Chapter 240: Snake in the Grass
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
11 August 1994, Quidditch Trillenium Stadium, England
And yet Harry instinctively knew what it was, the elder vampire, in his true form. He looked at Voldemort and nodded to him. They had a common enemy. They would pause their confrontation until the Elder Vampire was dealt with.
Harry dodged to the right as a lance of shadows almost as fast as sound itself impaled into the ground, right where he used to be. Voldemort must have recognized whatever this spell was, because he hit it with some kind of blue flame, and the attack was destabilized and turned to ash.
Not wanting to leave the moment, Harry created an ice barrier in front of the attack that was going towards Voldemort. He created a small ball of warped space, pretty much a proto-dark hole, that would warp anything it touched into a fine mesh. The ball easily swallowed the beam of Darkness that the Elder Vampire sent towards Harry, which the man dodged with unnatural agility, right into Voldemort's killing curse.
The green light hit the vampire in the chest, and the immortal being was sent flying back. Harry gave the Dark Lord a hesitant look, "Is it dead?"
As if he was jinxing himself, the Elder Vampire reformed once more, looking more like a demon with every passing moment, and spoke up with a voice that seemed to shake everything around, "Ah, the man with the broken soul. Even that fool Herpo hadn't gone as much as you did. Did you seriously think that this paltry spell, this pale imitation of soul magic, could possibly kill me?"
Voldemort visibly stiffened at the allusion to his Horcruxes. Damn, this was going to be trouble later.
In his distraction, he was barely able to shield himself against the whip of shadows that the vampire had by conjuring some strange fire shield.
Undeterred, the Elder Vampire ran forward, and Harry could barely track his movement. However, his Arcane Hearing saved him, by warning him, and he warped space to get as far as possible while conjuring spikes where he used to be, which didn't even pierce the being skin and broke into small shards of ice.
However, that wasn't the full trap. Harry had put a small runic array to create a warped space on command. As he expected, the vampire froze, his very body being twisted into itself. Harry thought for a fraction of a second that he might have won, however, the vampire turned into shadows and left the trapped place.
The immortal monster growled and summoned giant spiked chains made of shadows, with blades at the end that looked like blood. It moved in lightning speed towards him, and Harry activated his cloak, phasing through the attack, and used the surprise to run towards the monster and use his ice age spell.
It had worked perfectly against Black and stalemated him during their confrontation. As he expected everything around Harry froze, including the Elder Vampire. However, what he didn't expect was the man's arm to turn into a solid shadow and lift him up by his neck, "Amusing, but shadows cannot freeze, child."
However, before the vampire could do anything, Voldemort sent a killing curse at him, allowing Harry to create a small bubble of warped space to free himself and temporarily shorten the distance, allowing him to get away.
Voldemort created a giant vortex of black flames and tried to surround their opponent with it. However, there was a giant explosion that destabilized the vortex and sent flames towards them. Harry easily redirected them, but he still felt the searing hot air that came with it.
Harry turned towards the heir of Slytherin and spoke up, "I didn't know that vampires could be so strong."
"He's an elder. They're a special species in itself. This is the first time I've ever met one. They often sleep for centuries at a time, since they don't need to feed… I heard the stories, but this is just different."
The Elder Vampire, looking untouched by the flames, chuckled, "Those stories, if anything, have been watered down."
He ran towards Harry who had put an illusion of himself and warped the space to move away. When the man broke it, a flashbang rune activated, blinding him. However, the vampire didn't seem bothered, "Theatricality and illusions are powerful agents against inexperienced opponents. But we're all experienced fighters here, aren't we, boy?"
He sent a beam of darkness that Harry had no choice but to redirect using his space magic. However, while the beam of darkness itself was redirected, Harry still felt the impact somehow and was sent away, "Unfortunately for the both of you, I am far more experienced than you could possibly imagine."
Voldemort waved his wand and drenched the entire place in darkness. Harry could heal the elder vampire and burst into mocking laughter, "Oh, you think Darkness is your ally. You're an abomination, yes, with your whole being dwarfed in darkness, but you merely adopted it. I was born in it, moulded by it. I learned to welcome it, to become the darkness itself."
Suddenly, the light returned, the darkness was swallowed into the Elder Vampire, and Harry saw Voldemort being lifted by the neck, "Your shadows betray you because they belong to me."
Harry tried to use another spell, but a lance of shadows surprised him. He was able to activate the cloak through pure instinct, and yet when he reformed, he found that he couldn't move.
The shadow attack had connected to Harry's own shadow on the ground and it, in turn, froze him. He had never heard of anything like it before, not even in the most obscure book in the Hogwarts Library.
He was suddenly lifted and floated towards his opponent, "You were worthy opponents, that I will say. But you were not enough. I hope they remember you."
Harry saw the man conjure a sword of blood, ready to impale Voldemort with it. It wasn't a normal blade. To his Arcane Hearing, it was something drenched in darkness that destabilized everything it came close to. Magic itself recoiled from it and Harry didn't know if it would actually kill Voldemort since there were Horcruxes, that's not to mention the prophecy between him and Neville.
Still, that gave him an opportunity. Just as the man tried to stab him. Voldemort's body turned to ash, and the wraith flew away in response, Harry opened a portal in front of the blade, making the vampire impale himself.
The attack visibly hurt it, since it roared in pain. Harry was summoned towards the beast quickly enough, and as a reflex, conjured a blade of ice and tried to stab the vampire with it. Right before it touched the monster's skin, he felt his ring and crest heat up. He suddenly felt fundamentally drained, and the ice sword started to glow blindingly.
The ice sword impaled the Elder Vampire without any issues and continued glowing. Harry created a portal that took him away as much as possible and in a flash of light, the being slowly turned into ash.
Harry released a relieved sigh as he felt the oppressive magic-dampening effect that was over the entire campsite fade away, allowing anyone trapped to apparate away safely. The spell must have been cast by the Elder Vampire and died with him.
Bloody hell that was a tough fight. He had read about Elder Vampires, and just how powerful they were, but he never expected them to be some kind of endlessly generating masters of blood and shadow magics. Sure, he always had the option of making a portal and escape, but there was the very real possibility of the vampire attacking him later. After all, Harry was their target, and that could have come with a lot of collateral damage.
That's not to mention that Harry technically saved all survivors who were trapped in the campsite. Still, there were better places and opportunities for attacking Harry. Whoever planned this had to have a different goal than just going after Harry.
Harry's thoughts were interrupted by a voice speaking up, "Huh, I didn't think you'd have killed him…"
He turned and noticed the familiar red eyes of Voldemort staring from the face of a blond man, "Taken another face, have you?"
"No, just a corpse. Fresh ones can still hold enough magic to sustain me for a couple of hours."
"At the expense of your magic, of course," Harry retorted back.
Voldemort's stolen face scowled, "Always so smart, aren't you, Potter? I used to be like that, once, liking to hear the sound of my voice, lording my intelligence over everyone. Make sure it doesn't get you killed."
"No offense but I'm not going to take any advice from the half-dead man who is possessing a corpse. Why are you here, Voldemort? For some reason, I don't think you came to watch the match."
"Yes. I came to see you, of course."
Harry snorted, "I'm certainly popular…"
"To be perfectly honest, I never expected to hear your name again. You were a brilliant student, with so much potential, but you survived my killing curse… Only another person has done the same."
"Neville Longbottom…"
The man snorted, "Yes, the boy who lived. I can see now that I was wrong. What happened on the day of my death was a mistake. I should have chosen you… You're the one from the prophecy."
The Potter scion paled and coughed, "I'm afraid you're mistaken. Neville Longbottom is your prophesized enemy, not me. Believe me, I can see the hands of fate itself aiding him, moulding him into the hero he should be."
"And yet, he is not my equal. You are. Sure, I might have been limited with my previous body, but you matched my skills and raw power."
The younger wizard snorted, "It's not about power. It was never about power. It was never about good or evil. A true prophecy is absolute. Even a muggle could qualify and still accidentally kill you. Fate is far more powerful than you could possibly imagine, evidenced by the fact that twelve-year-old Neville Longbottom killed a Basilisk with nothing more than a sword."
Voldemort's eyes widened, "So, the boy was lying then. I had to admit that I was curious… But your feat today far outstrips this. Slaying an Elder Vampire is a feat not seen since the fall of Camelot. I still do not know how you did it."
His tone drifted off in the end and Harry shook his head resolutely, "You're seriously not expecting me to answer, do you?"
"I was merely curious. Sure, I had access to but a fragment of my power, but no student should have been able to even hurt the beast. That kind of talent is unique, one that I could use in my movement."
"You want to recruit me. Again," Harry didn't hide the incredulity he felt from his voice.
"The last time, you were but a lost child. Now, you have grown and seen the threat that Dumbledore posed. You even managed to aid in dethroning him. You revealed to the world his true colours, and you achieved one of my main goals in life… We are already allied, by a common enemy more than anything."
"No," he simply retorted without even thinking about it.
"Why not," the dark lord answered his red eyes glowing, "Dumbledore will come for you… Grindelwald has returned. War is coming. The werewolves and vampires are acting strangely. I can protect you from everything else… I only want what's best for our nation. Is this such a bad thing? We have the same enemies! We want the same things… It's only right that we work together."
Harry shrugged, "We might have common enemies, but we do not have common goals. I know you, Lord Voldemort, perhaps more than anyone else… while you might believe in your glorious purpose of a magical Britain free of Dumbledore's taint, you wish to rule, to dominate… You fear death, more than anything in the world, because in Death, everything you have, everything you are, becomew nothing… Why would I ever ally, let alone serve someone like that? Someone who relishes in cruelty and death, while deluding himself that they were necessary."
The eyes on Voldemort's stolen face glowed even further and Harry snorted. He could tell that Voldemort couldn't get the ambient magic to recharge the corpse's magic circuits. He was stuck with what was essentially enough magic to power a couple of spells, and animating the body alone was taking its toll. Making his eyes glow, was essentially wasted magic on theatre that the dark lord had hopefully tried to use to scare Harry.
As expected, the man's red eyes dimmed slightly, "A shame. I wonder if you'd be persuaded if your friends faced similar dangers."
"That right here is why I didn't accept. You're a good orator, I'll give you that, but you resort to threats so easily. As for my friends, let me make something very clear. If something were to happen to them on your orders, I would personally pave the way for Longbottom to kill you. So far, you've only seen me protecting myself. You've never seen me proactively trying to hinder you and pray that you never do."
The man stiffened, "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Did you think you were the first man to threaten me? Because there have been so many… Albus Dumbledore, the Smiling Killer, the Heir of Slytherin... You've never heard of my involvement because I don't want people to know… So, to answer your question, I'm Harry Potter and I highly suggest that you get the fuck out of my way."
And with that done, Harry flicked his wand, and Voldemort's wraith was banished away. He nodded to himself and opened a portal home.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.