Darkness in the hearts of Man
You can find more of this on by SubscribeStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it’s posted past FwB2 Ch. 30 there. You can find the same on my new Patreon (via Discord per their ToS), under /WildErotica. The DISCORD is at https://discord.gg/N9yDASt6Cw . If you prefer direct links, go to my Discord and follow the ‘links in general’ section to find the ones you want. All of my fics are well ahead of what I post here, often 10-30 chapters ahead.
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INTENSE TRIGGER WARNINGS! This is NOT A JOKE, it is the darkest chapter in perhaps the entire story. Much of it is spent inside the head of a victim of repeated sexual assault (who will be a recurring character). I intended to treat the subject matter with the respect it was due, and I think I pulled it off at least decently, but this chapter WILL be triggering for some people! Be warned!
It was the bad guys that did it, this time, not Harry. He's done with that behavior for good.
Chap. 17: Darkness in the hearts of Man
Somehow, Ron was in the lead just moments after the fighting had resumed, stepping ahead of both the Succubus and Harry to stand between them, his arms stretched out to catch what spells he could on the shell of his Hellhide. His wand flashed too, Reductor curses, Diffindo cutting hexes, the blasting curse, Confringo, and more flew from Harry's best mate's weapon in a near-solid line of multi-colored light.
Beside him, a half-step ahead somehow too, Lilith's flaming, thorned whip cracked and blazed through the air, tearing wide arcs across the sound barrier and, more importantly, the flesh of Death Eaters which split open, was torn by the thorns, and then immediately cauterized by the intense, localized heat. Her off-hand threw one fireball after another as they closed with the other group.
Harry couldn't even truly track his own spells, faster than Ron's as he could and did dedicate his entire focus to full offense, but he watched several bones break, skulls split open, and one entire face literally melt under quickly-conjured acid of terrible, caustic potency that he hadn't even thought of deliberately. All he'd known was that the Death Eater, a woman whose wand was beginning to light up with that certain, fatal green light, had to be killed immediately.
He also knew a moment later that it would be her slightly pockmarked face that haunted his dreams, out of all of the deaths he'd caused this day. Because she hadn't had much left to even call a face, as her nose and eyes and even teeth eventually sloughed off, dripping and running down her front as she collapsed, a wet, burbling scream the last sound she made.
Then the spell-fire and attack began from the opposite side, up the narrow, guarded stair-well. "Flanking!" one Death Eater cried, a moment before another spell caused his head to fly into the air, spinning dry, split hair as it went, and the rest of his body collapsed to the floor.
Ten short, brutal seconds later, thirteen or maybe fifteen after their strike from the rear had begun, it was over. "Clear!" Ron shouted, "Hold fire! Hold, hold!"
He had taken two hits, a Stunner and a Cutting curse himself, which somehow left a line across the highest part of his left cheek despite the protection of his armor, from their own side... but then the attacks stopped.
A few seconds later, Sirius, Remus, and Mad-Eye led the way down, Kingsley and several others a few steps behind. Wands were still pointed warily. "Where did I first see you after escaping Azkaban?" Sirius asked him cautiously.
Harry, wand held downward rather than away, shrugged, "Depends. I think the first place I saw you was on Magnolia Crescent... at the park. Right before I was picked up by the Knight Bus."
"It's him," Sirius grunted, lowering his wand.
"Not that I don't appreciate the security," Ron quipped, "but you'd think the big red antlers and Succubus would clue you in, if the violet fireballs didn't."
"Fog of war," Moody grunted, "He was right to check."
"Still," Ron shrugged, "But it's alright, like I said, I get it. But now that we've got that straightened out, what's next?"
Lilith closed her eyes, and Harry felt her powers flex in a strange way that seemed to pull on reality as much as it did on their Bond. After a few seconds, she said quietly, "I don't sense any more hostile intent. I think that was the last holdouts. There's despair, resignation, fear, and exhaustion... but no more anger or wish to do harm that I can detect. Just lingering residue."
"So it's clear then?" Moody asked, "No other hostiles?"
"Seems that way," Lilith replied, her eyes still closed as she focused on other senses.
The retired Auror, now co-leader of the Order of the Phoenix, looked once to Harry, who nodded, before he did, too. "Good enough for me. Alright, people, you know the drill. Keep on your toes regardless, you never know what kind of traps the Death Eaters will've laid for us. Possibly even on or in the prisoners, or their cells. Constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Ever."
Perhaps it was a token to the seriousness of the situation, or the life-and-death struggle they had all been involved in, and might still be fighting even now, but no one cracked a joke. Instead, almost as one, the majority of the Order, Ron, and Harry all intoned, "Constant Vigilance," at the same time.
Upstairs, outside, Harry could still feel Hermione struggling with the Fiendfyre, but she was starting to feel less... not tense, precisely... perhaps anxious would be a better word. Worried that it might slip her control. It still burned and raged in part of the house, the very power of the magic tingling and tickling along Harry's own senses, but he thought it was smaller now, too. Maybe she truly was reigning it in, now that most or all of the threat had passed?
There were still a half-dozen members of the Order on the surface, moving through the grounds or intact rooms of the manor house, so she would be looked after. He had to trust them, trust her.
Besides, Harry reminded himself, unaware that he was whispering it loudly enough for Ron to hear, if she's got the stones to call out Fiendfyre, if anyone attacked her she'd just set it on them, right?
Moody and Kingsley spent a couple more minutes rearranging the teams, this time into pairs. Most of the adults were paired together, but to his surprise, the scarred Auror requested that Lilith go with Kingsley (to watch his back, as, in Moody's estimation, his student still had a bad habit of hyper-focus on threats in front of him), and that Ron accompany Sirius to watch his back, for largely the same reason. "And you'll be with me, if you please, Potter," he finished gruffly.
Harry blinked. That... that actually sounded like a request, not an order. He nodded, "Sure, yeah, that sounds good."
"Alright. You two, down that hall, you two there, you two there. Sirius, Weasley, you two that set of corridors down there, and Kingsley-"
"We'll take these rooms," the dark-skinned man replied, his voice oddly hoarse from shouting for an extended period of time, but still commanding. "Who knows what the pale, dark, and balding might've put on his own personal chambers to keep them safe."
"Better be careful, then," Moody grunted, "Alright, Potter... you're with me. The rest of you, follow after. We'll need help with the prisoners."
They moved through the stone, dungeon-like corridor slowly, wands held at the ready, and every few stomping, clacking steps with his artificial leg, Moody would fire off one Detection Charm or another in an effort to find traps.
There weren't any, at least not that the group sprang, or that he could see, aside from a single line of runes that Hermione would have called 'sloppy' at a glance around the entrance to the block of cells, which was curtained off but had no door. "Dark Mark ward," Moody grunted, "Recognize those Runes. If you don't have the Mark, you don't get through... though anyone with a mark can escort another. You'll help me burn it out, Potter. That serpentine Rune there, Mannaz, put your wand-tip against it and channel a spell. Any spell, but make it powerful. I'll get this one up top, and between the two it should cascade through and weaken the rest enough it'll shatter. Don't put your hand through, though, I think this one's linked to a Searing Hex."
"R- Right," Harry muttered, and squatted down, then lowered himself to a knee for better stability as he reached out. His wand twitched as it crossed the first part of the Runes, but did nothing else. Even close to it, he could feel the hairs on the back of his hand start to smoke and curl, though, lending credence to the Auror's judgment.
"Right, Potter, just like that... a little more power..."
Behind them, Harry could feel the others waiting nervously while he and Mad-Eye did the heavy lifting, but he forced them out of his mind as, one by one, the channels he'd never noticed until that moment opened further, and a torrent of energy surged out of the universe, into, and through him to exit out the tip of his wand.
"There you go, lad," Moody chuckled, "you're starting to get it... woah now, a bit less, that's a good- Potter! Potter, enough!"
Harry blinked, startled, and yanked his wand out of the Runes. "Shit, I..."
The floor was on fire.
That would not have been all that unusual, given the state of the manor above them, if it had not been made of solid stone and, no doubt, charmed to be flame-resistant, too.
"Little too much there, Potter," Moody growled, sounding more amused than annoyed, "Better to match the output of your partner if you're going to double-cascade a Rune-set to break it. Reverberates better, and you don't get all that bleed-out."
A wave of his wand, as nicked and battle-scarred as the old Auror himself, sent the flames vanishing into the ether, before he reached out and pulled the curtain aside, stepping past the line of blackened Runes without a care, "Bill Weasley'd like a word, though. Curse-breaking and Rune-breaking aren't exactly the same, but if you're that good at it on your first attempt, it might just be right up your street. Now come on, Potter... and mind what you see. What you say. It's not gonna be easy, but I think you're the best person for the job right now."
Harry swallowed, and, glancing once at the six Order members behind him, including Professor Flitwick, who met his gaze with a steely expression he'd never seen on the diminutive half-Goblin, he followed after.
The first part of the actual dungeons were much as Harry expected: a long, dimly-lit corridor of dark stone, likely granite, with open cell walls like a modern muggle jail, only with thicker, dark steel bars no doubt reinforced by magic, with a crude door in each opened at the bottom for food or water to be passed through without opening. Each cell also had a curtain that could be drawn across the front for some privacy, similar to those on the beds at Hogwarts, but all of them were open save one.
As Moody stepped into the hall, torches between each cell flared to life, two by two, until the entire corridor was well-lit. Almost at once, Harry heard someone begin to cry, and then another, slightly lower voice do the same. A third, a few moments later, called out, "Don't even try, ladies... they'll 'ave no sympathy for you. Not this lot. Just accept it... we're none of us gettin' out of 'ere."
"The Death Eaters are dead or captured," Moody announced, "My name's Alastor Moody. I've got a few others here... we're here to rescue you. Cover up if you can, ladies and any gentlemen. Are there injured? Anyone in need of medical care? We'll get you somewhere to get looked at in any case, but does anyone have broken bones? Bleeding?"
The crying cut off at once, and Harry felt a heavy stillness settle over the cell block as if a dozen or more women were waiting with baited breath... but he could hear no movement.
After several long seconds, Mad-Eye grunted, "Alright, ladies, last call: I've got several people, most are wizards, coming down the hall with him. We're getting you out of here, but if you don't want us seeing you in the all-together, cover up as best you can. We're moving in three... two..."
There were several cries of alarm, and Harry did his best not to look as they cleared the first walls. He didn't need to be told by Moody to keep his wand up again, and he moved it into the cell before he was visible himself. "Clear," he said crisply, "two women- or one woman and one girl, looks sixteen or seventeen. I don't recognize her, though."
"Might be muggle," Moody grunted, "I've got two as well. Carlson, Monroe, you take these two cells. Ladies, these gentlemen are here to help, I can promise you. We're getting you out of here. Try not to attack them. And... whatever the people who captured you said, please hold onto whatever hope you've got. We're the good guys, and we won't let anything happen to you, so try not to attack us, if you please."
Harry was impressed by Moody's calm, reassuring words and tone as they moved to the next cell. It was a long, far cry from his normally gruff, unpleasant demeanor (no matter how reassuring it was in times of crisis). It was almost as if he genuinely cared about the mental wellbeing of the captives, and wanted to reassure them as much as possible. Which, he supposed, made sense. At the meeting where Mad-Eye had reported what he'd found beneath the manor, he had been quietly furious when describing it.
Harry was, too, even now.
Because as they reached the second cell, and heard a quiet, "Uh, Mad-Eye...?" from behind them, Harry already saw the problem. One they had not foreseen, but one that he immediately felt they should have.
"Fuck... Imperius," Moody growled fiercely.
In every cell, the women they had come to free, to rescue, were either in the process of laying themselves down upon the scant mattresses (there were no blankets that he could see), or coming up to the bars and pressing their often red, bruised arses against them. It was behavior he recognized, though this was far more disgusting and vile than he had ever seen it from before.
"They're presenting," Harry muttered.
Moody glanced at him, his own expression pained, horrified. Then he nodded, "Yeah, looks like. I know you've some talent in throwing off the Imperius yourself, maybe even more than I've gotten through practice. This is gonna be hard, their willpower's likely on its last leg if there's any left at all. It's gonna take some careful work... I'm sure you know the incantation. No waving, just grip your wand tightly and look into their eyes. Once you're in there, seeing what they see, just... talk to them. Try and get them to fight it. Or at least, not to fight us. Once we're out of here, might be better to take them to St. Mungo's so their Healers can break the Curse, but we've got to at least try. Every moment they're under has to be torture. With me, Potter?"
The young man, technically still in his teens though he felt too much like an old, old wizard suddenly, nodded. "Legilimens, right?"
"That's the one, Potter. To end it, just make yourself blink. It's not any harder than doing it normally, just takes a conscious effort, and your eyes might be dry after if you're in too long. I'd... try not to linger. It'll only make them remember, and give you nightmares you don't want."
Harry swallowed as he realized exactly what Moody was saying. The memories Snape had seen when he was 'teaching' Harry how to shield his mind more than a year ago... memories Snape himself had wanted to protect by hiding them in a Pensieve... And his mind turned to what he'd done in the early, heady days after Summoning Lilith, and the harm he'd done before he learned some restraint.
Finally, his imagination turned to what these women must have experienced.
But Harry was not a child, not anymore. He had already done hard things. He squared his shoulders, forcing his mind to remember how it had felt as he watched the Gaunt Hovel burn. That strange, painful catharsis. "I'm ready."
"You get her, the dirty blonde... feel like it won't be quite as intrusive if I at least get the older ones. Oh, Bronson, go get Kingsley here. We'll need him for this, too. Don't think I want the rest of you seeing these, but he at least can provide official evidence."
"What about Potter?" Bronson, whoever he was, muttered as he turned to go.
Moody snorted, "You going to tell a kid with his willpower and skill he can't do it? I'd like to see you duel him for the chance. Besides, he's already got the mental scars. Trust me, you don't want them. Now get on with it. Whenever you're ready, Potter."
Harry swallowed once more, and stepped up to the probably twenty-year-old woman who was all-but humping the bars, her breasts pressed between them, as she tried to give him access to her pussy. "I'm sorry about all of this," he whispered quietly, staring deeply into her haunted, dark green eyes that were both glassy and far, far too aware. "Legilimens."
Hermione fought, even more desperately than before. She was winning. She would win. The Fire, cursed as it was, put up even more fight as it shrank, the same energy being forced into a smaller and smaller space.
But she would not relent. She had mastered it thus far, and would finish the job of extinguishing the destructive force she had dared call forth.
Prove herself. To herself, if nothing else, but also to the magic. To the Order. To Harry, not that she thought she needed to.
Fiendfyre might be Dark, yes, and certainly was dangerous. But it was one of only three reliable ways they knew of to destroy a Horcrux. Neither her nor Harry would ever, ever cast the Killing Curse. The Basilisk fangs might have been removed by Nott (she would not allow herself to even make a mental note to check later), which could put its venom out of the equation.
Which left the method she had now been field-testing for... what, ten minutes?
The worst, most strenuous ten minutes of her life, certainly, but about that, yes.
One wall and two small sections of the manor were untouched. Much of the outer shell had been burned away, what half had survived the burst of solar power Dumbledore's portkeys had sent back through whatever magic had linked the Vampiress and Nott.
The interior, though, had been more damaged by the dragon that was a distant spot in the sky, wings no longer truly visible. Order members were surveying it now, but she could afford to pay them little mind. Just enough, in fact, to keep the magical flames away.
Two were protecting her: Elphias Doge, aged as Dumbledore and then some, and a witch she did not recognize but that seemed almost as ancient. "You can do it, girl," Elphias muttered under his breath, "master it, don't let it master you... and never let us catch you using that spell again!"
Hermione ignored the sweat running down her nose, between her breasts, as her wand continued to shake and vibrate. Just as she largely ignored him. "I know I can do it, shut up," she growled after a few seconds, "I'm trying to concentrate."
"Yes, Elphias," the witch grumbled, high and piercing, "do shut up."
"Oh, be quiet, Muriel, you old bat," he shot back, "I'm trying to be encouraging."
One cubic foot left, and the fire now hovered in the air just past the line of the most-burned, nearest wall. It looked like a red-orange star about the size of a basketball, only a thousand times brighter as it roiled and spun. There were no more animals visible, though occasionally Hermione made out a maw, or an eye, or one clawed finger, before they vanished into the fireball again.
Ten inches.
Her body was exhausted, strained, aching.
Nine... shorter in diameter than Harry's wand.
Her willpower was enduring, strong, just as her love for her friends, her parents, Harry, and Hogwarts.
Eight inches...
She would snuff it out, now, as her skin blistered as much from light as from the heat, like she was being actively sunburned from thirty feet away.
Six...
Her love of magic itself would see her succeed in this, because it was just one aspect of that very thing, one she had always found herself driven to master, before she even had a name for it.
Four.
Three.
A pinprick of eye-searing radiance...
There was a pop, then a whoosh, and Hermione staggered forward twice in the sudden twilight, and fell to a knee, then forward onto the hand still holding her smoking wand.
"She did it," the old witch wheezed, "Look at that, a girl her age conjuring, controlling, and then ending Fiendfyre! I've never seen the like, in all my years..."
"And you never will," Elphias Doge snorted. A moment later, a cool, calm hand touched her shoulder, and she winced. "Sorry," he murmured, "but drink this. It's just water, fresh from an Aquamenti charm. It'll help... you're pretty dry there, Miss Granger."
She nodded. Why was it so dark? She could see, she wasn't blinded, certainly, but against that light everything just seemed so dim. The glaring green spot of its afterimage would probably linger for several minutes, too. Annoying, since it was right at the center of her vision, but at least she could see.
Mostly.
The water glowed, faintly.
Oh.
"Maggium Sybbilis," she whispered, "It's dark because it ate the ambient magic my eyes were used to seeing now. I... huh. Fascinating."
Then, six swallows in, Hermione passed out face-down on the parched, scorched lawn. At least she had an experienced witch and wizard with her who, despite their sniping at each other, both knew what they were doing as far as first aid.
She did not consent. Kennedy Teasdale did not consent. Did not consent, did not consent, did not didnotnononononono- I DO NOT CONSENT!
The words ripped across her psyche, across Harry's endlessly, growing and fading, waxing and waning in intensity as he watched from her point of view as one man after another came in, came into her, and then left her either dripping or covered in whatever they felt like.
Kennedy Teasdale did not understand.
She was a muggle, did not understand why these strange men with sticks could make her body do things she did not want to do.
She understood the concept of magic. She played video games, watched movies, read books. She had even seen a stage magician, once, perform seeming miracles that she had known, deep down, were just trickery and deception.
Kennedy Teasdale wanted to die.
Her body did not respond to her wishes, of course. It responded to theirs. Acted as an eager participant for their lusts and dark desires. Oh, she cried, too. They seemed to enjoy that, however, and once she realized it, on the ninth day of being raped again and again, the tears had dried up.
It hadn't stopped, of course. They'd just started hurting her to get them to flow once more. Bruises, slaps, stings, and strange words and pokes with their sticks (wands, she'd heard one say, but that was unreasonable, they couldn't be using actual magic, that was a thing of fiction... right?).
The werewolf had been the worst, the most vicious.
Fenrir, they had called him.
He'd torn something inside her, and she had bled for two days. Maybe she'd have healed, if she'd been given a chance, but the men who had them had only laughed about it being her 'first time again', and again.
It still hurt, and he'd not visited her in six days, had taken his pleasure in other women.
She still wanted to die.
These newcomers... the ugly old man, and the handsome young one with the pretty green eyes, they were no better. They had wands.
And now one was inside her head, watching her pain again and again, and she couldn't make it stop. She didn't consent. She had never consented.
She'd been a virgin when she was taken from the side of the street two blocks from her home after visiting a sick friend.
That had lasted five minutes as they brought her here, beat her a few times, hit her, and then turned their sticks on her again before mounting her, kicking and screaming and hitting, biting...
That man had scars to prove it, but he said he liked it when they fought back. After that, though, her body had done whatever they said, no matter how vile. She'd been used again and again, acting as if she enjoyed it, while her mind railed and cried and sobbed and just wished it would stop stop stop.
She did NOT CONSENT.
Then fight back, a new voice said in her mind.
I CAN'T!
You can. I know you can. I feel it in you.
I DON'T CONSENT!
I'll help you, then. Help you fight.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!
I will, I promise. But I need to help you stop. I want you to control your body, Kennedy Teasdale. They didn't even ask your name, did they? They used you. I will not. I want you to fight. My name is Harry Potter, and I'll help you.
...
She didn't know what to think.
The memories... stopped.
There were more, hundreds of them. One man after another, some days, using her in a chain or altogether, or making her touch herself while they used her cell-mate, or the girls across the hall, or...
No. Don't focus on that, the voice said, I have stopped seeing, but you don't need to, Kennedy. I'll help you. Your body is yours. I know it feels good- too good- to resist, even if you hate it. But you can do it. Just remember who is really in charge. Your silly body that thinks it enjoys what they did to you, that wants to do what it's told? Or you, Kennedy Teasdale, the strong young woman who has survived the worst humanity can do it itself? I believe you can stop it.
Kennedy Teasdale blinked.
The memory, frozen in place with one of the evil, evil men about to climax inside her again while another groped her breasts, wavered. Then, like shards of broken glass, it was gone.
There was only gray, and that same handsome, green-eyed man or boy a few years younger than herself. "I'm sorry," he said, "I've got to perform one spell on you. I won't without your consent, though, Kennedy. It's a healing charm... it'll also help you sleep for a few hours while we get you some medical attention. When you wake up, you'll be in a safe place. Is it alright if I do that charm?"
"Who... who are you?" she whispered.
He grinned in a sad, almost ironic way, "I've gotten too used to people just knowing. But like I said before, I'm Harry Potter, and I'm here to rescue you."
She swallowed. "Aren't you... well, a little short- er, young- to be rescuing people?"
"Maybe," he shrugged with a disarming grin, "but I'm here, and I'm not alone. So, Kennedy Teasdale, let me ask again. Do I have your consent to cast one, and just one, spell on you? And to get you to a safe place, to medical care?"
She swallowed, then, not even sure why, except that she trusted him, and the memories had just stopped, she nodded., "Y- Yes. I consent."
"Brilliant. Open your eyes, Kennedy."
She blinked, not sure why they were even closed, or when she had closed them and-
The cell. Men.
Harry Potter, his stick pointed at her. "Somnus."
Then her world went gray once more. This time, at least, the memories did not start playing again the moment she fell asleep.
Harry looked up to see Kingsley and Mad-Eye watching him carefully as the woman collapsed into the waiting spell of Bronson, who looked mortified.
"Well done, Potter," Moody murmured, "How're you holding up? Shack and I can do the rest if you-"
"No," Harry interrupted, as he took a single, shaky breath. Lilith was there, now, Ron beside her too. Hermione above, sleeping quietly. "No... I'll help. Maybe all three. I'm alright."
He had, after all, seen the darkness men could do to each other before. It was no stranger to him... and he was not alone. He would be alright. These women, though, needed all the help they could give.
He would not shy away.