And as he left, the blood-red sunset finally faded away, leaving the sky a perfect, star-less black.