Shadow of a Doubt

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Chapter Eleven 
Blaze of Glory Anders' sleep that night was more than disturbed. It was virtually non-existent. It seemed that every time he closed his eyes, the Dream was there, waiting in the wings. Waiting to take centre stage in his subconscious. He lay awake, bathed in sweat, the covers long since thrown off. He lay there, half-clothed and staring at a fixed point on the ceiling, in an effort to bore himself to sleep. 

Finally he gave it up as a completely lost cause and swung his legs out of the bed, resting his head in his hands for a while. He reached for his cigarettes, only to discover to his complete annoyance that he had smoked the last.

He sat on the edge of his bed, still wearing only his jeans, and put his head in his hands. Damn Draco Malfoy. Damn him to hell, back, and back again.

// You could always get your own back. // 

The voice was there again, inside his mind. He almost fell off the bed in shock and abject horror. He wouldn't listen. He KNEW the tone of that inner voice. It was that voice that made him do things he didn't remember. The voice that had been behind every display of petulance and temper he had ever displayed. Terror came into his expression.

He got to his feet and started pacing the room like a caged lion. Had anybody been in the room with him, they would have witnessed a strange sight. Anders began muttering to himself, punctuating every other word with a strange sound that was something between an expletive and a whimper. 

He began talking aloud in strange, obscure and broken sentences. "Can't who it don't want " then he would pause, as if listening to someone's reply. "No spell not allowed " This went on for some time, until finally, and most strangely, Anders flung his back up against the wall as if he could physically back away from the voice in his head. 

He let out a shriek of anger and sank to his knees, clawing at his face in desperation. "Get out of my head!" he screamed. Blood began to ooze from the scratch marks he left, leaving scarlet trails down his pale skin. He moaned softly with a combination of the pain and the fear. 

But nobody heard him. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was cloaked in the safety of slumber.

And as suddenly as he'd started, the struggle seemed to stop. 

Anders went limp and got to his feet. Nobody saw the very oddly behaving young wizard wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a vague, haunted expression leave his room and head downstairs. He moved as if on autopilot, his steps hesitant and stumbling. He turned away from the Great Hall and headed for the DADA classroom.

// Let's just give them a little scare, shall we? // said the voice in his head gleefully as he walked. // We let this fellow out, he causes a bit of a scare, then they'll know not to mess with us. //

The fire demon's ambient glow lit up the empty classroom with an ethereal orange light that set the hairs on the back of Anders' neck on edge. He stood in front of the cage and the demon hurled itself against its bindings.

"Hello, my fiery friend," said the DADA Professor in a voice which was his, but quite unlike his. "You are looking a bit shall we say, cramped there? How about an exchange of favours?"

The demon stopped its incessant gnashing and stared at the Professor, almost bemused by what it was hearing. Picking up his wand, which he had left on the desk in the classroom, Anders walked around the cage dreamily.

He hadn't even been aware he knew the words to the spell, but as he stood there before the demon, the words of the demon-mastering spell came to his lips. A spell that was forbidden to him both by the laws of his Art, and by the laws of Azkaban.

The smoky-quartz pendant around his neck flared into life, glowing a rich, blood red, matching the glare from the creature's own, as one by one the threads of aquanoleum holding it rigid snapped and frayed, until it was released.

For the briefest of moments, the eyes of the demon and the eyes of the young DADA Professor met.
Anders knew true fear in that fleeting second.

Then the fire demon bowed its head and knelt in submission to its new master.

"A favour for a favour," murmured the Professor, in a strange, hollow voice. "You are free, my demon. Now go play your little games."

As the fiery apparition roared out through the DADA classroom door, burning a hole through the wood, Anders watched it impassively, before turning and striding down the corridor and out through a side door.

The storm outside was still raging, and the occasional flash of lightning lit up the young man as he wandered aimlessly in the rain, half-naked, apparently walking nowhere. 

"What have I done?" he was moaning. "What have I done?"

He wandered aimlessly for a while before heading towards Hagrid's hut. About halfway across the school lawn, he fell to his knees and howled with some strange inner agony. The pendant around his neck ceased its glow and ebbed to a constant ruby. His second life.

Gone.

* * * * *

Hagrid also had been suffering a bout of insomnia that night - perhaps, as it turned out, fortunately for the rest of the school. He therefore heard the sound of Anders' approach before the young teacher knocked on the door. The kindly giant opened the door and his eyes widened in shock at the sight of the bloody-faced, soaking, semi-dressed young man staggering towards him.

"Anders?"

At first, Hagrid thought the man was drunk, as a pair of bewildered, confused blue eyes turned on him. "Anders, sit down 'fore you fall down." He hustled the young man inside the hut and forced him into a seat. "What's wrong? What's 'appened?"

"I don't know," came the hoarse reply. "I DON'T KNOW!" He gripped at the pendant around his neck and thrust it up towards Hagrid. "I've done something, Hagrid, and I don't know what it is!"

A fit of coughing descended on him. Hagrid, immediately concerned for several reasons, not least of which was that he was well aware of Anders' medical condition, rushed to fetch a few threadbare towels. "I'll go get Madam Pomfrey, shall I?"

Anders did not respond, but sat in the chair, staring dead ahead. Hagrid was unnerved. In this state, Anders did not bother to maintain his illusory shadow, and the flickering firelight that illuminated him reminded Hagrid painfully of the young man's affliction. "Right. Yes. Madam Pomfrey," said Hagrid, a little uncertainly, starting to head for the door.

The non-existent shadow gave him the creeps, if he were to admit it. Like Harry and his friends, like Draco, Hagrid had gone through the suspicions that Anders Grimalkin was a vampire. But he'd gotten to know the boy, and later the man. And his concern for his friend encompassed any doubts that he may have had. "Anders..."

Anders said nothing.

Hagrid, genuinely concerned for the young Professor, lumbered heavily across the school grounds. That was when he saw the first flames licking from the dungeon barred window of the Slytherin common room.

His heart stopped for a full minute.

Hogwarts was alight.

* * * * *

// What's the matter, Anders? //

* I didn't want to do that. Why did you make me do that? *

// Oh, but you DID want to do it, my boy. Your heart positively - excuse the pun - burned with the desire for revenge! I just gave you the means and the know-how to do it! //

* Who ARE you? Why do you keep doing this to me? *

// Now, now, Anders. Didn't I ever teach you not to ask questions? //
* I...what is going to happen? What will the demon do? *

// Now that it's set fire to the building, it'll continue to grow. It will be unstoppable. The only thing that will stop it, Anders, is a maximum power Ice or Water spell. And you don't have the power or the ability to do that. //

* What is it you want from me? * Despair.

// I want you back in Azkaban where you belong, Anders. And when the Ministry hear about what you've done here tonight...coupled with the spell you cast on Severus Snape...oh, you'll be back inside with the Dementors faster than you can say Expecto Patronum. //

Maybe it was the word 'Azkaban' that suddenly snapped Anders out of his misery. He seemed to come out of his semi-conscious delirium and the cold, cool mask of reality slid into place on his tortured face. Leaping to his feet he ran to the window and stared out in abject horror at the scene before him. Hogwarts in flames. Because of him.

// Beautiful, isn't it, Anders? And all our work. I'll be well rewarded for this, Anders. Well rewarded. And when you go before the Dementors for the Kiss, I will leave you to your soulless existence. And all because you're a coward. A poor excuse for a wizard. A nothing. A nobody. //

And then he knew. He knew, and that knowledge was like a knife in his gut. "Why?" he whispered aloud. "Why?"

// Figured it out at last, brat? // The inner voice sneered nastily. // Taken you long enough! Still, it's too late to do anything about it. Once Hogwarts is razed to the ground, you'll be taken back to Azkaban. Do have a good trip. And all because you lack the strength to do anything. Goodbye, Anders. We shan't meet again. //

And the inner voice was gone. Anders put his hands to his head. The knowledge was more painful than the rasping of his straining lungs, more agonising than anything he had ever known.

Why? He just did not understand why? But, he realised, slowly coming back to reality. Now was not the time to wonder why. Now was the time to attempt to undo the terrible wrong he had committed. At heart, Anders Grimalkin was a good man.

"No," he said, his voice full of conviction. "You're wrong. I DO have the strength."

* * * * *

And what of the demon?

After starting the inferno, it had lumbered, growing in strength and power from the proximity of the flames, towards the Slytherin dormitories. It did not have a consciousness as such, but it knew the idea that had been instilled into its fiery brain. 

// Kill Draco Malfoy. //

It didn't really know who Draco Malfoy was. Just an image, a face that had been impressed into its mind. But it would charge blindly onwards until it either succeeded or it was defeated. 

It travelled the corridors, moving with a swiftness that belied its monstrous proportions, and within a very few moments it had entered the Slytherin dormitory where Draco Malfoy was sleeping the blameless sleep of those who confidently feel they know no wrong.

The blond boy awoke gradually to the unpleasant sensation of his hair singing. The sweet, sickly smell permeated his nostrils and made him cough. As his eyes opened and fixed on the demon, his first reaction was one of incredulous shock. His second reaction was one of complete panic as the demon grinned an unearthly grin at him and reached out a clawed, grasping hand.

Screaming out in shocked horror, Draco felt the thing's flames burn into his flesh, searing, white-hot pain that perhaps mercifully reduced him to unconsciousness very quickly.

The demon showed neither concern nor interest in the screams of its intended victim as it unceremoniously picked the motionless boy out of his bed and began lumbering towards the Owlery.

* * * * *

By now, of course, the whole school was aware of what was going on. The remaining Slytherins, mostly trapped in their dormitories by the blaze in the common room were in an abject panic and their screams and pleas for help could be heard by the students who had gathered in the dungeon area. Drawn like moths to danger, they now mingled about aimlessly, not quite knowing what to do.

"Where are the teachers?" said a white-faced Hufflepuff girl, clinging onto an equally scared-looking boy. "Why aren't they here yet?"

"We are here," came a smooth voice from the doorway. Professor McGonagall, flanked by Professors Sprout and Vector stood there, all in dressing girls, and, rather distractingly, Professor Sprout's hair was in curlers. "What is going on?"

"The Slytherin common room is on fire," said a Ravenclaw sixth-year rather importantly. "The fire demon from the DADA classroom is on the rampage."

McGonagall exchanged a glance with Professor Vector, then looked back at the closed door of the common room. "And where is Professor Grimalkin?"

"I will go fetch him," said Professor Sprout, turning to the door and jogging off in the direction of the staircase. Professor McGonagall nodded. "We must put this fire out," she said to Professor Vector. "No doubt Severus and Albus are on their way, but we had best start this without them."

Professor Vector looked rather pale at the prospect. McGonagall turned to the amassed students. "I want you all to leave and assemble in your own common rooms. Do not return here."

"But Professor " The Ravenclaw boy protested.

"Am I not speaking the same language, Mr Phillips? Do not return here. All of you keep an eye out for Professor Grimalkin. It is his demon - he is the only one who can control it."

"Yes, Professor."

The students - reluctantly - filed out of the dungeon area, passing Severus Snape who actually had the decency to look disturbed. He entered the room where McGonagall and Vector stood, their faces grim.

Spotting the flames licking from under the common room door, his lips thinned, and he nodded in something akin to satisfaction.

"Grimalkin."

"Now is not the time to apportion blame, Severus," said McGonagall, primly. "Now is the time to douse these flames and save the Slytherin students."

Snape had already raised his wand and levelled it at the door. "Prepare your first water spells," he said, tensely. "I am going to open the door. After three."

The three seconds he counted seemed to stretch on forever, then:

"Alohomora!"

The door sprung open and the flames leaped out, delighted to have new areas to destroy. They met immediately with powerful water spells cast by the other two Professors, which doused the weaker flames. The stronger flames, however, being well-nourished and savage children of the greater demon, began to spread their flames around the dungeon gleefully.

"Again!"

Three water spells this time, doused another child demon, which extinguished with a howl of anguish - but not before leaving behind several offspring of its own.

"This is going to take a long time," said Snape, grimly. "We need help. Where the hell is Grimalkin?"
"Er, Sir?"

The voice made all three Professors turn. Neville Longbottom stood there, in his pyjamas, his wand in his hand. "I want to help, sir."

"Longbottom get back to your common room " began Snape, but McGonagall interrupted him. 

"Professor Grimalkin has spoken highly of your competence in elemental magic," she said. "You may help. But if we tell you to leave, you do so, is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Neville, squaring his shoulders importantly, and casting the first of his water spells onto one of the smaller demons. McGonagall nodded, and echoed Snape's wondering words.

* * * * *

Anders Grimalkin was standing in the main hall of Hogwarts Castle, chaos around him. In the scramble to get back to their common rooms, none of the students seemed to notice the half-clad young teacher. He looked, for all the world, like any other young student. Eventually, he caught someone's arm.

"Where is the demon?" he asked, urgently. The student stared at him in fright. Anders gripped a little tighter and repeated his question.

"I don't know," babbled the terrified student, breaking free and running off in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room. Anders span around in bewilderment, but tried to remain calm. Not easy when people were charging every which way.

Closing his eyes, he tried to reach out to the demon with his thoughts. He was technically the demon's master now, after all, and should have a certain amount of control over it. He could exert that control and bring this whole thing to an end.

But that would mean using forbidden magic, dark magic that would put him back into Azkaban.

His mind reached out to the demon, and the vehemence of the thought that was powering it almost knocked him over backwards.

// Kill Draco Malfoy. //

~ I order you to stop! ~

// Kill Draco Malfoy. //

Anders bit his lip so hard he drew blood and tried to feel through the demon, to work out where it was. He knew that it wouldn't be anywhere near the fire - the fire would have been a distraction.

And then it was easy to see through the demon's eyes, to feel what the demon was feeling. The hatred make his blood rage, made him wish he were another sort of wizard altogether. This was what dark power tasted like

Screaming obscenities aloud at himself, Anders' eyes snapped open, and he began to run up the stairs to the corridor that would take him to the bottom of the Owlery.