8 Uninvited

"Merlin... Harry Potter!"

"It is, it's really him!" the woman giddily chirps, almost hopping to the cell and peeking through the bars as Harry backs away, feeling the grimy wall behind him. "I told you that portkey would work!"

"That was years ago! Why did it take so long!?" the brother retorted, eyes still locked on Harry.

"Who cares! We have him now! Revenge is at hand!" the woman shouts in a pique of excitement. "Look, someone already bloodied him up for us!" she points at his blood-stained clothes.

"Who are you people?" Harry growls out, finally having enough with their stupidity.

"Us? Oh, forgive me for not properly greeted the 'Great Harry Potter'." the man gives an exaggerated bow, "I am Amycus Carrow, Head of the Pure and Noble house of Carrow. This here, is my darling sister, Alecto."

Harry stares at them confrontationally as they theatrically bow, chuckling with one another before slowly breaking into a waltz. Even at age seven his face scrunched up in disgust as the man dug his hands into the woman's behind.

"What do you want with me?" he tentatively asks. Feeling the calming weight of Reprisal, his ritual dagger, stowed in his waistband at his back.

Clearly these people were magical judging by his method of capture, those sticks in their hands must be foci. Mages were commonly weak to surprises and melee combat, which should allow him to get a stab in if they tried anything...

"What do we want?" Amycus gives Alecto one last spin before releasing her and approaching the bars, "Why, we're going to punish you for what you did to our Lord. Oh, we're going to have so much fun together! Let's hope you last, boy." he said, causing a shiver to run up Harry's back.

It was like the Dursleys were alive again. Captured, neutered, and without recourse. With his magic threatening to bubble to the surface from a miniature panic attack, he almost missed the man's next words...

"But where's the excitement in knowing? Let me get you prepared." Amycus says before suddenly jabbing his wand at Harry. "Stupify."

The red bolt strikes him and the world goes black.

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Harry awakes to find himself tied to a chair, hands and legs bound by rope. Similarly to what he'd done to the Dursleys...

He squirms, feeling indignant rage rise up in him, but a "Tut-Tut," gives him pause. Amycus walks in with Alecto behind, wheeling in a table topped with numerous horrifying-looking instruments.

"Now, I was half tempted to use some of those new muggle devices in respect to your mud-blooded mother, but I couldn't find the will to lower myself to such," his face contorts, "Barbarism."

"Why fix what's not broken, it's been a while since we got to use these!" Alecto happily says.

"Sister, did you forget about that muggle family a week ago?" the man helplessly retorts.

"A week's a long time, brother. And the muggles grow like rats." she sneers, "I'm just doing my part." she rests a hand on her chest 'demurely'.

"Of course, I was just making sure you're being mindful."

All the while these two spoke, Harry was working out a plan to escape. His captors had displayed the ability to knock him unconscious incredibly quickly, yet he noted they were pretty deranged... The robes binding him were rather tight, and while he could tug at them with his magic, he didn't have the finesse to undo them, not so soon after the ritual, at least.

He could try and blast them with magic, but they would likely have a counter to it...

He sucks on his teeth, struggling to maintain his composure and not use every ounce of magic to try and end his captors. The only real thing to note was the hard lump behind him, they'd forgotten, not bothered, or hadn't discovered Reprisal.

"Now, which one to use first..." Amycus mutters.

"Why don't I get him warmed up for you, brother? Show the boy what REAL magic is capable of."

He smiles and nods, "Try not to kill him, we've got lots more to do."

She grins toothily and points her wand at Harry, "Crucio!" she gleefully casts.

No light even left her wand when Harry was dropped in a world of total pain. He cried out at the top of his lungs as searing hot daggers dug into every inch of his body, causing him to spasm and shake violently. It was so incredibly painful that he couldn't even comprehend what'd just happened ever after it'd been lifted... Pain, was all he knew.

The world spun back into focus suddenly as his body slumped after what felt like days of torture, his entire being feeling somehow wounded, far worse than what the ritual had done earlier.

"Hm, sturdy for a child." Alecto hums thoughtfully, "Usually they'd be sobbing wrecks after two seconds. This one seems almost fine." she glances at her brother.

Harry's eyes widen at that. Two seconds!? There was no way that was it! It just wasn't possible!

"Well, you did say this was a warm-up. How about three seconds?" Amycus nods, prompting Alecto to start again.

"Crucio."

"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" Harry roars in agony, wishing he were anywhere else but this. His magic reacted, but instead of the vanishing trick he'd once done on the school roof, he felt as if he'd slammed his entire body into a brick wall.

He yelps and slouches tiredly in the chair, breathing heavily with sweat pouring off of him.

"Did you see that brother!? The boy just tried to apparate!" Alecto utters in shocked surprise.

"Just accidental magic, sister. Course, he wouldn't get past the wards. Good try though!" he turns to the table and grabs something that appears to be a cross between scissors and pliers. "How attached are you to your fingers? Because whatever you feel won't be the case for much longer." he jokes, drawing a cackling laugh from the woman.

Harry, despite his exhaustion, turns a furious glare at the man. His focus turned from him to his pocket where his wand lay. Well, he hoped these scum required their foci, otherwise he was surely dead.

A vein pulses on his forehead and he commands the sticks, the one in Amycus's pocket and Alecto's hand to SNAP!

"DIE" he screams as both wands explode into a shower of splinters. He'd seemingly underestimated himself too, as both people suddenly found themselves flung in opposite directions. Amycus hard part of his lower body completely devastated. Most of his hipbone was on the other side of the room and some of his organs were lying next to him.

Alecto on the other hand was screaming her lungs out at the bloody mess that used to be her hand. Everything below the elbow had become fleshy strands and shattered bone.

Harry spits out a wad of blood from when he'd accidentally chewed through his cheek and grits his teeth, carefully levitating one of the torture implements to his restraints to free himself. Once that was done he stood and walked past the discarded scissor plier-things, toward Alecto.

Amycus was unmoving and unresponsive, not worth the effort to resuscitate just to torture him. But his fucking cunt of a sister certainly was. He jabs a hand at one of the lanterns and smashes it atop Alecto's ruined hand, causing the burning oil to cover it, searing and cauterizing it.

"W-WHHAAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" she shrieks, eyes falling on her diseased brother, "NO! AMYCUS! AMYCUS WAKE UP! PLEASE!" she starts crawling towards the man's body in a panic, uncaring of exacerbating her decimated arm, only for Harry to kick her hard in the side of her head.

"I... I hoped that magical people might have been different." he growls as he drops a foot onto her chest, "But I was wrong. You, them... You're all the same!" he leans over and forces his palm over her face, mindful of being bitten by the rabid woman, "I WON'T BE WEAK AGAIN! FEEL IT, CRUCIO!" he roars, wishing the worst pain possible while trying to copy the spell she'd ended up using on him.

I worked, or seemed to at the very least. The woman screamed so hard she tore her vocal cords. He held the spell on for as long as his reserves would last, which turned out to be around ten seconds.

By the time he was done the woman was staring up blankly at the ceiling, drool spilling from her mouth and onto the floor. Exhausted and distressed, Harry searched for his backpack, quickly finding it stashed in a nearby cupboard.

He takes it out and shakily retrieves the ouji board, the effects of the torture making him feel as if he had shellshock. Breathing hard but unwilling to let himself cry, he sought familiar comfort in the one person who claimed to love him...

"D-do you love me, Lily Potter..." he rasps out, but after ten seconds of waiting nothing happens...

"A-are you here, Mum..." he repeats, his voice cracking with emotion.

Again, nothing.

"So... You abandoned me too. I-," he sniffles, "I should have expected it... Why did I even try...?" he wipes his eyes and stands, drawing Reprisal and looking to the two corpses in the room.

Did she leave because of what he did to the Carrows or the Dursleys? Was it both? Or maybe selling his soul had been the final straw...? Regardless of what it was, it was clear he was, and would always be alone. He was the only person he could rely on.

"I... I can't be weak. Not again." he chews on his lip, "I need to be stronger." he chants to himself as he starts messily cutting out the two wizard's hearts.

He needed more power. And with power came sacrifice. He'd sold enough of himself already, but the same couldn't be said of others. The scum who'd hurt him when they could, if they got the chance.

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The Carrow estate had once been a lavish manor, but from what Harry could tell this hadn't been the case for many, many years. Spiders had claimed almost half of it with their webs, while the other half was filled to the brim with broken furniture, cutlery, and other miscellaneous objects you'd only expect to see from a hoarder.

Despite presenting themselves as some kind of nobility, He was pretty sure they were poorer than even the Dursleys, which wasn't something he'd expected from magical people, even some as deranged as the siblings.

As compensation for his suffering at their hands and lack of resources in their lacking property, he'd made use of their bodies as well as he could. While only experienced in taking apart smaller animals, he felt he'd done a pretty gone job.

Skinning their bodies after gutting them and storing anything potentially usable in a ritual into large, dusty jars he'd found in their rotting pantry, but the time he was done with them not even their bones were spared.

He'd ground them and their bone marrow up for use in ritual paint. Surely due to their originally belonging to magical beings they'd be far more effective than simply using own blood.

That said, he wasn't sure how he was going to transport the old-looking trunk that occasionally dripped with blood. For one, he had no idea where he was, the Carrow manor sitting in the middle of a random field that maybe wasn't even in Britain... From the dreadful weather though he doubted it could be anywhere else.

He imagined the reaction of the police if he was ever searched, opening the trunk to find two full and complete human skins folded up as if they were raincoats.

His wish to leave expediently wasn't completely to escape any potential retaliation from the Carrow's friends, however.

To put it simply, he was scared of the manor. He'd dared not explore much else after stepping into a room and finding Vernon Dursley readying his belt. He'd tried to smash the thing/man through the wall but his magic hadn't affected it at all.

Thankfully, slamming the door in the thing's face had prevented it from escaping...