The Curse of the Unicorn Blood
Thank You, to the Reviewers, as always, this one's for you.
P.s. Picture Captain Barboso spawns with Disney's Hades ;)
Chapter 15 - The Curse of the Unicorn
Weakness!
Voldemort sent another tumbler hurtling toward the wall, it shattered with a burray of twinkling shards winking in the firelight as they fell like rain onto the hardwood.
He could neither taste nor feel, he was cursed. He alone had survived to bear the true horrors of drinking unicorn blood, a prolonged life, at the cost of a cursed half life.
Well, so had Quirinus, but fuck him. Quirinus was a coward and about as powerful as a third year student and his suffering meant nothing. If it wasn't for his outlandish shows of loyalty, he wouldn't have qualified as a Death Eater.
But this damned curse, Voldemort had assumed that Philosopher's Stone, stolen so sweetly from Gringotts ensuring the death of the Flamels, would have helped him to restore his body, a healthy, untainted body.
He had been wrong, terribly misjudged the potions he had instructed Quirinus to feed him. It shouldn't have mattered that his soul was not whole, the Elixir of Life was meant to heal him, keep him sustained.
Yet the results of his fractured soul, his new body tainted somehow still by the unicorn blood, had not produced what he had intended. At times, he thought it would be better to be possessing someone, and that too was now lost to him, what he had…
The body was antonyms, and that was the best he could say about it.
His form was pale, humanoid -if noseless and hairless, but also lacked a certain physicality, that was to say, if he used too much of his magic, it would drain him. Drain not his energy stores of magic but his very life force. Leaving his body to join the dark robes that shrouded him, visible, opaque, but not solid. Misting at his feet, it could extend, he could reach the point of a shade, something crossed between a ghost and poltergeist. No-one would mistake him for a human. The benefit was that he required no food or drink save for the Elixir of Life to replenish his magic. The drastic down side was how limited his magic was, one casted spell could undo him.
He was that weak.
He threw another tumbler at the wall, the destruction doing little to soothe him.
He couldn't continue like this, he needed a human body to conquer the Wizarding World. He needed his magic.
"M'lord," Quirinus grovelled from the doorway, "The Daily Prophet."
Voldemort snatched it, his black robes following the movement like smoke from a banked fire.
His eyes scanned the headlines. Dumbledore's background was being scrutinized dominated the conversations, the result of both the Malfoys and the Potters' declaration against the fool.
Voldemort had been simultaneously pissed and relieved when that news had first broken. He couldn't risk reaching out to his Death Eaters who had not sought him out. If the Malfoys rebelled he wouldn't have had much defence against them. Yes, they would have wound up dead, eventually, but Voldemort didn't have the energy to spare nor would he risk being exposed to the Ministry.
Or more precisely, the Potters.
James and Lily Potter, who he had murdered, were the largest thorns in his side. His loyal people had fled the country because the Potters had left no stone unturned in those years after his fall. Spurred on by their ferocity, Aurors Shacklebolt, Bones, and the Longbottoms had covered everything in between.
Knockturn Alley was a decent part of the city now, if someone wanted to go to the Blackmarket they had to go to the Continent.
Only the courts retained some respectable corruption, but Ministry was all but ran by the Aurors Office, the Minister of Magic played second fiddle to Madame Bones.
It made Voldemort's take over all the more problematic.
As if it wasn't problematic enough already.
Insult to injury of having his spell backfire against a baby, was not only the orphan's damn parents inexplicably coming back to life, but the freaking baby had survived too.
Harry Potter.
No, not Harry Potter.
Harry Romanoff.
And as for the mystery to all of his disappeared Death Eaters, all the wizards and even the handful of witches he had sent after the Boy Who Lived over the years:
Natasha Romanoff.
Disappeared, because when they did return, they returned in body bags. Only his Bellatrix and Barty had survived Romanoff.
The damned assassin who had kidnapped the only boy with the power to defeat him.
Voldemort dropped the paper. "Does Crouch have any leads on the Romanoff woman?"
"No, Sir."
Voldemort picked up the bottle of liquor he had been trying to drink, that spilled down his tongue in a flavourless, pleasureless, effectless wash that had done nothing but make him crave life.
He threw it at the mantle.
He would get his body back, he would use the blood and death of the boy who damned him.
The Potters, the Romanoffs would suffer.
They would know death.
Peter had done a lot since becoming Spider-Man. Stealing Captain America's shield, fighting his first crush's father, going to space, getting zapped in and out of existence, and that whole thing in Europe.
In that time, Peter had certainly learned how to pull a punch, but he really hadn't trained a lot, per se, with regular humans in a circle with a bunch of rules.
So on the seventh time, Peter was thrown out of the circle with his own momentum, he growled, "In a real fight, Romanoff, I'd own you."
"In a real fight, Parker," Harry grinned back, "I'd have magicked you away by now."
"Assuming you could hit me," Peter said back, "but your just a little to-"
Harry foot swept him, and Peter used the momentum of his own fall to spring backwards from shoulder blades to elbows, landing upright on his feet -over the drawn circle.
He hung his head and Harry grinned at him, "Strength isn't everything."
"That's just because I'm holding back," he grumbled, which was and wasn't the truth. Just because he wasn't using his full strength didn't make up for all the hits Harry had got.
Harry Romanoff had some scary skills. He was a thinker and seemed to plot fifteen different sets of reactions that altered to the next plan the millisecond it took Peter to avoid one sequence. But, "If it wasn't for the stupid circle."
Natasha stepped in then, "Alright, little spider, let's see what you got. I might not be as invincible as Steve but I can still take a punch." She got in a stance, Harry yielding the field, and motioned Peter forward with a beckoning hand.
He was a hell of a lot less worried about accidentally hurting her than Harry. So he let himself go.
And quickly found himself on his butt. She had pulled the same move Harry had, just with more speed and strength.
Smiling, Peter threw himself into the sparring. Natasha dodged everything he threw at her except when she was using his own attacks to toss him around. She hadn't exactly beaten him, he wasn't in any way injured an hour later, but he hadn't been able to land anything on her whereas she had cupped his ears a few times. In a real fight, he would have used the trees, maybe grabbed her leg and broken it, or maybe even punch her face hard enough to make her drop.
But as with Harry, had it been a real fight, there would have been magic involved.
Heck, with Black Widow's reputation, there probably would have been hidden knives involved.
Knives that his senses probably would have let him avoid. Probably.
Hagrid wasn't at all pleased to see them.
No big surprise really. If there was ever a Dumbledore's Man, it would be Rubeus Hagrid.
However, the half giant, being who he was, still invited Lily, James, Sirius, and Nymphadora in for tea.
Sirius, being a good uncle/second-cousin, didn't let his niece eat one of the scones.
"What do you lot want?" Hagrid asked gruffly, "I ain't done nothing for Aurors to be knocking on my door, nor has Dumbledore for that matter."
His glare was impressive, James thought, but only Nymphadora shifted in her seat. Sirius was a bit touched, and with all the shit James and Lily had been through, well, they probably wouldn't have blinked first if it were a full-blooded giant scowling at them.
"We are here about the events concerning your expulsion, all those years ago. As we've come to understand it, you were expelled, your wand broken, but you were never formally charged with a crime. Despite a young lady's death, the courts treated it as an in house fix, resolved at Hogwarts."
Hagrid stiffened but looked away in what could have been shame or sorrow, perhaps both, "The spiders are dead, if you are asking about the Acromantula in the forest."
"No, we're here abou-"
"Wait," Nymphadora interrupted James, "You mean to tell me that you were expelled from the school for breeding illegal spiders in a school that a student presumed dead because of said spiders, and then you continued to breed them in the forest?"
And that was the reason the girl was going to make a great Auror, if she could survive Sirius, or at least, survive without murdering Sirius.
"I wasn't breedin' 'em when I was in school," Hagrid said hotly, "And Aragog didn't kill nobody. He didn't kill Myrtle. Dumbledore believed me."
It was Nymphadora's turn to stiffen, "Albus Dumbledore is not the law."
"I didn't do nothin' wrong."
Then Sirius asked the important question, "What happened to the spiders?"
"They were murdered."
"By who?"
"The centaurs won't tell me, though they saw it."
James didn't know for sure, but for some reason, if he had to guess…
Lily met his gaze.
Natasha Romanoff.
"Hagrid," James redirected, "We aren't here about the spiders. Though, if you could just restate that Aragog, the only Acromantula you had at the time, did not harm or terrorize any student in 1942 to 1943, please?"
"Aragog didn't do nothin' to no one," Hagrid ground out, clearly furious, "No one even knew about him except Tom."
"Tom who?" James asked.
"Tom Riddle."
"And what was your relationship to Mr. Riddle."
"Well, he was a prefect, wasn't he. Slytherin student, popular. He was top of his year in every subject and he was handsome, but he was nosy. And he was mean when there was no one around to see," Hagrid went on, his anger leaving him as he got lost in his memories. "People followed him around, they were meaner. They did bad things, that's when Slytherins went bad in my book. It wasn't You-Know-Who, it was Tom. Tom who had everyone wrapped around his fingers and let others take the fall for his ideas. Dumbledore saw threw him though. Tom couldn't pull no wool over his eyes."
"Do you think it was Mr. Riddle who was responsible for Ms. Warren's death?" Lily asked.
Shock swept over Hagrid's face, as if as 'bad' as this Tom was, Hagrid just didn't have it in him to believe a student would kill another student, "No, no. Tom woul…" He shook his head, "No, Tom wouldn't do nothing like that. He was the shining star of Hogwarts. I didn't like him, he wasn't a good person, but he wouldn't kill no one."
James found that distinctly unlikely, "Then how was Mr. Riddle a bad person? What did he do behind the professors' backs?"
"Well, he was manipulative, wasn't he? He was part of the Slug Club, always chatting up the teachers, but he spent a lot of time in the restricted section of the library and was always sticking his nose in other people's business, skulking around the castle at all hours. He never got in any trouble being out past hours. He was such, such a busy body."
"What sort of things did his friends do?" James asked, ignoring Lily's wince about the Slug Club. She might have been friends with Snape, but she hadn't liked those parties much.
"They pick on other students, especially the younger years and muggleborns. Some were even into the Dark Arts, like I told ya, right around Tom is when the Slytherins went bad."
"Did Mr. Riddle practice the Dark Arts?" James asked.
"He was the very best in Defense Against the Dark Arts, I know that. The last time I can recall seeing him was after he graduated, he came back to the school to apply for the DADA position, Dumbledore told him no. But never heard of Tom practising the Dark Arts, it would just be sort of queer if all his friends did and he didn't, him being their leader in all. But like I said, he never got caught doing nothing wrong."
"You said he spent time in the restricted section," Lily pointed out.
Hagrid waved that away, "He had permission. Tom always had permission to do whatever he wanted. Everybody liked Tom."
"But not you," James pressed, thinking that as far as interrogations went, Hagrid was more talkative than a culprit doped up on truth serum.
"Course not me, he got me expelled didn't he?"
Lily gently tapped the table with two fingers twice, confirming to James and Sirius this is what she knew from her trip in the living diary.
"How exactly did Mr. Riddle get you expelled?" James asked.
"Well, rumours were going on about Salazar's Chamber of Secrets being opened."
James scratched his chin, in a silent motion saying to his wife, Jeez, Lils, that was one hell of a guess.
Her face stayed stoic, but the corner of her mouth tugged up in the slightest of smirks, I know.
Hagrid continued, unaware that he was being interrogated in a murder investigation. "And Myrtle, poor Ravenclaw girl, got bullied something terrible, they used to call her Moaning Myrtle, because she wailed so much when people went after her. But after she died everyone thought they were going to have to shut down the school until they found a cause for her death. Which they said was my friend but it wasn't him."
"And do you know how she died?" James asked.
"In the girl's lavatory on the second floor, no one knows how, she just dropped dead."
James frowned, "No spider bites, no wounds, no signs of any weapons, magical or otherwise?"
"Nope, nothin', she just dropped dead."
"So why wasn't it assumed someone had used the Killing Curse on her?" Sirius asked.
"Well, because she didn't remember, did she?"
They all blinked at him.
"She died, right?" Nymphadora asked, "She is currently dead, correct?"
"She's currently a ghost," Hagrid informed them.
James would have groaned aloud, how was that not in Warren's file?
"I think she got a ghostly restraining order on her too because she nearly pestered one of her bullies to death."
"But she doesn't remember how she died?" James asked, once more wondering about the girl's file.
"Nope, she just dropped dead."
"Again," Sirius asked, "how is that not the work of the Killing Curse?"
Hagrid shrugged, "I don't know, I just know that Dumbledore kept me from going to jail or being homeless and Tom got a ruddy trophy, 'Special Award for Services to the School.'" He sounded half bitter, half tired.
"And by turning you in, Mr. Riddle kept the school open and the whole incident was hushed, which is what allowed you to stay on the grounds," James concluded.
Hagrid nodded sadly.
They left shortly afterwards.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Sirius exploded, "This is why nobody likes Aurors! Where the hell was the investigation!?"
"Hagrid shouldn't have been expelled," James agreed.
"Yeah, or allowed to breed spiders," Nymphadora added.
"I think Slytherin's monster is a Basilisk," Lily said.
They all stopped dead in their tracks, and looked at her.
Nymphadora's hair turned green, "What?"
"I had a weird dream, and if I remember from classes, Basilisks have the ability to kill with a glance."
Her dream where Harry killed a giant snake. James suddenly felt cold, the thought of a child, much less his son, going up against an abomination like that. That wasn't a snake, that was a wingless, poisonous dragon with the sight of death.
"We can interrogate Ms. Warren when we visit Harry over the weekend."
Sirius laughed abruptly, all their gaze flew to him.
"What?" Nymphadora asked, "How is this funny?"
"My parents," he said between barks, "my parents would have just loved to know that their precious Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets was hidden in the girl's bathroom."
"So, how are you liking Hogwarts?" Peter asked, Natasha having retreated somewhere.
It was a large apartment but not that large, it bothered him that he couldn't always tell when she was in or out of the apartment. It was unnerving and made him doubt his senses. The worst was not knowing how she did it, people made noise, it was what people did.
MJ shrugged, "It's fine."
"Do you like having magic."
"Sure."
He frowned, "Okay, I honestly can't tell if you like it or hate it."
"It's fine," she repeated, opening her book.
"MJ…" he pried, "It-"
She slammed the book shut, "It's amazing, alright, is freaking amazing. I'm in a damned storybook where I have magical powers that seem to be only limited by my imagination, study, and practice. It's the ultimate escapism, but it's real. Magic is real. And I'm magic, not some random science, not some experiment or mutant thing, just magic, and there exists dragons and horses with wings."
"But?"
"But," she growled, "But I lost everything. My family, my old life, our friends, there gone. It's like being trapped in a Disney movie where awful things have to happen so the main character can be on their own in order to be gifted."
He reached for her hand, "I know and-"
She jerked away from him, pulling her knees up, "No. No, you don't know, Parker, you don't get it. I'm happy and they're gone. They must think that something terrible happened to me and… what possible right do I have to be happy here? Happy being magical, when, by the way, half the magical world doesn't like me because my parents weren't magical?"
"I understand-"
"How could you possibly understand?" she snapped, hugging her knees tightly to her.
"Because about the time I got bit by a spider and got my powers, my uncle died and it was completely my fault."
She stilled, and blinked at him, "You think you killed your uncle?"
"Uncle Ben was the best, the absolute best, I didn't know my parents much, he and Aunt May raised me. And Uncle Ben, there was a robber, a common criminal, I don't even think the guy meant to shoot, but he had a gun and he shot my uncle. If I hadn't been running around doing whatever it was I thought I was doing, had I been there, been home where I was supposed to be, then Uncle Ben wouldn't be dead. If I didn't have this stupid, incredible powers, he wouldn't have died."
MJ uncurled around her book, and scooted toward him, saying firmly, "You didn't kill him, it wasn't your fault."
He smiled sadly at her, "Logically, I hear you, Aunt May said the same thing. But I still feel…" He couldn't finish, guilty was an adequate enough word for what he felt.
She hugged him, "I know."
He held onto her and closed his eyes, burying his face in her hair.
What felt like hours later might have been minutes, Natasha came around the couch to drape a blanket over them both.
Peter opened his eyes as she lowered the lights. He mouthed at her, How long have you been here?
Natasha merely smiled at him, kissed his head, and ruffled his hair, just like Aunt May had a tendency to do.
Peter stretched his legs out when Natasha moved the textbook, and MJ readjusted in her sleep.
It probably shouldn't have pleased him so much that she snored a little in her sleep. But it did, and he was happier for having MJ in his life, even if they had unwillingly been made to abandon their loved ones in another universe, in another time.
Whatever happened, they still had each other.
MJ performed the spell to perfection, Harry performed the spell to a maddening level of imagination and power.
MJ's desk was a smooth mirror of ice, Harry's half of the classroom -assisted by a half-quarter tilt of his staff, had turned into a winter wonderland.
"Very good, Mr. Romanoff," Professor Flitwick grinned, "Now undo it and perform the spell on your desk."
A backward half-quarter turn, and the ice melted away in a rapidly dispersing mist as if time where rewinding. And then Harry smoothed his hand over his desk, so like MJ's, it was a mirrored surface of frozen liquid.
Hermione glared at them both, then back down at her desk where a rippling fount of ice had spread from her wand. She sighed, then started pestering Harry and MJ on technique, Padma winking at Harry.
Hermione was finally coming around.
oOo
Harry was walking with Padma and Hermione back to their dorm when a streak of blonde curls, bumble-bee yellow launched herself at him.
Had it been anyone else he would have resented them like hell for catching him off guard.
But it was Luna, and Harry found it damn near impossible to resent Luna Lovegood.
She looked up at him with large luminous eyes and smiled.
"You found my shoes," she whispered to him in awe.
He hugged her, "I told you I would. Come on, we have to get in before curfew."
With an arm around her shoulders, they entered the dorm, Hermione having already answered the password.
Padma smiled at them, and said in a low voice, "I feel sort of bad Cho got some of the spiders, but she should have better taste in friends."
"Agreed," Harry said emphatically.
"Spiders?" Luna asked frowning, then it dawned on her, "You didn't have to do that for me, Harry."
Harry gave her a little squeeze, "Yeah, I did, nobody messes with my friends."
Her eyes went impossibly wider, "We're friends?"
He nodded, "Of course we are."
She let a sound between a dolphin squeak and seal honk, and made it sound adorable before hugging him, hugging Padma then bolting up the stairs to her room.
Padma laughed, gave Harry hug, their first, before departing almost as quickly as Luna.
But Hermione remained, frowning at him.
"What?" he asked her.
"Why didn't you ask Luna to the Yule Ball? You obviously like her better than Padma," Hermione said with a straightforwardness, that was less a lack of tack and more a burning curiosity for clarity.
Harry sighed, the blunt answer was because he would never want to take advantage of Luna, and though he liked her, he didn't… well, he had a lot of, um, dreams, one would say, of inky silky hair and darkest brown eyes. He did not, nor did he want to, think of Luna like that.
Luna was like a child, like a sister, and Harry wanted nothing from her but a smile.
"Why did accept Viktor Krum's invite if you spend more time with me?" Harry asked.
She frowned at him, "That's different, you and I are just friends, classmates."
"Exactly," he said before turning toward his own room, "Goodnight, Hermione."
"Night, Romanoff."
And Harry wasn't really sure that he would have counted the brilliant young woman among his friends.
"Crap! How!? How do you keep doing that!?" Peter exclaimed one morning.
Harry grinned, "Got to follow the rules, Parker."
Peter scuffed his feet, "Real fights aren't restrained to a stupid circle."
"Yeah, but there are a ton of fights that you are going to be restrained to small spaces, or in your world, the tops of trucks, buildings, spaceships-"
"Yeah, yeah," Peter said, taking a stance, and waving Harry forward.
Harry grinned, and two minutes later Peter was doing a spectacular amount of flailing to stay within the lines. But Peter was flexible because of instincts and superpowers, Harry had been brought up learning how to use flexibility as a key weapon, and got Peters feet off balance so he landed in a split over the line.
"Come on!"
Harry laughed, flexibility, the one thing just about anyone could improve. There was always a limit to strength and speed, but flexibility, if you worked at it hard enough, long enough anyone could improve.
"Alright," Mom called it, "Harry needs to get to class, and Peter I have some drills for you that you need to run through. Go do another warm up round, I want you sweating by the time you make it back here."
He saluted her and took off at a speed that Harry thought was drastically unfair.
"Harry," Mom called, "We need to talk."
He turned to her, not exactly worried, but not exactly not worried either. "What did I do?"
She sighed, "Nothing."
They began to walk slowly back toward the castle grounds.
He didn't say anything, knowing she would speak only when she had her words gathered.
"You do not have to keep training with Peter."
He couldn't keep the disappointment off his face, he liked working out with the Spider-Man. He might have called Luna a friend, and he really liked Padma, but he had never been able to be… to be himself around anyone but Peter and MJ. And Peter was his first work out partner he didn't have to hold back with.
"You think he'll hurt me," he said, defeated.
"No," she said, "I think his supernatural senses help tell him how much to hold back from doing permit damage. And you're both just sparing. Peter has been in enough real fights that I think his control will only continue to grow. I'll be the one sparring with him if he needs to be pushed."
"By 'push' you mean attacking him with magic, don't you?"
Her smile was beautiful as it was dangerous, but then she sobered, "But no, it isn't your safety so much I'm worried about. It's… it's this life style. From all signs, I really doubt aliens are going to invade this Earth, but the type of training Peter needs… you don't."
He stopped, "You don't think I need it? Have you seen these people? The magical world is nuts. How could I not need training?"
She stopped as well, "I'm never going to let you give up training, not so long as you are living with me. But you do have a choice on the more extreme… on…" She sighed, running a hand through her red hair, "Being an Avenger is a lifestyle. Always being ready, always… The Avengers don't exist in this world, they don't need to, but the training you've been on for the last week is the training of a soldier, a spy, or an assassin. You aren't that, Harry, not yet. And you're old enough to decide, or even young enough to wait to decide, if that is the lifestyle you want to pursue. Because no matter what type of career you choose, this training will change you, the way you view the world around you."
Understanding washed over him and he was reminded for the hundredth-thousandth time how lucky he was to be her son.
Because in any other reality, he would never have been given that choice. And not the choice of upping his training, but because of the war he had been born to, been born centre of, he had always been destined to be a soldier, or been destined to be murdered. People had been after him for years, very, very few people could have protected him through all that Black Widow had protected him from.
And protected him in such a way that if he wanted to abandon all physical activity and become a shut in academic, he could have been. It was only his desire to be like her, even in part, that he had pursued Martial Arts and sports as much as he had. She had never forced him to do those things, just started him early, which honestly gave him more opportunities, not less.
"I want this," he stated, "besides, it isn't like I ever had normal supersafe childhood, I doubt my future will be different."
She glared, his mom would have burned down half of Europe if it would have kept him safe, "Don't consider those dunces in this decision. I should have kept you more remo-"
"You mean lie to me? Kept me sheltered? No, Mom, you did everything right."
She raised her brows, "Harry, you're birth parents are still alive."
"And that's great, but they died protecting me once, I died. You are the one who kept me alive."
"Yes, but if you decide this because of those fanatics, then I didn't save you, it means you're letting others' actions dictate your future. They win."
He shook his head, "You taught me how to defend myself, you kept me safe. But I'm tired of running. I like travelling, and I'll keep travelling when I choose, but I'm done being forced to leave."
"We were partially running away from your parents," she pointed out.
"Well, I don't want to run. I want to be able to do more than defend myself, I want to be able to defend other people. It is the Death Eaters now, and I am their target, but once they're gone, there will be others and they might not be after me but someone else. Someone else who probably doesn't have a superhero raising them. I still want to be able to defeat the next 'great evil.'" He opened his palms, "I want to be a protector."
She smiled and blinked fast to keep her eyes from tearing, "Like Clint."
Exactly, like the stories of Clint he had grown up with.
"Like Hawkeye, like my cop parents, like you, Mom."
She shook her head, "Harry, I-"
"Saved the world, about a hundred times over, and you saved me. Teach me how to save others too. I know you worry about your past, but that was so long ago. Teach me the mistakes you made so I can make my own."
She pulled him into a hug, "I'm so proud of you."
He hugged her back tightly, "I love you."
Her arms tightened around him, and he knew the only reason she didn't say it back was because she was on the verge of tears.
AN: Thoughts, ideas, remarks, or orcas, I miss orcas, there needs to be more orcas, please?