Mark of Ancients

Chapter 15: ANCIENT AT WORK

    "Welcome back, Severus!" shouted Voldemort. The face was still the same that haunted Harry's dreams all year long. Voldemort made his way to Harry through a bunch of dead bodies Harry could only presume were dead Muggles. They were in a forest, trees dense as the forest near Hogwarts, but a far deeper, almost unnatural green. The very bushes seemed to be alive. It looked very much like the forest Ron and him had gotten lost in. Harry copied the stance the other Death Eaters held and put his hands in the opposite sleeve.

    "I was wondering whether you had forgotten about your promise to me!" said Voldemort, now at arm's length.

    "I-I'm sorry master, what promise?" said Harry. He was almost sure that was not the question to ask but to his relief, Voldemort broke into sudden laughter. Thankfully, there was no scar to cause him pain.

    "Surely you cannot forget, my dear Severus!" He turned around and held his hands behind his back. "You promised me, Severus... you promised..." Voldemort turned around and put his psychotic face so close to Harry's he could feel the heat. "You're joking with me," he whispered coldly in Harry's ear. "Don't test my patience. I've already been without you for years. I thought you had nearly forgotten me."

    "Master," piped up the voice of Lucius Malfoy, "may I suggest... punishment?" Harry tried to hide the tremble that erupted from his legs. Voldemort drew closer to Lucius.

    "Not today, Lucius..." droned Voldemort. His tone became almost happy as he continued speaking. "Severus has his uses, after all he promised to keep the Potter boy alive during Hogwarts unless it was my action to kill him. He failed, however, to get Potter expelled from Hogwarts on many occasions..." Voldemort turned his attention once again to Harry. "Didn't you, Severus? DIDN'T YOU!"

    The maddening voice ringed in Harry's ears.

    "But I digress," he continued, stepping away from Harry and softening his tone. "But let it be known Severus, if I wanted to cast Cruciatus on someone right now, rest assured it would be yourself."

    "Master," said Lucius again, "what are we to do with the Muggles? And Potter?"

    "The Muggles? I have no use, you can go ahead and kill the rest of them." He pointed at something behind Harry, who turned and nearly screamed in horror. Several dozen Muggles were tied up in vines attached to trees, some bleeding, some already looking dead.

    "Avada Kedavra!" barked Wormtail. One Muggle fell limp where she hung.

    "Avada Kedavra!" came a voice to Harry's left. He didn't recognize it, but he watched in horror as a Muggle, a child, slipped out of the ropes to the muddy floor beneath him.

    There were several more shouts of the Killing Curse before Voldemort rounded on Harry again.

    "Not going to kill any today, Severus?"

    "Master, I am sorry," said Harry, thinking madly to speed up what he was to do here.

    "No need to be sorry," replied Voldemort. "CRUCIO!" he thundered. Harry winced automatically but Voldemort had his wand pointed at a particularly old and frail Muggle. He and the rest of them enjoyed in senseless torture and mass murders for fun. Harry racked his brains. The sooner he could get his questions answered and get out the better. He would have to deal with Snape at a later time and he figured that would be just as dangerous a situation ("YOU WHAT?").

    "M-master," stuttered Harry, "what of Harry Potter?"

    "You don't sound like your usual self, Severus but the boy has been kept in the dark, I hope? We will be raiding Hogwarts with dementors. The damned gamekeeper has spoken to other giants before I could have and as a result, they side with Albus. As for the mark of ancients, Severus, it is of little concern. My faithful spy is doing the job very well. Very powerful, that one. The boy will die, I have his protection and we will be in the clear.

    "Now, if you don't kill at least one Muggle I will surmise that you are Harry himself in disguise!" His laugh filled the forest, cold and calculating, venomous and maddening. Harry flinched as if the scar were still on his forehead.

    He muttered under his breath, his skin glittering out of sight of anyone, "Fides in flamma, fides in ipse. Accio caeles intus venia. Ambio iaculor in comae exsuscito ad aborior absolvere." A Muggle burst into a white light, screaming in agony. The light faded and the Muggle was still alive.

    "Light of Faith only works on Dark wizards," said Voldemort, "you know that."

    "I was just playing, master."

    "Kill him." Harry would rather not, but there's not much choice. He held his wand at arm's length and closed his eyes so he didn't have to look.

    "Avada Kedavra," he muttered, shaking. The green light shot out of his wand, the mark glittering softly on his hidden hand. It zoomed towards one screaming man who fell limp upon contact. Harry turned away and reopened his eyes.

    The Death Eaters were having a grand old time cursing and torturing the Muggles. Harry took part, but only used small and painless curses he knew, such as small boils and swelling hexes.

    "Excellent," said some voice a minute later, the venomous, bone-chilling voice of the basilisk... here? Harry whipped his head in the direction of it and saw Voldemort talking to his snake, Nagini. There was a human head sticking out of it's mouth. Thoroughly disgusted, Harry turned away, nearly losing what he had of dinner.

    Over the next half hour, the Death Eaters killed what had to be thirty Muggles, but there were at least twenty more, all tied and bound, helpless against magic.

    "Those Mudbloods will die!" roared Voldemort as the snake finished the rest of it's snack. Wheeling around again, suddenly, a strange feeling coming from Harry's fingers revealed his nails had shrunk. He panicked. The potion was wearing off already. Get the Muggles out, he thought desperately. Sweat trickled down Snape's forehead down to the end of his long twisted nose. Any minute the rest of his body would follow. Voldemort had not said when he will be coming. Dare Harry stay longer? He wanted to find out... and bring the Muggles to safety, so he put his hands up his sleeves.

    "Severus," called Crabbe as he inched towards Harry, "what kept you at Hogwarts?" Harry forced a wicked grin, on the likes of which he has seen Snape do. The lame attempt pleased the slow Mr. Crabbe.

    "Dumbledore," said Harry shortly. "Had to convince him I was... no longer with master." Crabbe let out a weak snigger and so did Harry. Harry turned away to take part in the Muggles again but,

    "Severus!" shrieked a frightened Crabbe. Harry turned around. Crabbe looked at Harry as if he had sprouted a horn and then Harry found out. "MY LORD!" he thundered, "IT'S POTTER!"

    Harry stumbled backwards, feeling his skin and bones shrink. He made a mad dash towards the Muggles but fell on all fours, splashing mud as the potion wore off. His frame painfully twisted and contorted back into the shape of his fifteen year old body, arms shrinking, legs thinning, hair becoming untidy and less oily. The scar on his arm disappeared, to be replaced by one on his forehead which wasted no time in causing him to howl in more pain. Snape's fake cloak felt more like a blanket now.

    "Such a valiant attempt," Harry heard Voldemort say loudly, still hunched over on his hands and knees. His mad laughing made the scar throb more and more. "Trying to discover my plans..." He bent down to Nagini and whispered something to the snake, knowing Harry couldn't move for fear.

    The snake slithered it's way towards Harry, mouth open so wide it could swallow Hagrid whole and Hagrid was almost as wide as Harry was tall. Harry inched an arm forward along the muddy ground. It wasn't rain that turned the dirt into mud, it was blood. The stench would have cracked his nose if it wasn't already full with the naturally foul smell of the forest. He stared at the snake, trying to tell it to go back, but it was too faithful to the other Parselmouth.

    He lifted a knee and pushed it forward, inching towards the Muggles. The Death Eaters began to surround him, laughing. The snake picked up it's pace, as did Harry, still crawling on the mud, as fast as his arms let him. He half stood up and the snake moved faster and faster.

    The tip of it's mouth was at reach of Harry's leg when he jerked his leg forward. His hand reached a pair of Muggles.

    "Grab onto each other," he muttered. The snake lashed out at Harry's extended foot but missed. It had giant fangs, much like the basilisk, more than likely put there by Voldemort. The man in front of him laid frightened eyes upon him. "Do it!" shouted Harry. The Muggle grabbed onto the woman next to him. The rest of them followed.

    Nagini lashed out again, this time at Harry's other leg, ripping the shoe right off him. His foot landed in a damp, soggy puddle. Ignoring the squishy and disgusting stuff now soaking his sock, he tried to stand up...

    Nagini sunk a fang right into Harry's thigh. Searing venom coursed through the leg, it felt like it might fall off. The snake's hold grew tighter and his own warm blood gushed out of the huge gash. Nagini tugged, very hard, causing a terrible tearing sound and loads more pain. Harry gaped down, wailing, to see the snake had actually torn his leg off. The bloody stump smote it's owner.

    He would have fainted but he turned to look at the dozen people just ahead of him, the Death Eaters surrounding him and with a last breath of faith, Harry flipped on his back and said "Accio..." pointing his wand at the snake. The leg came flying out of it's mouth and with a white, sun-bright glow of his skin, he found himself back in his dormitory at Hogwarts, bleeding, crying and in horrendous pain, clutching his severed leg.

    Professor McGonagall yelled; Cho, Ron, Lupin and Hermione ran over to him. His mouth opened to say, "I know what Voldemort is doing," faintly before his slightly raised head fell heavy onto the floor.

    "My goodness," shrieked McGonagall, peering over Harry, who had now just woken up, "what happened? Where were you? Gone for over an hour, no one could find you!"

    Harry's head felt foggy and stuffy, like it had been filled with some of the mud he was currently covered in.

    "And," droned Snape, "what are you doing dressed in clothing much like myself?" Harry looked around, he was laying in the same room on his back with his leg now reattached and all of the pain gone, covered from head to stinging toe in gook. He felt a lot better than he did just before passing out, like he could talk freely about it. Dumbledore waved his wand, cleaning off all the goo in the blink of an eye. Harry couldn't bring himself to talk to Snape about what Voldemort had said, so instead he stood up, swayed, balanced himself and said,

    "Voldemort plans to come here with dementors." He propped himself up on his arms and looked around at the looks on everyone's faces. "What," he said flatly, "you think I'm lying? Voldemort said something about a spy here, said the job was going well. I took Polyjuice Potion to disguise myself as Snape." At that last sentence, Snape's suspicious expression turned into a light, yet unmistakable look of guilt. "You better look sorry," said Harry, now standing up. Snape's expression turned even more guilty.

    "Voldemort said you made a promise to him," Harry said, staring directly at Snape, not blinking. Snape sighed. Harry had caught him in something.

    "I promised Voldemort to get you to him before I left his ranks," blurted Snape softly, but quickly. "It was merely a lie... so I could get out with my own skin-"

    "I almost lost some of mine," said Harry, louder than he intended and pointing at his leg, "thank you very much. Voldemort's snake, Nagini, did it." Any moment, he expected Dumbledore to say something to the effect of "You need to stop putting yourself in danger, you'll get yourself killed."

    "You didn't talk to us," said Hermione, half shouting. She dashed over, Cho at her side. Harry's stomach twisted. It was awkward enough back under the mistletoe, but now the entire room was full of people. Cho wouldn't get mushy, would she? He half wanted her to do something other than stare at him. But the raining inside his head stopped and the fog cleared as he thought about what Hermione said.

    "I forgot," he said, stopping open-mouthed. He had cleanly forgotten from the moment he arrived to catch foresight with Hermione or Ron. For a moment, it looked like Hermione would hug him, but instead she resorted to pounding his chest and shoulders with closed fists. It didn't hurt much, she seemed to be quite drained. After another moment, she stopped, gripping his shoulders and burying her head somewhere in between.

    Harry had not much choice other than to wrap his own arms around around her. If Cho cared at all, she had a strange way of hiding it. Was she too embarrassed? Too shy? He patted Hermione on the back and glanced over to Cho. During a fleeting moment, she wasn't just looking at him, she was looking straight into his eyes. Hermione let go and toppled over onto a chair.

    "Harry..." said Dumbledore, finally stepping away from his spot next to Professor McGonagall but Harry interrupted him, taking a seat next to Cho on Seamus' bed (it was the only spot left free).

    "I don't know when he's coming. The Potion wore off and Crabbe's father noticed me. They had been torturing a bunch of Muggles..." He also cleanly forgot about them. Where were they? "I thought... that I Disapparated with them."

    "They are somewhere safe, I am sure," assured Dumbledore, amazingly still calm. "I am fully sure, Harry, that you have used the mark for what you were waiting to do and now is the time to remove it so Voldemort cannot control you."

    "No," piped up Michelle. "Why not wait a little longer?"

    "For what reason?"

    "W-well... wouldn't be it wise for him to have it when Voldemort arrives? We could all very well be considered dead now with nothing to help us. The dementors, Albus..."

    "I think it wise to not wait. There's no telling how close Voldemort is to completing a permanent Imperius." He rounded on Harry. "You've been hearing it."

    "Hearing what?" replied Harry.

    "The Parseltongue voice." Harry's face screwed up in horror, realizing that Dumbledore was speaking of Voldemort's voice in Harry's head. "If the controller can speak to the bearer of the mark of ancients, they are dangerously close to a full Imperius. Harry, it cannot be risked. Another person's mark is controlled through foresight. As easily as one can talk to you, they can control their mark." Dumbledore took on a slightly more serious face.

    "Do you know, Harry," he continued, "what those dreams were all about this summer? Voldemort thought he could drive you insane. He almost did. You couldn't tell dream from reality for a good month."

    "WHO CARES!" roared the voice in Harry's head. He echoed it back to everyone else. "WHO CARES!" He waved his arm and everyone was forced by an invisible hand out of the door. "I'm tired," he then said, as if nothing happened, "and am going to sleep."

    As far as he knew, he never repeated what the voice said and everyone left on their own. It was only eight o' clock but Harry did as he said he would. He didn't stay asleep long. It was still dark out and the moon was still shining brightly. Harry's eyes gradually opened.

    After taking several minutes to decide he couldn't sleep, he put his glasses on and sat up, slightly dazed. Don't wake Seamus, Ron or Dean (who must have snuck back in) he told himself.

    "Why do you bother?" the voice asked him. Harry's skin glittered smoky-quartz black, as dark as the night sky. He shifted uneasily.

    "Because you killed my parents," he replied in a whisper. Would it reply? Hedwig flapped in her cage. Harry, not having any better ideas at the moment, stepped out of bed, walked over to the window and opened the cage. Hedwig perched herself on his shoulder.

    "You couldn't sleep either?" he asked, sitting back on the bed. Hedwig hooted in agreement. Harry watched as she lifted a wing and ran the feathers through her beak to clean them. After a minute, she finished then lifted a leg and stood like a Pelican for a second. She turned sideways and stretched her leg out, pulling her wing out with it.

    Harry stretched his legs too as Hedwig turned to the other aside, accidentally slapping him with her tail. She hooted, he yawned and she fluttered onto his outstretched arm. Harry laid down once again and Hedwig plopped down next to his pillow. He stared up at the ceiling dreamily, thinking of what life would have been like had none of this ever happened, what life would have been like with his parents...

    "I wish you could talk sometimes," he thought to himself, staring at Hedwig. She flew off the bed back to her cage, took a sip of water, a bite of food and rested her head on a wing. "Owls have the easy life," he then said, more to himself than anyone.

    The glitter on his skin faded away. Harry closed his eyes and flopped over on his stomach, digging his head into the pillows. Go to sleep, he said to himself. A second later, it worked.