Dark Reflections

Harry put down his notebook, and reach down to examine his ankle. It looked swollen, but the pain relief potion had already kicked in, so he felt nothing. "Pain relief" was not an accurate word, as it basically cut down his whole pain sensation. Must have brewed too good, he look at the crucible and thought to himself. He was sitting on a carpet, circled by many vials, papers and junk. The room was a mess. Books scattered everywhere, lines of chalks that seemed like some sort of charms scribbled to the ceiling, fragments of glass and wood surrounded Harry. There was a small bed at the corner of the room, but it was so dusted that may be the owner had forgot about its existence.

Just when he was about to continue his writing, a small knock appeared outside the window. Harry turned around and saw an owl carrying a letter in its beak outside. He slowly got up, dragged his injured leg mindlessly on the floor to the bird. His hand reached the handle to open the window door to welcome it inside.

"Hello, little one. I have been waiting for you." He smiled.

The owl tilted his head curiously, like a curious audience waiting for this featherless creature to perform its trick.

He explained softly: "I'm sorry that I took so long to receive my letter. 'Been in a dungeon, just got out." Harry was genuinely surprised when he opened his room's door and found a pile of letters in the middle of his room. He wondered how did those little ones manage to stuff them in.

He petted its head a little bit. Perhaps it wasn't amused by his "tricks" very much, as it dropped the letter on the sill and flapped its wings to fly away. Harry look at his own hand and the empty space below it, feeling disappointed. Perhaps he really should have prepared some food for them...

Harry shook his head. He shouldn't be so desperated. Working to the bone to gain the approvals of people around him was already pathetic enough. Those were like a dark and embarrassing past he couldn't tell anyone. He really ought not to try to repeat that on owls.

Harry lowered his gaze to look at the envelope, closely observing it. So this is legendary letter, that all wizards of Britain had to receive. Dumbledore, Lucius, Barty, even father... They all had touched this piece of paper, went to the same school, sat on the same spot. It's everyone's starting point, no matter how their paths diverged in the future. It felt so light, compared to its thick history.

Mr H. Riddle
The second room on the second floor of the Malfoy manor.

It must be sent automatically to all the 11 years old children with magic in Britain. Because if they knew he was here, they had already found out about father. Or took notice of his last name. Not many could share the name Riddle though, especially when on paper it's about the adopted son of the Malfoy family who had a long history of serving the darkness. Now that he thought about it, his application must be Lucius's doing, as he himself recalled doing no such thing. He didn't know much about other school, or the admission procedures between every magic educational facilities, since people around him behaved like it's either Hogwarts or none at all. It was a good thing he received a Hogwarts letter, not from... what were they called again?

Harry poked the seal a bit, seemingly lost in thoughts. Draco must have received his letter before him, as Harry was occupied with his tasks in the dungeon. He must have gone to prepare already, because no matter how much Draco complained, he was excited. Harry wondered Lucius or Narcissa went with Draco, so he could ask the other to go with him. Draco would be surprised when he found out Harry was going to the same school with him though, because that boy has believed that Harry was some sort of ghost in the Malfoy manor his whole life. Regardlessly, Harry couldn't blame him.

"Harry." Barty's voice came through the closed door, interrupted Harry's chain of thoughts.

"Yes?" Harry glanced at the direction of the sound, answered.

Barty continued: "The lord has summoned you."

Harry replied: "I'll be there in a minute."

Way to spoil the mood.

Five minutes after getting out of the dungeon, just when he was about to have some time for himself, dear father had to call for him.

Harry sighed. He used his hand to comb his hair a bit. He was a mess right now, with both his tattered clothes and battered body. To add more salt to the wounds, he only got some minutes to get himself ready, because who in their right mind would keep the dark lord waiting? The potion he drank earlier practically cut out his pain sensation, so he didn't notice one joint on his finger had become dislocated until he was about to wear gloves as the finishing touch to his excruciating clothes changing process.

"How nice." Harry muttered under his breath while looking at the purple swelling. He truly hoped that the meeting would be short. Shopping and resting asides, the pain reduce potion would soon wear off, because he didn't drink much since the whole purpose of consuming it was just to have some comfortable time to be able to brew the actual recovering potion. Once the pain emerged, it would be hell. He could already feel the tingling burning under his skin.

Gloves on, clothes changed, now there was only one thing left to do. Harry turned his eyes to a small vial on the table, almost buried in the books and herbs. He picked it up, and drank it all. Despite its disgusting flavor, he didn't even scrunch his face.

There was a secret rule. Whenever Harry left his room, he had to drink polyjuice to change his face to someone else. Truth be told, Harry drank people hair more than he drank water. Most of the time, he used Barty's. Sometimes Draco's. They both tasted terrible, if he had to say. His taste buds were completely destroyed after years of consuming it. Now he couldn't even distinguish between the concepts of good and bad flavor. But he was in no place to complain, because he was not the one at the risk of being bald. This particular rule was weird, it made his only friend think he's a ghost who took forms of people to materialised, but it had a valid reason nonetheless.

His original face resembled his father's mortal enemy. Father found it so despicable that he might accidentally kill him on the spot. If Harry wanted to live, do better.

The one emerged out of the room was not a skinny tiny boy, but a grown man with blonde hair and pale, freckled face. Barty, who was waiting outside the door, looked at his own appearance on another body with no surprise. "You use my face?" he asked. To be fair, he was familiar with this for too long to get weirded out by now. It was a rhetorical question.

"I like your level of vision." Harry replied anyways with a smile that was always there, so much that is getting harder to distinguish between a genuine and a fake one. Harry was getting better at concealing his emotions, however he's still an 11 years old. So Barty could read his irritation lying under the skin. He smirked: "Is that so?"

Harry followed Barty across the empty hall. They climbed the stairs to the highest chamber of the mansion. Once they arrived, Barty knocked on the dark oak door: "My Lord, I have brought Harry here."

A voice that sounded like travelling through a rusty pipe echoed: "Come in..."

Barty twisted the doorknob and pushed the door inside, revealed the room. It looked cozy, with fireplace and traditional decorations. The brocade carpet was filled with red wine patterns, and there were several pillows lying around. Harry secretly thought this place looked like it belongs to a grandma who was afraid of cold and had alzheimer. But it seemed like the owner disagreed.

At the middle of the room placed a big leather chair with its back facing the door. Harry walked forward, until his gaze fell on the... thing sitting on the chair.

He kneeled down on one leg and said tenderly: "Father, I have arrived."

Father looked hardly human, more like a pile of meat and hair, with limbs so thin that it seemed like skin wrapped around sticks. His face, despite being horrendous and bigger than his baby body, was the most normal thing, because it at least resembled a face of human. His eyelids were closed. But his pale lips parted to make way for his voice came out. "Hello, Harry."

"Yes, it's me." Harry didn't look away, nor express any sign of being disgusted. Rather than suppressing it, he was just too used to this form of his father. He did even think all the fathers in this world looked like this at some point. They were different, but he was taught to never ask. "How is your body?"

Father exhaled deeply. "It felt lighter than yesterday... I can't tell if that's a good sign or not. May be it's getting better, or may be my soul is slowly leaving this abhorrent body. The blood isn't helping anymore." His eyes cracked open, his gaze pointed at Harry sharply. "Say, Harry... Did you receive your letter?"

"Yes, father. It has just arrived." Harry kept his composure despite the obvious intimidation shooting at him. He pulled the letter out of his pocket, and placed it on his father's hand. The wrinkled, tiny fingers that looked like rotten bones wriggled to search the paper's surface, until they touched the seal.

"Yes... This is it..." He laughed breathlessly.

Father suddenly reached out to grasp Harry's hand, squeezed tightly around his fingers. Harry still kept a smile on his face, as if he felt nothing in that bone crushing hold. Barty could hear the cracking sounds, despite being at the corner of the room preparing some tea.

"Ah..." Harry thought to himself. "It wears off." His potion. He felt exactly what he was hearing. The pain of having his already broken bones crushed again. His smile become stiff for a second, before going back to its normal state.

"Harry... You will do as I said. Come to Hogwarts, and find me the philosopher's stone..." Father spoke, like two rusty metal pieces scrubbing. It was hard to tell whether he was angry or excited.

"Yes." Harry managed to find his voice back in time and replied. "I will do that for you, father." Then he changed his tone to something that can be called gentle. "But are you sure you don't want me to kill Henry Potter?"

Barty could felt the hair on his nape stood up abruptly. Father's hand frozed, stuck in the holding position like some sort of shackle. Harry paid it no mind, continued nonetheless: "I understand that finding the stone to restore your body to its prime is crucial. But I could spare some time along the way. Besides,..." Harry raised the free hand up to touch his father's hold in the other hand, stroked it a little. "It doesn't hurt to clean up beforehand, now does it? Your resurrection should be spotless."

As his face became a provocative topic, Henry Potter, the boy-who-lived, father's nemesis, was the real trigger. Barty cursed under his breath. No matter what state the dark lord was in now, he's still the dark lord. It would be a real pain, trying to save Harry from the grave he dug for himself.

Barty was a bit dramatic. While father hated everything about Henry Potter to his guts, he could still be reasonable. Not the kind of changing avada kedavra to crucio reasonable, but actual reasonable. Having followers begging for a chance to prove themselves is nothing strange for the Dark Lord. He found them irritating most of the time, because firstly, they questioned his decisions, and secondly, they were imbeciles who thought too high of themselves. They were either overvalued their ability to read his mind, or undervalued the mission. They were both bad signs anyway. And this body, he could call it abhorrent, but he would never forgive anyone implying the same, because sympathy were both an illusion and an insult. Flattering didn't help either, because no one understood the horror of this body more than him. Truth or lie were all meaningless. Even mentioning it might mean death at some moody day. But somehow Harry could do it differently. Their father-son relationship was nothing but a farce, yet Harry still behaved like a doting, caring child. No matter what forms you took, he would always look at you with eyes so tender that it could melt, asked you something simply for your own sakes, nothing else. "Do you want me to kill?", as if he could die for you, kill for you, even with the cost of his own life.

When others walking on thin ice around the Dark Lord, Harry danced. He stroked every dangerous fur on the beast king's body, yet never get shredded to pieces.

"No." Father answered briefly, and nothing can be seen through his monstrous blank face. "No need. Dumbledore has his tricks. I doubt that you can pull it off." Barty let out a quiet sigh of relief unconsciously.

Harry didn't pursue this topic, he giggled a little to brush it off: "If you had say so." Some meaningless words thrown in, and he had managed to calm his father down. The grasp eased significantly, and eventually let out of his numb, secretly swollen fingers.

There was a rather interesting thing going on between the dark lord and the boy who lived. Their fates tied with each other in the most mysterious way. It was not only Dumbledore that prevented Death Eaters from harming Henry Potter, but even the dark lord himself forbade it. Obviously not from the good intentions, but he was wary of the prophecy. Until he knew what it was, he chose to be defensive. Truth be told, the boy managed to defeat the dark lord when he was in diaper. Father refused to waste time and human resources on such a ridiculous crap until he found the strategies to deal with how fate favored that boy.

"As much as I want to spend time with you, father, I had to go to prepare for Hogwarts. I'm a bit late." Harry brushed the non-existent dusts on his father's tiny shoulder. "So if there's nothing left to discuss, perhaps tea for another time then?"

Father waved his hand to dismiss Harry. Yet just when he was about to step through the door, father's voice called him back.

"You will use your original face in Hogwarts." He said.

Harry turned back, smiled sweetly: "Yes, father." He bowed. "Now, if you excuse me."

The moment Harry left the room, the smile on his face disappeared as if it were never there. Now that his mood was soured completely, he didn't feel like going to ask Lucius or Narcissa to go with him anymore. Harry stayed still for some seconds, then walked back to his room. The hall was left empty again, with sounds of footsteps slowly getting far away and hazier.

___

"Master Lucius, it has already been the 13th owl. I'm getting really tired introducing those little fellas and only Merlin know when will you make up your mind." The shopkeeper exclaimed.

The man with silver hair, dressed in an elegant black rope, turned around. He looked mildly annoyed, yet still observed the owl in the cage carefully. "Not yet, the one for my son should be perfect."

The old shopkeeper complained: "I'm deeply touched by your affection for your son. But this is getting out of hand. They're all fine. Noone doing drugs or had criminal record. This one is a pureblood eagle owl, if that's what you are concerned about. Please, just pick one."

Lucius finally looked at the old man, he furrowed his eyebrows: "You could just give me the snowy owl and spare us all out of troubles."

"For the thousandth times, Master Lucius." The old man almost shouted out of helplessness. "I can't. Someone has already placed a reservation on it, and they could be here any minute."

Lucius didn't say anything at first. He just looked at the shopkeeper for quite a while. It made the man felt uneasy. Just when he was about to apologize for whatever it was, Lucius had opened his mouth: "Hm... Alright. How unthoughtful of me. You can go back to your counter and get your tea, while I... examine them a little further, then I'll bring the chosen one to you."

The man let out a sigh of relief: "Thank Merlin. Take your time, master Lucius." Then he ran away quickly, as if one second late then he would be dragged back to continue his owls introducing speech. Lucius, despite putting his hand on the cage, didn't look at the eagle owl at all. Instead, his gaze shot to the shopkeeper from the corner of his eye, watching the man gulping down a certain cup of tea.

The man suddenly choked, dropped his cup to the floor. The cup then was shattered to pieces, along with his intense coughing and gagging.

"Don't be dramatic." Lucius took his hand off the cage, then walked to the shopkeeper. "You won't die." He flipped the open sign to closed, pulled down the window curtain, and let the room filled with darkness. The man collapsed while holding his neck tightly, seemed to be in too much pain to even look at the culprit. He gagged, trying to get the liquid out, as if it's burning his throat.

After some minutes of loud breathing and groaning, the man slowly stopped. His pupils dilated, as the facial expression gradually became delirious. The state he was in now could be described as sleepwalking.

"The floor is cold." Lucius's face melted as he said. His whole body quickly shrank to the size of a small boy. Harry emerged out of the fluctuated images. "Stand up."

The shopkeeper quickly rose up on his feet as commanded. He looked at Harry with hazy gaze, like a puppet waiting for the strings to be pulled.

"Sell me the snowy owl." Harry opened his hand.

The man took the cage down and hand it to him. After that, he went back to his counter to prepare the legal documents. Harry hummed, he peeked through the veil to look at the pretty white owl, then placed her on the table. He then skipped his steps to the shopkeeper and jumped to the seat near him to look at his writing. He tilted his head to the side, blinking and smiling too innocently for someone who just poisoned an old man.

Harry closed his eyes, muttered: "You remember nothing about our encounter. You were just selling those pets like normal, and a young girl asked to buy the snowy owl. Her name is Jasmine, she's 11 years old. She's here not for her own owl but for a gift to someone dear to her. You forgot about the reservation, which is abnormal but your old age must have gotten into you. Either way, you sold it to her. That's all. Come up with details yourself in case someone asks. Create some fake evidences if you think it's necessary. Remember to clean the floor and open the shop back after I'm gone." It was a test, to see how far could he go with this. How obedient and competent the individual affected by this potion could be. Harry would have to pass by this shop again, to check on the man to see the result. Specifically, how spotlessly could crimes be carried on with this strategy. Would the victim here notice the abnormalities, or he would fool himself with things that Harry didn't even need to mention?

The shopkeeper didn't reply, but Harry knew he would obey absolutely.

Harry hadn't had his wand yet, so most of the time he relied on potions. Frankly he found it much more versatile than magic. There was only one spell that's capable of killing, yet there were many poisons could pull the same result. Perhaps the price here was the time it took to perform it, he supposed. Either way, he used a potion that had pretty much the same effect with the Imperius curse, except it attacked a more fundamental thing: the consciousness. Some people could resist Imperio, yet they couldn't fight against their own mind. Harry got its recipe some years ago, but since then he hadn't managed to brew a second vial, beside the sample its creator provided. Harry chuckled: "He would be so mad if he found out I used such precious thing to steal an owl." It was worth it though. The moment he laid eyes on her behind the sheet of glass, he had decided that she would belong to him. They were like fated for each other.

Quite romantic, if it wasn't about an 11 years old boy and an owl.

After that, he went into the shop to buy her. Too bad she was already owned, or reserved to be specific. So Harry had to pull some tricks. He managed to sneak the potion into the shopkeeper's cup of tea, and made him talk until his throat dried. After that, it was a piece of cake.

As the shopkeeper finished with paperwork, Harry put the galleons inside the counter's drawer. It was not from good intention though, but to create some evidence, as if the Jasmine's purchase actually happened. Harry jumped out of his seat, walking towards the door. He brought the cage with him then left with a smile: "It's my pleasure working with you."

When he got outside, he quickly blended into the crowd, and soon disappeared. At a small alley where the darkness ruled even in the middle of the day, Harry opened the curtain on the cage. "Hello." He said. As he thought, she was really pretty. Only male snowy owls were completely white, the females one had more brown and black features. But she was white from head to claws. She must be albino. Harry chuckled: "An albino snowy owl. Nature is strange, right? For creating you and me."

He brought his hand up to open the cage. She was quite a free soul, as she quickly jumped out of it to stand on his arm. Harry placed the cage on the ground and was about to touch her when he noticed the glove. He stopped and use his mouth to take it off, then continued to pet her. She rubbed her head against his purple swollen joints, as if she was asking if he were alright. Harry chuckled: "I'm fine."

After the meeting with father, he was a little too irritated. So instead of healing his body, he gulped down more pain killer, and went to Diagon Alley anyway to get wasted, whatever that meant. A child wandering alone in the street might attracted unnecessary attention, so he used Lucius's appearance. He did have Narcissa's hair, but pretending to be female might be much more difficult, because Harry knew nothing about women's etiquette or Narcissa's circle. It would be a real pain coming across someone on the street while acting strangely. On the other hand, Lucius's circle contained mostly people who already knew about Harry. Even if he got caught, there was no actual threat. Another advantage was that, Lucius was pretty consistent. He acted like an arrogant aristocrat towards everyone, including Harry. That made it easier for Harry to impersonate him, as he had learned enough on normal days.

"Hedwig." Harry smiled. "Your name will be Hedwig. It's a name I had read about a long time ago. Can't remember where though. It meant 'war'. Because when you become my familiar, your life has bound with mine. What awaits you is anything but peace. Our daily life is an all-out war. If we win, we'll live for another day. If we lose, we'll get salvation."

Harry might not admit it, but he was truly desperated. He had thought about having a familiar for a long time like a child wanting to adopt a puppy. Only at some moments like that he acted more like his age. Harry chuckled upon recalling his past feelings. Now that his dream had come true, he smiled with his new friend: "Asides from what other owls do, like delivering letters and companionship, I only ask one thing from you. Not fighting, because I'm your master. I have the responsibility to protect and take care of you as long as I live and breathe." Harry's gaze soften. "I only need you to do one thing."

He bowed down a little, to let his head and hers touch each other. "Remember me, okay?"

Even if you no longer had your eyes, you would find my bones in the soil.

Even if you no longer had your wings, you would bring my ash to the sky.

Even if you died one day, your soul would find its way to mine.