Memoirs of a Serpent's Son

Memoirs of a Serpent’s Son

--Age 17—part 19

December 1

I woke early the next morning. We all did. Breakfast was taken in silence and we prepared quickly. We met in the sitting room before we left to discuss the last details.

Tonks and Shacklebolt had apparently taken Lupin’s memories of Godric’s Hollow in order to Apparate us all there more quickly. The chains were to be kept on Wormtail at all times, along with two wands trained on him. He wasn’t able to Apparate on his own as he could not be trusted and the shackles wouldn’t allow it.

“Draco, you stay here with Harry,” Tonks arranged. “We’ll take Ron and Hermione. Then come back for Pettigrew and then take you two. Ron and Hermione can cover Wormtail while we come back for you. Alright?”

Harry made a face at having to leave last again, but nodded anyway. I nodded to my… cousin… and off they went with soft pops into the air.

I stared at the shaking figure of Peter Pettigrew as he cowered, bound and broken on the sofa. Harry was glaring at him but his face was softer than it had been the first time we had spoken with him.

They came back and took Pettigrew.

“Why are you taking me with you?” I asked quickly, needing to understand. Harry looked at me for a moment.

“Because we need you,” he whispered back. It looked as though he was about to add something when Tonks and Shacklebolt returned and each took us to Apparate to the location.

Within moments and after a rather uncomfortable ride, we appeared in the correct place… and I looked around with my mouth slightly open.

It was beautiful. We were standing in a clearing, a few hundred feet from a roadway. The trees spun out of the ground in grand arching boughs and even without leaves seemed full of life and comfort. It hadn’t snowed yet, but the branches and trunks were glistening with a fitting December frost. My eyes roved over the cobbled path on which we stood, following it all the way up to the house that was once inhabited by the Potters.

It was… It must once have been beautiful.

Parts of the house were destroyed. The walls were cracked and spreading. The roof had given in over parts of the second floor and some of the walls had buckled under whatever pressure forced in the roof. The bottom floor was surprisingly well preserved, had it not been for the cracks in the windows, or the windows that had no glass at all. The front door was hanging crooked on its hinges and the front porch was covered in dead leaves that glistened much in the way that the tree trunks did.

There were broken black iron lanterns hanging outside the doorway and the steps up the porch were broken in certain places, the wood having moulded over time and weather.

The trees surrounded the house in an unfinished circle and closely hugged the perimeter of the structure, creating what must have been a strong sense of privacy and protection. It was as though nature had given it’s all to protect this house and shield it from unwelcome eyes.

Something I noticed, more than anything else, was that this house gave off a strong impression of life and warmth and comfort. It radiated with wholeness and joy… something that I’ve never experienced before in a house… or anywhere really.

It was such a strong contrast to Snape’s place, though both were dilapidated and old.

“Alright, Harry,” Shacklebolt began as we all had arrived. His wand was trained on Wormtail. “You and your friends can go in. We’ve investigated the area and found it to be safe. We’ll wait out here and keep an eye out for muggles or unwelcome guests. We’ll keep Pettigrew as well.”

“Why aren’t you coming in?” he asked them.

“Remus insisted that we were only to go in if you required our help,” Tonks explained. “If there is any sign of danger, or if you feel at all uncomfortable, just call for us and we will rush in immediately.”

“Alright,” Harry nodded, looking to Weasel, Granger and then finally to me. He gestured for us to move and began to walk towards the house that used to be his home. I followed him closely, glancing around myself as we went.

I think I might be a bit paranoid at this point, but I find it a kind of comfort to know that when I look over my shoulder there won’t be anyone there that I don’t wish to see.

We stepped carefully towards the entrance. Harry hesitated before putting his hand on the handle and pushing the door open. The entrance hallway was dark, though there was a stream of light filtering in from somewhere in the ceiling. I imagine it was from a crack in the second level floor from the collapse of the roof.

Harry hesitated again, took a deep breath and then crossed the threshold into his house. We followed cautiously and took in everything that we could around us.

There were pictures on the walls… a few. Those that hadn’t broken or been burnt to the point of no recognition, were pictures of the people that I took to be Lily and James Potter. It wasn’t hard to recognize them. James Potter looked exactly like Harry does… down to every last detail. Except… well it was hard for me to say from the picture, but I got the impression that James Potter had dark eyes…

Lily Potter had bright eyes. There was no way of mistaking that, even if the image was in black and white. Her eyes shone the same way that Harry’s do when he’s truly happy… I wish I’d see him look like that because of me.

I shook off the feeling and the thought as we pressed further into the house. Harry stopped at the stairs and tentatively put a foot down on the first step. It didn’t give or creak. He continued upstairs bit by bit, until he was about half-way up. He turned to us then.

“I’m… going back up to…my room,” he explained quietly, something pulling in his throat as he spoke. “I think we should spread out a bit to get a look around. I’ll do the upstairs…and you guys look down here. Ok? Call if you see anything.”

We nodded. I didn’t like the idea of him being alone on the second floor when it was so unstable, but I didn’t dare stop him. He needed his time to go back…

I wish I had had mine…

But I would do as Lupin said. I was going to be there for him. No matter what…

Right?

So Granger immediately walked off to find a library (I imagine, she didn’t share her thoughts with me) and Weasel went in another direction to look for something. By the look on his face, however, he didn’t know much what he was looking for.

I watched them all go and decided to take the front area of the house. I turned to my right and saw a dining area. I stepped into the room and looked around it.

The table was mahogany and once polished and beautifully carved. It was now broken and overturned but there was still the faintest image of a gold inlaid design in the centre of it. The chairs were in pieces and the rug was singed and unraveling. I walked over to the cabinet against the wall. It was paneled with glass to put its contents on display but the glass doors were cracked and some even shattered. One panel was still in place, however, though it was burnt black. I reached out and pulled open the door to see inside. There were shards of what might have once been the good china, along with crystal vases and different kinds of ornaments or centerpieces that one puts out on the table at special occasions.

There was a recurring theme that I’m sure I have seen somewhere but I couldn’t place it. I turned around to leave and came face to face with something rather disconcerting.

There was a large family portrait hanging on the wall of the doorway. It was painted in rich colours and hung in an ornate gold-gilded frame, but the image was burnt and broken in parts, releasing any of the magical properties it might have had. The figures did not move.

That’s what made it so eerie.

I stared into the eyes of Lily Potter as she sat there with a brilliant smile on her face, holding the tiny wriggling form of her baby… her baby with her eyes. Harry didn’t have a scar then. His forehead looked so… empty. I felt like there was something missing from him. He wasn’t complete.

Which is a terrible thing to think because he only got the scar after his parents were killed. And that should not be something that he needed to complete him.

James Potter was standing next to his wife and son, gazing at them with bright eyes and a determined demeanor. He held himself proud and yet defensive. He stood tall and controlled and I recognized something familiar in that too.

Harry used to stand like that. He still does… though only when he’s about to face a new battle. Only when he’s about to step further along his path to defeating Voldemort.

Other than that, he lets himself hang in some kind of strangely defeated manner. Maybe it’s only me…

I walked up to it and held my fingers out to touch the forehead of this small child that couldn’t be the Harry Potter I know… if you can call it ‘knowing’.

His eyes were shining and innocent and full of life. They weren’t tainted or strained with the stress of war and death.

I imagine that if you were to look at the Malfoy family portrait you would see some kind of similar look in my eyes… but my mother would not have been holding me the way Lily Potter held her son. And my father’s eyes would be full of pride as well… but none of it directed at his family…

I suppose that Harry and I are very similar in the same ways that we are polar opposites.

I wonder if he knows that too.

I turned away from the portrait and walked back into the hall. Immediately opposite the dining room, there was a sitting room. As I stepped towards it I saw that many of the armchairs were overturned or punctured and ruined. The carpet there was burnt everywhere except that there was a void in one area just below the fireplace.

My eyes traveled from the void in the burns, up to the hearth and further up to the mantle. There were smaller pictures there as well. I couldn’t see them from where I was, but my eyes had caught something else.

Just above the picture, hanging above the fireplace against the wall, was a massive shield with a very familiar crest on the front. It was a brilliant gold lion reared back on it’s hind paws in position of attack, on a red and gold background.

It was the crest of Godric Gryffindor…

And then it hit me. I remembered from where I recognized the patters and themes that were strewn throughout the dining room. I recognized the design on the furniture and the choice of rich colours for the painting.

They were all traditional décor for the House of Gryffindor.

I stared at the proudly displayed shield as it glimmered, seemingly untouched by time and battles, over the fireplace. It taunted me and probed at my mind, telling me something that I found it terribly hard to believe. And yet… it wasn’t hard at all.

Could this mean what I think it means?

I tried to shrug off the feeling and step forwards, towards the shield to try and get a better look. As I tried to step into the room, however, I smacked my head against something unseen and was knocked back into the hallway.

I held out my hands in confusion, reaching out to see what it was I had hit. My fingertips came into contact with some invisible wall that barred my way from entering the room. I felt all around trying to find a weak spot but there was none.

I drew my wand and tried to cast “reducto” but it bounced off and knocked me in the stomach, throwing me backwards into the wreckage of the dining room.

I groaned and winced from the pain, then got to my feet and did all I could think of.

“Potter!!” I screamed, getting to my feet and walking back up to the invisible wall. He immediately came running down the stairs. Granger and Weasel found their way back to me as well, wondering what it was I had found. “I think we have a problem,” I said breathlessly, pointing towards the shield just past the invisible wall.

Their eyes followed my finger. Harry’s expression changed from one of prepared concern to unabashed shock. His jaw dropped and his eyes searched quickly over the edges of the shield that we had all somehow missed upon entering the house in the first place. Weasel and Granger both looked completely stunned. They all stepped towards the entrance before I could say anything and with loud clunks, fell back on the ground much like I had.

“I told you we have a problem,” I said, glaring down at them. Then I realized that only Granger and Weasel were at my feet.

“What?” Harry asked. I whipped my head around and realized that he was standing INSIDE the room, looking back at me from just in front of the fireplace.

“Ho-…” I stared at him as Granger and Weasel got to their feet. Before continuing I began to think fast, analyzing ever possible angle of the situation and applying everything I knew to it.

How is it that only Harry could get through the invisible wall?

“Harry? How did you get through?” Weasel asked. Harry looked incredulous.

“I walked, Ron,” he explained, mildly annoyed.

“We can’t get in, Harry,” Granger explained as he gestured for us to follow.

“Why not?” Always the quick one, he is.

“I think,” I began quietly. “That we can’t pass because we aren’t of the right bloodline.”

“What?” They all asked me in unison. I pointed back to the shield on the wall. Granger’s eyes widened then as it hit her as well.

“Does that mean…?” she asked quietly. I nodded.

“What are you on about?” Harry demanded crossly. I turned to him and sighed.

“I believe you have to be of Gryffindor’s bloodline to get past this,” I explained. His face shifted and he furrowed his brows, swinging back to look at the shield as well.

“So I’m…”

“A direct descendent of Godric Gryffindor?” I finished his question. “Yes, I think so. This house is full of Gryffindor paraphernalia…and follows all the traditional themes of the House…”

“And you pulled Gryffindor’s sword out of the Sorting Hat!” Granger added rather triumphantly. Harry looked dumbfounded. As did Weasel.

“But then… how could the Sorting Hat even consider wanting to put me in Slytherin?” he burst out, confused. “I mean even with Voldemort and the scar and all… shouldn’t that have been first choice??”

The what what considered doing what to who?? WHAT???

“While I’d like you to elaborate on that subject more later,” I muttered, wondering how many more interesting secrets he was keeping from me. “Right now I think it’s safe to assume that at the very least, you are going to be the only one capable of staying in that room.”

He took a moment, then nodded.

“I’m going to take a closer look at the shield,” he said. Turning around to walk up to the fireplace, he leaned in to scrutinize what he could see of it. The other two and I stepped up close to the invisible wall to witness as much as we could.

Harry tilted his head slightly and reached up to pull the shield off the wall, then pulled his fingers back suddenly as though it was burning hot.

“I can’t touch it!” he screamed back rather redundantly.

“What else do you see around it?” I asked quickly, worried and feeling my heart race in my chest.

“There… there are two circles drawn into the wall on either side of it…” he began surveying the symbols closely. “They look like they have a handprint in each of them… Ahh!” he screamed, pulling away from the shield again. “I can’t get close to it, it feels like it’s burning me every time I get close! It doesn’t feel right.”

My face fell. It couldn’t be… but it had do… didn’t it?

“Malfoy,” Granger’s voice came from next to me. I looked at her. “It’s… it’s one, isn’t it?”

“There isn’t any other explanation,” I answered quietly. “Not right now anyway. We have no reason to believe that it’s not a Horcrux.”

Harry snapped around.

“No, no that’s not possible,” he countered quickly and with some kind of desperation. “Dumbledore said that Voldemort was going to make a Horcrux out of me, not my parents! And… and besides! He said that the only relic of Godric Gryffindor was safe at school!”

“Well, look,” I snapped at him. “I would love to try and decipher where and when this was made later, but clearly Dumbledore was wrong about there only being one relic. This has to be the shield of Godric Gryffindor because it has his crest and no self-respecting person in the wizarding world would have recreated it. Now unless you think your parents forged on and decided to hang I above their fireplace for all to see their insolence, I think we have no choice but to accept that this is very likely a Horcrux!”

Harry frowned and glared at me, possibly for the suggestion that he himself was insulting his own parents, or perhaps because he knew I was right. I don’t know.

“Well what am I to do if I can’t touch the thing??” he shot back at me angrily. I huffed.

“Try putting your palms in those handprints,” I told him. “Maybe that will release the spell…”

He rolled his eyes and walked back up to the shield, doing as I said. He placed his hands on the handprints and waited. Nothing happened so he tried to touch the shield again and pulled back in the same painful manner.

“IT DIDN’T WORK!” he hollered, rubbing his palms in frustration.

“Harry!” Granger perked up. “You said that you needed a blood offering to get in and out of the cave. Maybe you need the same thing here with those handprints!”

“Yes, that’s it!” I agreed, the concept clicking in my head. “Your blood! It needs your blood!”

Harry sighed heavily and looked around quickly for something to cut himself with. He picked up a shard of glass from the ground and dragged the sharp edge over one side of his palm. Then he rubbed his palms together again, smearing the blood over each of them.

“This better work,” he muttered, replacing his palms on the handprints.

Immediately the circles in the wall glowed around his fingers, releasing some kind of loud gear with a ‘click’ and the shield floated forwards on the air. Harry, however, was screaming.

He was shaking in pain and agony, his face screwed up as he cried out, trying to pull back from the circles but failing. Something was pulling at him. It wasn’t finished with him.

I gasped and felt my heart stop. I pressed my hands against the invisible wall and tried to push into it. It wouldn’t budge. I just had to watch in horror as something shifted in the room and Harry screamed.

Finally, the light from around his hands faded away and he was dropped back onto the ground. And then…

I saw the most horrifying thing.

Harry brought his hands to his face as though his eyes were burning and next to him, from behind the overturned furniture and rubble, two figures rose noiselessly from the ground.

They were white and green or blue in different parts. The skin that was shown was rotting and putrid. Their hair was long and yet torn out in certain places as they hovered in their places above Harry. Their eyes were sunken and sightless as they stared blankly forwards with slightly open mouths. They held out their rotting hands to him to help him up in such slow unnatural movements.

They were Inferi.

My breath caught in my chest for a moment and I felt as though I was frozen, unable to move or do anything at all. Harry wouldn’t touch them though… he wouldn’t. He would get out of there… run like mad… he would leave.

And then, for the briefest moment, something of the image we were seeing flickered and instead of the two Inferius standing before Harry, we saw the image of Lily and James Potter, offering their hands to their son to help him to his feet.

I let out some kind of sound and then exploded.

Harry opened his eyes slowly, drawing his hands away from his face and looked up, with a blank expression at the two corpses standing around him. And he started to hold out his hand to take theirs.

“POTTER!!” I screamed suddenly, banging against the invisible wall. I was vaguely aware that Granger and Weasel were banging on the wall as well. “POTTER DON’T TOUCH THEM! DON’T TOUCH THEM THEY AREN’T YOUR PARENTS! THOSE ARE INFERI!! POTTER NO!!”

But it wasn’t getting to him. I fought hard against the shield that blocked me from helping him. The image kept flickering back and forth from the corpses to the shining images of Harry’s parents and my heart dropped to my feet as I remembered what I read about the effect of Inferi on people.

NO… I couldn’t lose him! I couldn’t lose him now! NOT NOW!

“If they grab hold of him they will kill him!!” I screamed to Weasel and Granger, fighting against the wall even more violently.

The two others started fighting harder too, but I couldn’t hear them. I hardly knew they were there anymore. I was so focused on waking Harry up… so that he could see that this was not what he thought it was... but nothing was working!!

“HARRY!!!!” I finally screamed with everything I had. “HARRY GET AWAY FROM THEM! THOSE AREN’T YOUR PARENTS!! THEY ARE VOLDEMORT’S ARMY, HARRY PLEASE!! DON’T GIVE UP! HARRY!!!!”

Then something faltered in Harry’s movements. He pulled his hand back jerkily and narrowed his eyes at his would-be parents, tilting his head as though he was suddenly unsure of whether or not to accept their help.

“YES HARRY GET AWAY!” I screamed, hoping that he could actually hear me. His eyes widened and he gasped. Trying to scramble away from the two creatures.

He fumbled for his wand and suddenly more Inferi rose from behind furniture though there was no illusion for these ones. They threw themselves at him and began pulling and grabbing as he screamed and fought against him. He kept casting spells back and forth.

Granger and Weasel pulled out their wands but I turned and stopped them.

“NO!” I screamed. “The spells won’t work! They’ll just rebound off the wall and hit you!” They looked as though they were fighting with themselves on whether or not to believe me but were distracted by Harry’s screams.

He kept trying to shoot jets of fire but it hardly worked as the Inferi reached for his neck and tried to pry at his wand, treating him like some kind of sick buffet. I felt as though I was being torn to pieces inside, having to stand by and watch as he was being overcome by a mass of corpses, trying to kill him and bring them to their ranks. I couldn’t deal with it.

I can’t lose him this way… I can’t lose him at all! I felt my heart rip as I grew more and more desperate. There had to be a way to help him…

“HARRY! NO!” I cried, banging against the invisible wall again and vaguely wondering why Tonks and Shacklebolt had not yet come to the rescue. “Use… use,” I stammered, trying to remember the spell from the book. “USE DELEOCORPUS!”

I was afraid he hadn’t heard me as he kept trying to stun them or hit them with other spells. At least until I heard him scream out something inaudible through the bodies around him and then a massive jet of orange and blue fire erupted from his wand and engulfed the nearest Inferi in a blanket of flames. They screeched (if they could) and suddenly burst into a flurry of ashes.

“YES KEEP CASTING IT!!” I encouraged. I’m sure there were tears rolling down my face. I wasn’t going to lose him. I wasn’t going to give him up so easily. He wouldn’t lose this… he would come out ok…

“DELEOCORPUS!” he hollered out and his wand let out a massive jet of the flames to incinerate the remaining corpses that were attacking him. He sat there shaking for half a second before scrambling to his feet, summoning the shield and running back out into the hall.

As he ran towards us, we turned and bolted from the hall as well, rushing out into the open air, down off the porch and towards the road ahead. Once we got to a relatively safe distance. I stopped and turned around to see Harry skidding to a stop next to me.

His face was bloodied and his hands, arms and neck were cut and bruised. He moaned and made some strangled noises before dropping the shield on the ground and collapsing forwards. I jumped and held out my arms to catch him.

And then I fell to my knees with him in my arms, shaking and clutching him tightly.

I’m never going to let him go…

Never again.

-------IIIIIII-------

A/N: So…. That was intense.

Ok, some comments. I have taken the liberty of inventing a spell to destroy (or kill, depending on how you see it) Inferi. It is basically the same spell Dumbledore cast in the cave in book six, though I gave it a name a flashier colours. And we’ll say this is the actual spell or something seeing as it actually does destroy the Inferi.

Also, about Harry’s lineage and being Gryffindor’s descendant and all. I don’t think that’s such a far stretch from possibility. Won’t explain that, but if you think differently that’s fine. And finally, the whole thing about Dumbledore saying the only relic of Gryffindor is safe at the castle.

Well Dumbledore has been wrong before. Besides, say he was talking about the sword from book 2, then he’s already wrong. In the Sorting Hat’s song it says “T’was Gryffindor who found the way, and whipped me off his head, the founders put some brains in me, so I could choose instead”. This means that the Sorting Hat is also a relic of Godric Gryffindor. I also didn’t make that a Horcrox for several reasons, one of them being, I like this better.

And…. err… You’ll found out why Tonks and Shacklebolt didn’t go in to save them (though they couldn’t have), why this house was housing a horcrux, as well as many other things that I imagine are running through your minds right now :)

I hope you enjoyed it! I’ve been so excited about getting to this part that I just had to write it tonight ^_^

Love and cookies for reviews and all!