Harry Potter and the Litany of Blood

Ch. 2- The Trouble with Journalists

***

Harry shaded his eyes as the horned owl sailed towards him.

I hope no one notices this, he thought to himself.

A giant owl sailing to Number Four Privet Drive was hardly an average, ordinary, occurrence. The owl dropped right in front of Harry and cocked its head.

Harry reached forward and grabbed the letter that was attached to the owl's leg. Curiously he opened the letter.

Dear Mr. Potter

I believe in you. No matter what the daily prophet says about you and your state of mind I think that what you said happened at the Triwizard Tourney was what happened. I believe you about You-Know-Who being back. Just wanted to let you know that.

Amber Winterhawk

Clipped to the letter, which she apparently sent to support his story about Voldemort retuning was an article from the Daily Prophet

Mad Ravings from the Boy Who Lived?

By Nicholas Warwick

Everyone knows the sad and heroic tale of the boy who lived. Famous before he was even a year old, Harry Potter is one of the most celebrated wizards in the United Kingdom despite the fact he is not even out of school yet. Yet now it appears that the desire for more fame or perhaps mental illness has caused our beloved Boy Who Lived to fabricate an astounding tale about the return of the hated dark lord who slew his own parents

Yes, you heard me right. Harry Potter claims that You-Know-Who returned the very night of the third task of the Triwizard Tournament. The same task that led to the mysterious death of Cedric Diggory. A young man, who, this reporter learned, was dating a young woman whom Harry fancied. This reporter does not wish to make an unsubstantiated allegation, but we at the Prophet sincerely hope that this matter is given full due diligence, with no special treatment given to Mr. Potter.

When asked about Mr. Potter's assertions that the dark lord has returned, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge replied, " there is of course no truth to the allegations that You-Know-Who has returned. The ministry has taken over the investigation of young Diggory's death and we will get to the bottom of it."

Young Harry Potter is not without supporters of his own. Headmaster of Hogwarts Albus Dumbledore has been quite outspoken on the supposed "return" of the Dark Lord. Once a highly respected Wizard, perhaps most famous for his defeat of the Dark Lord Grindlewald in 1945, some say Headmaster Dumbledore has become quite dotty in his declining years. Quotes one Lucius Malfoy, Deputy Minister of Magic, "Headmaster Dumbledore should have been removed from his post years ago. He hires half-blooded wizards and werewolf's to fill out his teaching roster and shows blatant favoritism to his own former house over that of other houses that are more worthy of respect. Finally he has been known to coddle to Potter boy and has been hiding signs of the poor lad's frail mind for years. Why in the boy's second year..."

Harry crumpled the clipped article and flung it way. Bitterly Harry smiled at the letter. At least one person believed the disturbed Boy-Who-Lived. Yeah. All of a sudden the warmth of the day was spoiled and Harry gathered up his things and started inside.

As he did so he noticed several more black dots in the sky that resolved themselves into dozens of owls. All of them bearing letters.

***

I believe you...

I'm with you all the way Mr. Potter...

You're a horrible, horrible boy...

You stinking liar...

My Daughter is a second year Ravenclaw. Stay away from her...

You're so brave Harry. Enclosed is my picture...

Harry goggled at the last letter. The young witch who sent it was certainly...well developed.

The letters had been coming all afternoon. Owls of types and every color sent letters both supporting and deriding Harry. Even more exotic birds like ravens, hawks, and in one case, a miniature albino vulture delivered mail. Harry couldn't tell what was worse. The blindness that some people exhibited about the return of Voldemort or the blind faith that everyone else seemed to have in him to solve their problems.

Every time an owl dropped by to give him a letter. He hoped he would see the snowy white form of Hedwig. And every time he was disappointed. The cold knot in his stomach refused to abate. Hedwig had been one of the few constants in his life since he discovered he was a wizard and he loved the beautiful bird. As afternoon darkened into evening, and birds continued to come to give letters to Harry, he kept a look out for his snowy owl.

But she never came.

***

The next morning Harry decided to go for a run. The mental inventory he did of his appearance the previous day while thinking about the various women of Hogwarts depressed him and he decided to do something about it.

Putting on some shorts that the Dursley's had bribed him with last year the day before some important business people came over for dinner, Harry took off down the street.

One thing that Harry possessed was endurance. He began with an easy, loping stride that carried him down the block. As the houses drifted by, his mind wandered to the goings on in the Wizarding World. He barely knew anything and what he did know was from clipping strangers had sent him. Just thinking about it made him start running faster, as if he was trying to run from the anger that was building within him. The people that knew him best were keeping him in the dark and they KNEW how much he hated that. He hated the secrets about his parents, he hated that he never knew about Sirius, he hated that for some magical reason he was safest with relatives who barely qualified to be human.

As he raced down the street, Harry spiteful wondered why Ron or Hermione hadn't written to him. Had they, and some well-meaning servant of Dumbledore, taken the letters so he would be kept in the dark? Or maybe a servant of Voldemort had taken the letters. Were they even in the country? Hermione seemed quite taken with Viktor Krum. Was she with him? Was Ron visiting one of his brothers outside the country? He couldn't exactly blame the Weasley parents if they wanted to keep Ron away from him. He was after all, dangerous to be around.

Lungs burning Harry turned around and started to run back to his house. His muscles ached and the legs protested the exertion. Leg muscles weren't exactly developed while broomstick flying.

When he got home, he ran into Mrs. Figg, who seemed surprised to see him exercising. The polite elderly woman, whose only company seemed to be an assortment of cats in various shapes and sizes, had babysat Harry a number of times over the years before he started going to Hogwarts. The hawk faced, gray haired woman smiled at Harry, rendering her stern features soft.

"Hello dear," she told the boy brightly. "I wanted to check up on you and bring you some cookies." She held up a covered plate.

As he bent over and heaved to catch his breath, Harry took the cookies and motioned for the woman to come inside. Mrs. Figg walked inside and took in the well-ordered kitchen. "So are things going well for you Harry? Getting good marks in school and all that?" As she talked, her eyes drifted to the kitchen table, which was piled high with the letters the owls had been delivering. "My, my, Harry! Quite the popular boy aren't you." She reached over to grab one of the letters. "Are all of these from your friends at school?"

Harry quickly grabbed the letter before she could look at it. "Umm...these...are...these are from some...girls at school," Harry stammered out. "They're kind of private."

Mrs. Figg laughed and withdrew her hand. After speaking for a few more minutes she departed giving one last look at both the letters on the table and the red-faced boy who so fiercely defended them. Harry could swear there was a knowing twinkle in her eye as she left.

But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

***

The weather, having taken a turn for the worse, forced Harry to study inside his house. Curling up on the Dursley's sofa, he cracked open his fourth year dark arts book and started to read it. Thanks to the pressure of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry actually got excused for most of his classes that year to allow him the freedom to train and research spells on his own. One of the sections in his dark arts book was on the psychology of Dark Wizards and after the fiasco of Barty Crouch Jr, and Voldemort, Harry was more interested than ever how dark wizards thought the reasons for why they did what they did.

Chapter 7- Why Good Wizards go bad

Essay by Alastor Moody

All magic has an emotional core to it. It is too easy to write off certain kinds of magic as evil when merely the intent is evil. Are the unforgivable truly always unforgivable or are their situations where their use should be sanctioned? After all any magic can be used for ill purposes. Why then are only some kinds of magic labeled dark arts and other kinds of magic aren't? After all can't an Animagus use his powers to kill, can't a necromancer use his powers to bring peace of mind to the bereaved?

Seems reasonable doesn't it. That's the trap that many decent wizards fall into. They think just this once. It's for a good cause. If I mean well then it's not really dark magic.

Lies. All of it, Lies.

More than one good witch or wizard has fallen to the dark arts. That's why you need to watch out for your friends. Constant Vigilance should be your watchword. If you value your friendships you will make sure they do not go down the dark path. And they in turn will do the same for you.

Harry turned the page. He doubted that Voldemort or any of the Death Eaters were 'good wizards gone bad' so this wasn't what he was looking for. He thumbed through some more of the book until he reached the appendix, which included a section on the short biographies of some of the most famous dark wizards and witches and what they had done. Some of them were quite interesting.

Constance Umbridge (1345-1434)

One of the rare witches that are known to muggles, Constance was a well known crone and healer in the wizard community in her native Germany, but secretly she had an addiction to magic increasing potions that required the body fat and blood of virgin children. She used a house transfigured into candy to lure unsuspecting muggle children to her where she then killed them.

She met her death at the hands of wizard Church hunter by the name of Mathias Thorne. The muggles foolishly believe she was killed at the hands of several of the children she attempted to murder.

Fleur De Sang (1931-62)

The mysterious dark lady who called herself Fleur de Sang appeared quite suddenly in 1931 in France. She terrorized muggle French people until the takeover of France by Grindlewald's forces. After that event, she joined forces with the underground and proved equal dangerous to the forces of darkness.

After the war was over, de Sang appeared at the French ministry and begged for forgiveness, somehow having a change of heart and repenting of her dark deeds. She then apparated through the wards which had been employed to restrain her and simply disappeared from the face of the earth until 1962 when a body matching her description was found in muggle Paris.

Santiago Cortez (1567-1640)

A master of sadomagic's (the drawing of magical power through pain), Santiago learned how to tap into pain in order to fuel his Sorcery. He joined the Spanish Catholic Church and became one of its lead inquisitors. He kept his wand hidden within the rod of his office and performed 'Miracles' to fool muggles into the rightness of his actions.

Met his end at the hands of a Succubus he had conjured to tempt a noble he wished to 'relieve' of his land and possessions.

There were a lot more famous European dark wizards and witches in the appendix and they all were interesting. Not for the first time he wondered how history could actually be interesting and yet fall asleep every single time in History of Magic. As he read the mini bios of the dark wizards, Harry was struck by the similarities between all of them. It was hatred and greed. Those two feelings seemed the defining characteristic of all of the dark wizards whether they started out as a good guy, or happened to be evil through and through.

That thought kind of scared Harry.

Hatred was so easy. He hated Voldemort, he hated Sirius-before he knew who he was, he hated Pettigrew, he hated the Dursley's, and sometimes he even hated Dumbledore.

A part of Harry believed that the final confrontation would come down to him and Voldemort. Nothing anyone had said lead to that feeling, it was simply was. He didn't want to but he believed it with every fiber of his being. And now Harry was wondering if he would have to tap into the magic of hatred if he wanted to win. Would he have to lose himself in dark magic if he wanted to beat the thing that killed his parents? Would he be swallowed up by hatred?

Would his hatred twist him like it twisted Tom Riddle? Would he turn on Hermione? On Ron and the Weaselys? Harry didn't think so, but still...he remembered the glee he felt when he unconsciously read Dudley's thoughts.

So Harry read. Long into the night, he read.

***

Something called to him...

It was the Kitchen...

Harry gathered the ingredients ...

The pot bubbled like a cauldron...

The stainless steel knife gleamed in the moonlight...

And his arm burned...

***

Harry woke up stiff the next morning. He groaned as he straightened his limbs and pulled himself to his feet from where he lay in the kitchen. His thoughts turned fuzzily to the actions of the night before as he tried to remember what happened. He stretched his arms and saw the fresh scab where he bled himself,

Harry could only vaguely remember his actions from the night before. He remember gathering the potion ingredients, and wax. He remembered holding the knife although not the specific moment of cutting.

Stepping over to the table, he stared at his creation. Spread over a baking pan was a translucent blood red material that seemed to have the consistency of tofu.

What is it? He thought, almost hysterically to himself. He made a complicated alchemical item in the middle of the night, apparently while sleepwalking. An item that not only was he sure he didn't know how to make, but he didn't even know what it was.

What is happening to me?

Running to his room, he gathered up his potion books for all four years and carried them downstairs. Pouring over the tomes he tried to remember what he had used and searched the indexes for that combination of ingredients.

Nothing. Whatever it was, it wasn't on the teaching curriculum of Hogwarts,

Harry wished he could owl Hermione, but Hedwig still hadn't come back. Deciding that he wasn't going to let whatever it was go to waste, he carefully cut the tofu-like material into a dozen brownie sized pieces and wrapped them in some of his aunt's wax paper. Carrying the pieces up stairs, he put them in a compartment in his trunk. Maybe with the library at Hogwarts, he would be able to identify the material.

***

The next few days passed without incident. He slept in late and ran in the mornings. In the afternoon he studied, outside if the weather was warm, inside when it cooled. At night, he watched the news alternately hoping there would be some information on death eater attacks, and praying that he would learn nothing.

Finally, it was early in the evening on the day the Dursley's were supposed to come home when the phone rang. Harry hesitated for a second before answering the phone. The Dursley's generally frowned on Harry answering the phone, but since they weren't home, he did.

"Boy." His uncle Vernon.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

"Everything alright there boy? No unnaturalness?"

Harry thought about the potion he made in the kitchen a few nights ago

Uncle Vernon would go ballistic

"No Uncle Vernon. Everything is just the way you left it."

"Good. Aunt Marge needs more help than we thought so we're going to be gone for another week or two. There's plenty of soup in the cupboard. Good bye Harry."

His uncle hung up the phone and Harry blinked in surprise.

Wow. Two more weeks Dursley free

Harry didn't even stop to consider the oddness of his uncle addressing him by name.

Harry went back to the television room and started to watch TV, luxuriating in the knowledge that he was free for at least another week, and he'd be able to do things the Dursley's never let him. He let his mind drift and started to thumb through his schoolbooks as a random television program played in the background. Something about a group of twentysomethings and sex.

He was actually starting to get into the program when a streaking object slammed into the front window of the Dursley's. The glass shattered with a crash and Harry dove over the arm of the couch, employing his Quiddich-honed reflexes.

Fumbling for his wand, he peaked over the edge of his couch and the sight caused his wand to clatter uselessly to the ground.

Hedwig landed on the ground, a black envelop with a blood red seal gripped in her beak.

***