I'm taking over you
The magic of Hogwarts hits his senses again only a few years later. This time, he can tell, there is more to be demanded from him than mere truths.
His little summoner is there. They are lying prone in a rune circle overlapping his. There is a bruise across their forehead and deep rings under their closed eyes.
He cannot cross over into the other circle. And neither can the child, even if they wake. They are trapped as he is.
Dominion settles his attention on the astonishingly rat-like creature outside of both circles, wringing his hands.
His chosen form towers over the puny human that is by now shaking like a leaf. Dominion lets the teeth in his mouth grow ever longer and sharper, making them gleam, before he opens his mouth in a wide smile.
His summoner continues to tremble, but lifts his arms imperiously.
“Dominion!” he squeaks. He clears his throat. “Dominion!” he says again in a much deeper register. Then he squints at a piece of paper hidden in his left hand.
“Dominion,” the overgrown rodent says a third time, “I demand your service. You must obey me until I release you!”
“Golly.” Dominion examines his nails, one by one popping them into claws. His senses are meanwhile fanning out into all corners of the room.
The child is alive and will wake up before long. The room they are in is barricaded with spells, but there is no doubt they are in the castle. The rune work surrounding him is surprisingly intricate and infuriatingly flawless.
And his summoner reeks of fear and greed.
This is the moment the child wakes. They don’t stir, but their breathing pattern speeds up slightly, goosebumps rising on their skin. The aroma of fear intensifies in the room
His summoner clears his throat. “You are to possess this boy.” He points a quivering hand at the youth. “My master wants him alive, but pliable. Y-you can do that?”
Dominion grows some lips for the purpose of curling them.
“Give me a name and I can do whatever I want. Stick memories where they don’t belong or scramble them, scoop out a soul, teach cruelty and banish happiness. Do not insult me with your doubts.”
His summoner is rapidly paling.
“Ah. Well, good. D-don’t do any of that. My master just wants him to be a bit less stubborn, a bit more suggestible. But only to him!”
“Does your master have a name? If you want me to customize, I will need it.” Dominion lets the words drop from his lips like honey, sweet and gold.
The timorous turd is sadly not fooled and shakes the suggestion off.
“No, no, I thought about this. It’s enough if the boy knows who I mean.”
It is impossible to linger on his disappointment at this failed ruse for long-not when he is already assured of one name. He steps closer to the edge of his circle, unwilling to mask his hunger for longer. For once, the desires of his summoner and his own overlap.
“Let us begin, then.”
“We need to wake him up first,” his summoner says.
The child then rapidly gets to their feet, defiance in their every muscle. “No need,” they announce, facing their kidnapper directly.
His summoner flinches back but squares his shoulders a moment later. Still, at the unspoken reproach in their mien, he could not help but defend himself: “It won’t be so bad! My master is a generous man to those loyal to him. Your life will be better for it, really.”
The child’s eyes are chilling and full of wisdom, as they say: “It wouldn't be my life anymore.”
His summoner shakes his whole body in denial. The child presses further.
“I have to warn you. It won’t work. All this-it won’t end well for you.”
Dominion can feel his summoner’s resolve hardening at this implied threat.
“Ha! No, you just want to get away. This is a good plan. If I serve you to my master on a silver platter, I will be richly rewarded. This is a good plan,” he reiterates, bopping his head in time with his affirmations.
“His name is Rigel Black,” he blurts out. “Possess him, but do not hurt him and do as I commanded you.”
Their rune circles merge into one and as he rushes towards his victim, the child already closes their eyes to sink into their mind. If his hunger left any more space in him, he would appreciate their bravery.
He meets them at the edge of their mind, square shouldered and looking more like they had at their first meeting than they had since then. So young. The mist surrounding their mind curls around them, obscuring them partially from view.
“It won’t be as easy as you imagine,” they pronounce, and he believes them. The mists don’t respond to his urging, no matter how he whispers their owner's name to them.
His disappointment is only rivaled by his intrigue.
“You go by a false name? Color me curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat. Ever heard of it?”
He lets his avatar flash to the form of a black cat for a split second.
“It might not be as easy as it would with your name. Alas, I am a demon and you are a child. It will hardly be difficult to possess you. It might even make it more fun,” he muses.
Their eyes, the same eerie green from the past, turn flinty and determined. The mist billows like an ocean, heeding the call of the youth. They are swallowed from view and then there is just their voice echoing across:
“Come and get me, then.”