Hogwarts, Mildly On Fire
Blearily, Harry feels his eyes open, tall trees overhead.
Blinking a few times, he rolls himself up to a sitting position, pushing his hair out of his face. He stares at his hand, crusted mayonnaise staring back.
Glasses not on, he squints at his surroundings, a black and yellow blob in front of him.
“Draco?”
Harry tries to get up to nudge the boy awake, only for a blaring pain in his head to stop him.
…And the heavy weight accessorizing his body.
Harry Potter is wearing a wedding dress. A wedding dress. There is a wedding ring on his hand. Specifically, a wedding ring from that one weird cannibal ancestor from the Black family.
Good omens.
Nausea fills him, and it’s not from the weird circumstances he’s found himself in.
“Oh god… what did I do?” He mutters out a few swears before hollering out the word “Malfoy” at the top of his lungs.
Draco wakes up with his hands covering his ears, the two donning twin expressions of pain and sick.
“What? What?!”
Draco sits up as well, slurping the vomit back down his throat.
Draco, dressed in a suit. Harry, in a muggle wedding dress.
Oh no, Harry Potter is going to be a divorcee at age sixteen.
His mother would be so disappointed in him, and he doesn’t mean the asian one.
Their surroundings are quiet, only faint cricket buzzing. Only now does Harry realize Draco is covered in silly string.
A toilet seat strung on the branch above crashlands on the blonde, a loud crack sound resounding.
Severely hungover, Draco stares off into the distance with no soul behind his eyes.
“I think I have a problem.”
Admitting it is always the first step.
The sprinklers in the unknown yard turn on.
—
Flames eat up the halls, Hogwarts in an uproar.
The main hallway ceiling is caved in. It seems that Voldemort had made his move. Death Eaters roam the castle playing boogeyman.
Hedwig is riding along top of a panicked Snape.
“Where is that blasted boy? Of course he disappears right now of all times..”
Harry is nowhere to be seen.
Snape pushes his way through the students, yelling that they’re running in the wrong damn direction.
Rounding the corner, students have gathered in a huddle, each taking turns to toss their schoolbooks into the never-ending flames. He spots his own class textbook.
Snape stares, the students that Hedwig had influenced stare back.
The students run. It is still in the wrong direction.
It takes four minutes to make it to the top, a vein dangerously close to popping out of Snape’s forehead. Whether that be from Hedwig riding on him, the building on fire, or the crisped books, it is unknown.
How the Death Eaters got into the school? Also unknown.
(Drunkenly, Draco followed an instruction manual given to him by three elves in a trench coat earlier this year.
Out of it, he perceived this as a completely normal wizard helping him play around with interesting magical tools.
The completion was taken over by a student Tom has finally managed to mark. Recruitment has been hard lately.
Tilla hoped that her master, Lord Voldemort, knew what he was doing.)
Hedwig takes to the air, the lanky potions master deciding that he may as well follow her. If she wanted to trap and torture him today, she would have already done so. Probably.
She makes it to the top of the Astronomy tower, accidentally finding what she’s been searching for.
(She only came up to here to see how much of the castle was on fire.)
In front of her is the scene of Sirius clung to Voldemorts pant leg, him attempting to kick the tall dog off.
When was the last time Sirius washed his fur? Hedwig spots an old and melted M&M stuck to his tail. Hey, she did that!
They do a little dance in a circle, Tom’s long toenails missing Sirius’ eyes by a centimeter with each spin. How harmonious of them.
“Seriously?” Snape’s disgruntled rumbling alerts the only one here with good hearing, the mutt.
Sirius unclings, abashed.
Snape backs away, out of sight and out of mind.
“Ah, Hedwig, how great of you to make it on time.”
Dumbledore strokes his half burnt, formerly majestic beard. It seems that Voldemort himself has come to the castle in an attempt to off the old man.
An awkward silence ensues, no one sure of what to do next.
Ollivander is in his portable cage next to Voldemort, protective goggles on.
“Tom, I can’t believe you would go to these lengths.” He gestures not at the burning castle around them, and not at the man shoved into a cage, but the green nail polish Tom wears.
“Don’t act like you care now, you old fool.”
“Tom…” he trails off, a memory of young Tom declining his offer of homemade chocolate chip cookies in favor of world domination.
“I’m sorry my cookies weren’t good enough.”
Tom shakes his head, knowing that nothing Dumbledore could’ve ever done would have made him give up his dream. He is the man who conquered death.
(Sixteen year old Tom walks through Hogwarts, eyes filled with detestation for those around him.
It’s been a week since he made his first horcrux.
“Mr. Riddle.”
Tom turns around to the call of Albus Dumbledore, internally seething. This man never eases with his suspicions, always there at every turn to belittle Tom.
Tom is sick of him. He knows, he has to know. But, he must not have any proof that the murder was the fault of his own.
“I hope you realize that we always reap the consequences of our actions, Mr. Riddle.”
Tom clenches his teeth so hard that he feels a molar crack. He will brutally murder this man one day, banishing him to the afterlife where he will no longer eye him with such derision.
His gaze will taint him no longer.
The future Dark Lord manages a polite nod before walking away.
Dumbledore watches him leave, hands behind his back.
A lemon drop falls.
How sad that young Tom will never know the joy of lemon drops. He pities the poor boy.
Hopefully Tom gets some sugar elsewhere, he would hate for him to get worse. He’s been so down and lethargic as of late, so shaky, a very visible sign of low blood sugar.)
(Hedwig realizes that there are two wildly different perceptions going on here.)
Dumbledore aims his wand at Tom, a curse firing off the tip of it.
Sirius and Hedwig look at each other. A plan of mutual idiocy is formed.
Voldemort swerves away from a spell last second while dodging Hedwig’s fire claws. She lures him away from Dumbledore, Sirius tripping him. Sirius lifts his leg.
From the ground, he stares up at the yellow stream. Why is the urine thick like honey?!
Tom, confused and stinking, still fires amidst the chaos. Dumbledore never stopped.
Ollivander is hit.
“NO! Oli!”
Tom is in utter despair, grief already beginning to drop out of his overly long nostrils. A mysterious magic emates from the now dead body, revealing the secret that Tom clearly practiced unknown magic on Ollivander, the poor guinea pig.
May he rest in piece… peace.
Tom whips his head back up. “You,” he snarls in a tone that makes Hedwig wonder if she herself could get this voice out of him again.
They juggle spells back and forth, untested and unfamiliar magic being used. For the first time in Tom’s life, he feels remorse. His precious Ollivander…
(It’s like watching two toddlers fight for the last piece of candy.)
On accident, Hedwig summons the elder wand. Sirius stares. Voldemort stares.
From the background, Snape stares.
One Avada Kedavra later, the old man is gone.
As Dumbledore disappears into the depths below, he faces a minor conundrum.
Splatting on the ground, his body is mushy, but he does not die.
“Oh dear, it seems I’ve created a horcrux.”