FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination
| FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination |
|
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
Chapter 2
That was going to take awhile, none of them expected to finish for months, just the time used to find the components was staggering, there was defenently something to be said for instant gratification. The manual was, as promised, elementary and hardly step-by-step. The best advice out of it though was that the best way to learn was to do. So, Harry bought a bunch of supplies, cheap things that wouldn’t make good wands, but would make good practice, ash wood, maple, pine, and different cores, mostly things he found in the apothecary, unicorn horn, dragon heartstring, acromantula fang. The hardest part was that soon after the early stages, you couldn’t really use magic on it; the core would interfere and mutate the spell. Of course it was a long process and the early stages were time consuming even with magic.
First was to fashion the wood into manageable length, Harry had used the same length as his own wand because he had it handy, then you had to crack it down the middle and cut out the placement for the core, of course you could expand the inside to fit the core, but you didn’t want it to big, as Harry found out, otherwise the magic would not come in contact with the core and dissipate. The biggest part of this was the magic you had to use on the core, otherwise it was just a piece of an animal, you had to make it accept and magnify magic doing this made the core into a superconductor for magic. The spell was simple enough, even given in the book, but the first thing he learned though was that it needed tweaking. Leading to a crash course in arithmancy.
The spell would do its job, but on the more powerful cores, like the dragon, it made them unstable, one even disappeared after someone used a summoning charm in the same room, others just blew up. Eventually he found out that one of the words of the spell kind of crippled it, and had to be replaced. The new spell was written in several places so no one would forget.
The oddest feeling came over him at random times, like there was someone there with him, even when his friends were not there. Things moved about the room behind his back, like someone had inspected it and set it back down in a different spot. He asked Mrs. Weasley if they had a poltergeist in the Burrow, she just sighed and said, “We haven’t before, but I wouldn’t put it past Fred and George to bring one here to entertain themselves.” Nothing happened to him so he forgot about it and dismissed it when it happened again.
The emergency rings were simple bands, Jamison said that they would shoot off a wave of heat so intense that they themselves would likely be scorched in the blast and would literally cause the air to catch fire, saying nothing for the person it was aimed at, the way to set it off was to channel your magic into the hand which would offset the delicate trigger spell. They all wore these on their off hands, and were sure to practice moving magic in their channels away from that hand.
The cursed items were exquisite, chains of fine gold and silver, the gold one would cause the person to go into a coma seconds after it was placed on the neck, and the silver would bind their magic. Both could only be taken off by the person who put it on. They were unsure if they would ever use them or not.
“We know! Harry calm down, you’ll give yourself a heart attack at this rate.” As always Hermione was there to be the rational, reasonable one.
“Fine, I’ll be working on my wand until then.” He stood and stalked from the room, Hermione followed.
“So, Neville. Fancy a match?” Ron said even as he pulled out the board.
“I guess…”
“I’ll be reading outside.” Luna informed them as she went on her way.
Inside the little work shop out in the barn, Harry was studying the different pieces of the wand lain about the desk.
“What else needs to be done?” Hermione asked from the doorway.
“It needs to be put together, than I want to put a couple runes on it to see if I can do them right now, or if I need to study a bit more.” Harry was already setting the ready dragon heartstring into the cavity in the wood, placing the two pieces together, he let his magic flow out his arm, intent on making the wood one piece again. Slowly it started fusing, the crack was receding into the wood as seconds ticked by. Finally the shaft of the wand was again singular, now with a magical core inside, he picked up the handle he had crafted and used his wand this time to fuse it, taking nearly no time at all.
He took a small blade, and carefully sketched runes he had written on some parchment next to him, onto the wood. Then he made them deeper after checking he had done them right, finally he used a variant of the medallion charging spell that came in his wand manual to charge the runes. He had done easy ones, things like preventing it from being snapped, caught on fire, warped, or cut in any way. Now was the test to see if his wand was usable.
“You might want to stand back.” Hermione had moved closer as he worked watching in fascination, now she went towards the door.
He aimed his wand towards a jar across the barn, “Accio.” The jar exploded, leaving a fine dust to settle to the floor. “I suppose that means that that wand isn’t exactly compatible with me, I wonder if it does the same thing every time, or if its random?” Another jar stood near where the other had once been. “Accio.” This jar turned into water, spilling to the floor. “You wanna see if its compatible to you?”
After much testing, including the other Weasleys at the Burrow, it was decided to belong to Fred, who had lackluster use of it, but it still didn’t mutate spells so wildly as it had for everyone else, it was just weak, stronger than his wandless, but still weaker than his Olivander. He actually enjoyed it, seeing it as something not everyone got, the first wand of as new wandmaker. He had taken to using it for small things he had down to rote, only pulling out his regular wand when needed. The worst with it had actually been George, it would do absolutely nothing for him, one time he had cast the strongest charm he knew, Flammarae Maximus, and it did nothing but fizzle a single spark at the end of the wand.
Someone had been watching him. All the weird things happening, the strange feeling of being watched, was because someone invisible was watching him. He neared towards the person, but he felt magic pass over his skin, next second the breathing stopped and he was sure the person had woken, ‘damn proximity wards!’ Harry thought, saying “Incendio, sectumsempra, caedes. Intruder!” The last was a yell, very loud.
The cloak was caught on fire, it was quickly thrown off even as the man leaped to the side, erecting a shield. It was Draco Malfoy. He was nervous, sweating, unsure of himself, in light of this vicious attack. He hesitated.
Harry was surprised as well, that they sent this rodent to watch him, he couldn’t even kill an old defenseless man, did Voldemort not know? Harry lowered his wand, sighing almost as if he was hoping for a challenge. “Go away Malfoy, before you get hurt.” Watching him, waiting.
It looked for a moment as if Malfoy would bolt, but then he stood a little straighter, “You’ll be the one getting hurt, Potter, maybe no one told you but I killed Dumbledore.”
“Look drop it Malfoy, I know you didn’t kill Dumbledore, you didn’t have the balls to take his life, you cried all year long to a ghost because you didn’t have it in you to kill, you certainly have a cruel streak, but you’re still just a child. I was there, not able to help, as you hesitated, and Snape eventually finished your job.” Malfoy was astounded that Harry knew. He had expected, outrage, fury, maybe disbelief, but not that he had been there and had seen his weakness.
“Crucio.” Malfoy’s cold rage took over, Harry dived sideways, and shot back a cutting curse. Malfoy raised a shield and threw an explosion hex towards Harry’s head. Harry knew in that moment that this was for keeps. Harry waiting for a split second as Malfoy waited for the hex to hit, and then moved out of the way, diving towards his opponent, smashing his elbow into Malfoy’s sternum, then laying a crucio on him, it held.
Screams, it seemed to echo off of everything and then return two fold. Harry dropped the curse in surprise that it held, seeming to realize that he had finally made it work. He stunned the twitching Malfoy, and drug him inside. Putting the gold chain around Malfoy’s neck. He pondered what to do with the boy. Then inspiration hit him, he dashed off to his room for a book.
“Well I used the Servus bond him. What’s the problem?”
“You made Malfoy your slave? Oh yes I can see why there should be no problem with this.” Sarcasm dripped to the floor.
“Well he can’t hurt us now, or go back to Voldemort, or hurt other people. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He finished mutinously. Ron was laughing in the background waiting for the okay to wake Malfoy up.
“So slavery’s okay for our enemies is it?”
“I needed to do something Hermione!” Harry finally got angry, “Would you have preferred I had just killed him?” he shouted back.
“There has to be another way! Slavery is not okay!” She yelled right back.
“Maybe he’ll learn something, I have seen him at his weakest, he can be changed, he is still just a kid.”
“Who made you judge, jury, and executioner, huh?”
“I did! I’ll do what needs to be done no matter the little moral quibbles you have over it! That’s it! Discussion over.”
“The end doesn’t justify the means, Harry. There has to be morals for people to live with each other.”
“The end is all that matters right now, maybe during peace time your right, but in war you’re not.”
“Do you want to become like Voldemort?” She shouted, then almost immediately put her hand over her mouth, “oh Harry, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m so sorry.”
“No its okay.” Was all Harry said, his voice and face cold with anger as he walked away.
"Good one Hermione.” Ron congratulated.
“What should I do, I mean he didn’t look like he wanted company? I mean I might just make him angrier.”
“Go talk to him, we don’t need you two fighting if we’re going to be going abroad.” Hermione gave Ron a quick hug of thanks, and hurried off up the stairs.
“Welcome to the Burrow, Malfoy, though we have found out that you know this place thoroughly by now don’t you.” Malfoy became alert instantly as his memory returned, he was in enemy territory in which the leader wasn’t afraid to apply the crucio.
“Now where is the Master, I…” The words ‘The Master’ had not been in his mind when he thought of what to say, he was almost sure it had been ‘scarhead’ as a matter of fact. Weasley must know something about this. “Alright Weasel what spell did you put on me?”
“Me? Not a one. Don’t get your hopes up though, I plan to.” Malfoy stood, he needed to escape now, and report to his Lord that he had been compromised. He would be punished, but maybe if he brought with him the Weasel he would get away with his life. Worth a shot.
“Enough of these games,” Malfoy pulled a vial from his pocket, and hurled it to the floor in front of Ron. He coughed, hacking, falling to the floor, as the fumes from the vial rose into his face. Malfoy grabbed the wand from Weasley’s hand, stunned the boy, and levitated him. Malfoy made a sprint to the door and down the street, Ron in tow.
“No Harry, please, I didn’t mean it like that…I… I just don’t want to hurt people, I never have, and I don’t like it when you hurt people. I know you have to do some things that aren’t nice, but it was such a shock that you did that to someone that I didn’t know what to do but yell and try to make you see my side of it.”
“Do you think I like hurting people for no reason, destroying lives, and all of that?” His voice was again angry, edged with sadness.
“Look Harry I don’t want to fight about it again, please, I just wanted to say I sorry for saying that, I don’t want you mad at me.” He looked up at her finally and saw her sincerity, and gave up the anger.
“I shouldn’t have been so mad either, I …” Harry eyes were glazed as if he weren’t there any more, “Malfoy escaped.”
“What? Impossible, he’s in a coma. Besides the fact, how do you know?”
“The bond gives me a signal when Malfoy gets to far away.”
“Then we have to go get him! What are you sitting there for!”
“The bond makes it impossible for him to go a certain distance without my express permission. If he does, he’ll be knocked unconscious and the bond will tell me. Now we just have to go collect him.”
They both stood and made their way out of the room, down the stairs. “How much do you know of about this bond, Harry?”
“Only what was in the book, things like I have no control over the bond, it forces Malfoy to call me ‘The Master’, it doesn’t let him escape, he can’t harm me, he cant say anything bad about me, and that he has to follow any instructions I give him.”
“Do you know if you can break the bond then? Because if you can we really should try to find something else to do with him.”
“Even if I did know how, or if it was possible, I wouldn’t.” With that Harry sped up and out of the house, leaving Hermione with the distinct impression that he didn’t want to talk about it any more.
“Wake up, Draco.” Malfoy snapped awake.
“What do you want…Master.” Malfoy struggled to say what he wanted but it came out master just the same.
“Watch the insolence.” Harry watched as Malfoy’s eyes grew angry and he tried to open his mouth but he could not. “Good, now we can get down to business, you Malfoy are now my slave. Through this bond I control your physical free will, I cannot control your thoughts, but I’m sure my charm will be persuasive enough.”
“Why didn’t you just kill me? It would have been better than this humiliation.” Malfoy was very quite as he said this.
“Because I saw it in you Malfoy, you can be a normal person, I don’t want you to turn out like your father or you aunt, or like some of the rest of Voldemort’s gang, and to do this I am going to keep you away from the influence these people bring. So here come your first orders, you can’t harm my friends, you can’t harm yourself,” he paused here as Malfoy flinched like he had been caught doing something wrong, was the boy really that humiliated by this, then Harry thought of course he was, he was use to having slaves not being one, “You can’t tell our secrets, and how do we fix Ron.”
“He’ll wake up in a few hours.”
“Eventually you’ll be free, for you to earn your freedom you have to do something of great magnitude, like save one of our lives or something, or if I get the feeling you will never change.”
“I suggest you never let me free Master, because the first thing I do will be to kill all of you.”
“No threatening us, and I don’t control when you go free, the bond does.”
“What do we do now, Master.”
“We’re leaving since you ask, I would have thought you knew that from watching the house?”
“So you’re goin to take me with you then?”
“Well I suppose I could lock you into a small cage with a never ending supply of food and water. If you want.”
“Yes master I will accompany you,…gladly.” Malfoy ground out.
“Good. Good. Don’t mess around with us Draco, I’m sure Ron will be up to punishing you when he wakes if you give us good reason.”