In the hour of the Dark Lord's greatest triumph, an ancient ruthlessness awoke, bound by no laws of magic. One night redefined the world, placing its fate in the hands of a being who bears no resemblance to a hero. How deep does the vengeance run when there is nothing left to lose?
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The Demon Within
- Thread starter PatrikWriter
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1. A Lesson in Agony
New
PatrikWriter
Master of the Forbidden Arts
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2025
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- 187
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, settings, and lore from the Harry Potter universe are the property of J.K. Rowling and her respective publishers/licensees. This is a work of fan fiction intended for entertainment purposes only, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Important:
Wow. When I started writing in December, I never could have imagined the level of support I'd be receiving by late January. Every sub, like, and comment means the world to me.
Since launching YOU-KNOW-WHAT, that support has felt even more intense. To be honest, I couldn't sleep a wink the other night—I was just tossing and turning, overwhelmed with gratitude and ideas. That's when I decided to write something special for you.
This story is a bit different. It's dark, tragic, and filled with blood, death, and dark magic. My goal is to make sure some of YOU can't sleep either (evil laugh).
The full story is 15,000 words long! This is the first of six chapters, which I've freshly translated and edited into English for you. Thank you so much for being here and for your incredible support!
I sat upon my throne, my fingers tracing the cold scales of Nagini almost tenderly as I watched the pathetic display before me. Lucius was crawling. A once-proud man was now sliding his belly across the cold stone like a gutted worm. He ruined everything he touched. The fiasco at the Ministry had been the final straw for my patience. He had squandered his political influence, his magical ability was mediocre at best, and I had begun to doubt his loyalty. Yet, he possessed something I still required: contacts. And he had a task.
"This is your last chance, Lucius," I spat through my teeth. My voice echoed in the freezing hall like a blade being sharpened against stone. "It must reach him. He has stood in our way for far too long. Once he is removed, the path will be clear."
"Yes, my Lord... thank you... I won't fail you," Lucius stammered. He struck his forehead against the ground in a humiliating gesture, not a trace of his aristocratic pride remaining. He knew that another failure meant not just his death, but the erasure of the entire Malfoy line from the face of the earth. I decided to sear this realization deeper into his memory.
"Crucio!"
His screams shook the room. I relished it. The wave of pure euphoria that washed over me was addictive. After years spent as a mere shadow, I felt power over life and pain once again. With distaste, I broke the spell. Lucius lay there in a pool of his own urine, a trembling wreck of a man.
"Can I eat him, Tom?" Nagini hissed. Her voice was a gluttonous rasp that promised a slow death. When Lucius heard the sound, he began to sob even louder. His fear was almost palpable, reeking of sweat and desperation.
"No, my dear, not yet," I replied to her in the noble tongue of my ancestors. "He has his part to play." I leaned toward him with a smile that was never intended to comfort. "My dear, slimy friend... this is your last chance."
However, his sobbing was starting to get on my nerves. I hated that sound—it reminded me of the weak children at the orphanage crying into their pillows at night. "Get out!" I barked.
Lucius began to crawl away frantically, leaving a wet, foul-smelling trail behind him on the polished floor. The air in the hall grew heavy with the scent of ammonia. "If you mess up this time, Lucius, I will make you lick this hall clean with your own tongue. And then I will let you spend days dying," I thought with hateful calm.
"You are slow," I noted coldly as the doors remained open. "Do you require another spell to help you?" In mortal terror, Lucius quickened his pace, wheezing like a wounded animal until the doors finally closed behind him with a heavy thud.
I settled back onto my throne of bone. The cold beneath my hands soothed me. "When I get my hands on you, Harry Potter, you will regret ever being born," I spoke chillingly into the empty hall. My voice bounced off the walls, and in the silence that followed, I felt only Nagini's satisfied hissing.
"When I get my hands on you, Harry Potter, you will regret ever being born..."
I sat up abruptly in bed, gasping for air. I was shaking so violently that the bed creaked beneath me. Him again. I saw that dark hall and some poor soul crawling away from him like a beaten dog. That last sentence kept ringing in my head like a death sentence.
I felt terribly alone. Sirius was dead, and it was my fault. If I hadn't been so stupid, if I hadn't succumbed to those cursed dreams... if Dumbledore had told me the truth just once. I knew I didn't stand a chance. According to that stupid prophecy, how was I supposed to defeat someone like Voldemort? I didn't possess even a tenth of his power. Even Dumbledore couldn't defeat him.
My throat burned from suppressed tears. I envied everyone who had normal families so much, while I suffered at the Dursleys'. First Cedric, now Sirius... Who would be next? Ron? Hermione? The image of their dead eyes made it hard to breathe. And that prophecy kept playing in my head like a broken record:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
I was sure I had no chance. Completely lost.
"Pff, love," I snorted bitterly into the darkness of my room. "Love is supposed to defeat him? The most powerful Dark Lord in the last hundred years?" It sounded ridiculous. Harry Potter, the boy who is barely surviving, is supposed to destroy a monster with the power of some abstract emotion. In that moment, I felt nothing but pure, cold anger toward Dumbledore and his noble speeches. Love didn't bring back my parents, it didn't save Cedric, and it didn't stop Sirius's death.
I wallowed in that foul depression for a while longer until a scream from downstairs pierced the silence.
"Potter! Get down here and mow the garden this instant!" Aunt Petunia shrieked in that disgusting, grating voice that made my teeth ache. "Lazing around all day like a good-for-nothing! Move it!"
I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles turned white. "I'm coming!" I shouted back. There was no point in arguing. At least I'd get out of this room for a while, where the walls were starting to suffocate me.
On Friday, I woke up unusually early. I only jolted awake once from a dream where Sirius fell behind the veil over and over again. Considering I usually wake up three times a night, it was almost a success. But the pain hadn't gone anywhere. I missed him so much it made my stomach churn.
I had no plans; I just drowned in my own thoughts. I ignored the letters from Ron and Hermione. They lay in a pile in the corner, unopened. What could they possibly write to me? Their empty, sympathetic words would only piss me off. None of them had any idea what it was like to have a murderer's thoughts in their head.
Read books on Defense? Pointless. I'll never catch up to him. I watched Hedwig soaring gracefully outside. I envied her freedom. I wish I could just spread my wings and vanish. This heavy apathy was eventually replaced by exhaustion. Without even realizing it, I fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
Petunia's sharp voice drifted up from the ground floor, immediately jarring me awake: "Potter! Come down here this instant. We want to talk to you!"
I snapped out of my daze, put on my glasses, and sluggishly made my way downstairs. My head was throbbing. "What do they want now?" I asked myself. I hated them, but in my current state, I almost didn't care what they did to me.
Petunia stood in the hallway. Uncle Vernon towered beside her. He looked strange. His face was tired and his eyes were glassy, empty, as if he didn't even see me. He held a business card in his hand. As soon as I stopped in front of them, Vernon mechanically reached out his hand. He was handing it to me. I expected him to start screaming, to throw me out, but he just remained silent. That calm was more terrifying than his anger. Hesitantly, I reached for the card.
The moment my fingers touched the paper, Vernon let out a dry rasp: "Mors."
The world instantly tore apart before my eyes. I felt that familiar, violent jerk somewhere near my navel. A Portkey. I tried to throw the card away, but my fingers were stuck to it with invisible glue. Space twisted, colors blurred into a single smear, until the centrifugal force spat me out.
I slammed hard onto the ground. I buried my face in the gravel of some vast, manicured garden. The hysterical screeching of white peacocks echoed around me. Before I could recover, a shout pierced the silence: "Stupefy!"
A bolt of red light struck me in the back. My lungs failed me, the world went black, and I collapsed into the void.
Finally. Harry Potter was in my hands. Lucius had found some scrap of usefulness after all and fulfilled his duty. I looked down at that scrawny body in round glasses—he looked more like a ghost on the verge of death than my fated enemy. It was almost insulting that this boy, protected only by the sacrifice of his Mudblood mother, had managed to resist me for years.
"Your arm, Lucius," I commanded coldly. A faint, cruel smile settled on my face. I had decided that my triumph would not be a quiet one. All the Death Eaters would witness this legend finally being extinguished. Lucius proudly offered me his forearm. "Fool," I thought. "Branded like cattle and yet he takes pride in it."
I pressed the tip of my wand to the Dark Mark. The skin beneath it blackened, and Lucius suppressed a hiss of pain. I settled comfortably onto my throne of bone while the limp Potter lay on the cold floor like a discarded doll.
My faithful began to arrive in the hall one by one. Masked figures emerged from the shadows like wraiths, bowing subserviently at my feet and lining up in a motionless rank along the sides of the hall. A deathly silence took hold, broken only by the ominous rustle of heavy robes. I savored this moment. I wanted Potter, when he finally opened his eyes, to see nothing but a motionless army of masks and to feel my presence like a cold blade against his throat. His suffering would be legendary.
Finally, everyone was here. The performance could begin.
"Rennervate!"
With a flick of my yew wand, I pulled him out of the darkness. Potter inhaled with a jerk and immediately began to look around in a panic. His eyes behind his glasses searched desperately through the gloom of the hall until they landed on me.
"Welcome, Potter. Did you sleep well?" I asked, and my quiet, cruel laughter rang through the room.
"What do you want, Tom?" he snapped, though his voice wavered. "Are you going to fail again?"
"Crucio!"
His agonizing screams immediately filled the hall. He bellowed like an animal being skinned alive, thrashing on the floor, his fingernails clawing at the hard stone. I enjoyed it; it was pure, warming euphoria that I couldn't get enough of. With reluctance, I lowered my wand. I didn't want him to go mad so soon. That would rob me of all the fun.
When I broke the spell, the hall became so quiet that only Harry's desperate struggle for breath could be heard. My followers stood there like motionless specters in the shadows. Bellatrix was trembling with excitement, her breathing too fast and loud, while Lucius stared intently at the floor, as if afraid that if he looked up, he would be next.
"Harry, Harry..." I spoke into the silence, where only his intermittent, bubbling sobs were audible. "I'm sorry you don't know how to behave. But don't worry, I shall teach you."
I savored the sight. Harry Potter, the great hero of the wizarding world, lay at my feet. But he wasn't broken yet. Oh, no. That brat still had that disgusting, shapeless piece of courage in him that got on my nerves so much. I stepped closer to him to see the moment when the defiance in his eyes would finally go out. Harry pushed himself up onto trembling elbows with effort. His face was covered in dust and tears, but when he looked up at me, I saw no plea.
He coughed. It was a wet, gagging sound. Before I could react, Potter spat a thick, bloody glob of saliva onto my boot. A deathly silence fell over the hall. I heard Bellatrix gasp in shock and Lucius freeze completely beside her. No one dared to move. Slowly, I lowered my gaze to my foot and then back to him. My smile didn't vanish. It just became something much, much worse.
"Crucio!" I screamed hatefully.
The spell pinned him to the ground with even greater force. He began to thrash like an animal again, digging his nails into the hard floor until blood seeped from beneath them. His screams echoed through the hall, gradually losing their human sound and turning into a helpless, wet rattling. Again, I lowered my wand. I was waiting for that look. I was waiting for him to break.
"Still, Harry?" I asked quietly.
"Go… go… f-f-f… fuck yourself, Tom," he rasped. The words left his mouth only with great effort, mixed with blood and foam, but the same fire still burned in his eyes.
I gripped my wand so tightly my knuckles turned white. How was it possible that this brat had more pride in him than the adult wizards who crawled at my feet and kissed the hem of my robes? He was just an ordinary boy, and yet he defied me in a way that was starting to unsettle me. After a moment, however, I burst out laughing. The sound was unnatural in the freezing silence of the hall.
"Your suffering will be legendary, Harry Potter. We have only just begun," I promised him, dark excitement burning in my eyes. "Spatha Cutis!"
A sickly yellow beam shot from my wand and hit his forearm. A pleasant, tearing sound shook the hall, like old canvas being stretched. Harry's skin slit and, with a squelching, wet sound, began to slowly peel away from the raw flesh. I began to skin him alive.
He screamed like a pig at a slaughterhouse, his shrieks bouncing off the high walls until they nearly tore at my ears. But even through this unimaginable agony, even as his muscles trembled in the exposed meat, he still didn't beg. He still didn't give up. His entire left forearm was flayed. The red, wet muscles glistened and pulsed under the hall's light. Fortunately for me, he had a second one.
"Spatha Cutis!"
Again, that delicious, tearing sound. With a squelching rip, I peeled the skin from his right forearm as well. His screams didn't last long, however; after a moment, he fainted from the pain.
"Rennervate!"
He woke with a jerk, gasping for air like a drowning man, so I happily continued where I had left off. I hadn't even finished when the brat escaped into the darkness of unconsciousness again.
"Rennervate!"
The spell woke him for only a second, but his mind was already refusing to cooperate. He fainted again. It was starting to become a bore, but I had promised him his suffering would be legendary, and I keep my promises. With a wave of my wand, I pulled a chair from the corner, smashed it to pieces, and transfigured them into long, thick nails.
I conjured his body against the wall and, with blunt strikes, nailed him by his bloody palms to the stone. I didn't want him running off anywhere once he finally regained full consciousness. He hung there now like some twisted monument to my victory.
After a moment, I turned to my Death Eaters. The room reeked of blood and the animal fear radiating from them. None of them dared to move; none of them wanted to be next. The only ones finding pleasure in this bloody spectacle were Macnair and Bellatrix. I saw a morbid hunger for more violence reflected in their eyes. It didn't matter to me, though; servants are meant to serve, and the entertainment belonged to me.
I had promised Potter legendary suffering and I intended to keep it. For an enemy who refused to break even under my wand, I needed to bring out something worse.
"Bellatrix, Macnair. You will stay here and guard our precious guest. Don't you dare let him escape," I commanded them. Their faces lit up with twisted joy. Then I fixed my gaze on the rest of the masked crowd. "The rest of you... you have two hours to bring me forty-nine adult Muggles. They must be in good condition, without a single scratch. Whoever fails me, dies."
A movement swept through the hall. No one asked questions. Fear of my power was stronger than any compassion for the worms they were to lead to the slaughter.
"Dismissed!"
In an instant, they hurried off to fulfill my orders. Only the thundering of feet followed by the quiet cracks of Disapparition could be heard until the hall was empty. Satisfied, I settled back onto my throne and stretched my fingers across the armrests. I enjoyed the view. Potter hung there on the stone wall like a broken doll, his blood slowly trickling down the cold masonry, forming a dark puddle beneath him. Bellatrix and Macnair stood below him like an honorary guard in hell. Bellatrix occasionally touched the hem of her cloak as if trembling with anticipation, while Macnair just quietly, appreciatively observed my work on the boy's forearms.
It was just us. The silence in the hall was broken only by the occasional heavy drip of blood hitting the floor. Two hours. That was plenty of time to fine-tune the details of what was to come in my mind. Potter had no idea that being skinned was only the beginning of the lesson I had prepared for him.
Author's note:
So, what are your thoughts on this horror story so far? Did it catch your interest? This is just the first chapter out of six. I'm really curious to hear your reactions—let me know in the comments!
It's going to get even more horrific; we're just getting started.
Join our Discord community: tgdTNZYVKt - Vote on the plot, chat, and get the best FF recs!
The shadows are shifting... If you can't wait to see where the darkness leads, you can find the advanced chapters on YOU-KNOW-WHAT.
Support the craft and keep the ink flowing. Your contribution in the Restricted Section directly allows me to dedicate more time to this dark world and bring you deeper, faster updates.
Enter the Restricted Section here: you-know-what/PatrikWriter
Upcoming Chapters:
2. The Trojan Beast
3. The Demon's Feast
4. The Symbiosis of Terror
5. The Last Enemy
6. Epilogue: A World Apart
Important:
Wow. When I started writing in December, I never could have imagined the level of support I'd be receiving by late January. Every sub, like, and comment means the world to me.
Since launching YOU-KNOW-WHAT, that support has felt even more intense. To be honest, I couldn't sleep a wink the other night—I was just tossing and turning, overwhelmed with gratitude and ideas. That's when I decided to write something special for you.
This story is a bit different. It's dark, tragic, and filled with blood, death, and dark magic. My goal is to make sure some of YOU can't sleep either (evil laugh).
The full story is 15,000 words long! This is the first of six chapters, which I've freshly translated and edited into English for you. Thank you so much for being here and for your incredible support!
I sat upon my throne, my fingers tracing the cold scales of Nagini almost tenderly as I watched the pathetic display before me. Lucius was crawling. A once-proud man was now sliding his belly across the cold stone like a gutted worm. He ruined everything he touched. The fiasco at the Ministry had been the final straw for my patience. He had squandered his political influence, his magical ability was mediocre at best, and I had begun to doubt his loyalty. Yet, he possessed something I still required: contacts. And he had a task.
"This is your last chance, Lucius," I spat through my teeth. My voice echoed in the freezing hall like a blade being sharpened against stone. "It must reach him. He has stood in our way for far too long. Once he is removed, the path will be clear."
"Yes, my Lord... thank you... I won't fail you," Lucius stammered. He struck his forehead against the ground in a humiliating gesture, not a trace of his aristocratic pride remaining. He knew that another failure meant not just his death, but the erasure of the entire Malfoy line from the face of the earth. I decided to sear this realization deeper into his memory.
"Crucio!"
His screams shook the room. I relished it. The wave of pure euphoria that washed over me was addictive. After years spent as a mere shadow, I felt power over life and pain once again. With distaste, I broke the spell. Lucius lay there in a pool of his own urine, a trembling wreck of a man.
"Can I eat him, Tom?" Nagini hissed. Her voice was a gluttonous rasp that promised a slow death. When Lucius heard the sound, he began to sob even louder. His fear was almost palpable, reeking of sweat and desperation.
"No, my dear, not yet," I replied to her in the noble tongue of my ancestors. "He has his part to play." I leaned toward him with a smile that was never intended to comfort. "My dear, slimy friend... this is your last chance."
However, his sobbing was starting to get on my nerves. I hated that sound—it reminded me of the weak children at the orphanage crying into their pillows at night. "Get out!" I barked.
Lucius began to crawl away frantically, leaving a wet, foul-smelling trail behind him on the polished floor. The air in the hall grew heavy with the scent of ammonia. "If you mess up this time, Lucius, I will make you lick this hall clean with your own tongue. And then I will let you spend days dying," I thought with hateful calm.
"You are slow," I noted coldly as the doors remained open. "Do you require another spell to help you?" In mortal terror, Lucius quickened his pace, wheezing like a wounded animal until the doors finally closed behind him with a heavy thud.
I settled back onto my throne of bone. The cold beneath my hands soothed me. "When I get my hands on you, Harry Potter, you will regret ever being born," I spoke chillingly into the empty hall. My voice bounced off the walls, and in the silence that followed, I felt only Nagini's satisfied hissing.
"When I get my hands on you, Harry Potter, you will regret ever being born..."
I sat up abruptly in bed, gasping for air. I was shaking so violently that the bed creaked beneath me. Him again. I saw that dark hall and some poor soul crawling away from him like a beaten dog. That last sentence kept ringing in my head like a death sentence.
I felt terribly alone. Sirius was dead, and it was my fault. If I hadn't been so stupid, if I hadn't succumbed to those cursed dreams... if Dumbledore had told me the truth just once. I knew I didn't stand a chance. According to that stupid prophecy, how was I supposed to defeat someone like Voldemort? I didn't possess even a tenth of his power. Even Dumbledore couldn't defeat him.
My throat burned from suppressed tears. I envied everyone who had normal families so much, while I suffered at the Dursleys'. First Cedric, now Sirius... Who would be next? Ron? Hermione? The image of their dead eyes made it hard to breathe. And that prophecy kept playing in my head like a broken record:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
I was sure I had no chance. Completely lost.
"Pff, love," I snorted bitterly into the darkness of my room. "Love is supposed to defeat him? The most powerful Dark Lord in the last hundred years?" It sounded ridiculous. Harry Potter, the boy who is barely surviving, is supposed to destroy a monster with the power of some abstract emotion. In that moment, I felt nothing but pure, cold anger toward Dumbledore and his noble speeches. Love didn't bring back my parents, it didn't save Cedric, and it didn't stop Sirius's death.
I wallowed in that foul depression for a while longer until a scream from downstairs pierced the silence.
"Potter! Get down here and mow the garden this instant!" Aunt Petunia shrieked in that disgusting, grating voice that made my teeth ache. "Lazing around all day like a good-for-nothing! Move it!"
I clenched my fists so hard my knuckles turned white. "I'm coming!" I shouted back. There was no point in arguing. At least I'd get out of this room for a while, where the walls were starting to suffocate me.
On Friday, I woke up unusually early. I only jolted awake once from a dream where Sirius fell behind the veil over and over again. Considering I usually wake up three times a night, it was almost a success. But the pain hadn't gone anywhere. I missed him so much it made my stomach churn.
I had no plans; I just drowned in my own thoughts. I ignored the letters from Ron and Hermione. They lay in a pile in the corner, unopened. What could they possibly write to me? Their empty, sympathetic words would only piss me off. None of them had any idea what it was like to have a murderer's thoughts in their head.
Read books on Defense? Pointless. I'll never catch up to him. I watched Hedwig soaring gracefully outside. I envied her freedom. I wish I could just spread my wings and vanish. This heavy apathy was eventually replaced by exhaustion. Without even realizing it, I fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
Petunia's sharp voice drifted up from the ground floor, immediately jarring me awake: "Potter! Come down here this instant. We want to talk to you!"
I snapped out of my daze, put on my glasses, and sluggishly made my way downstairs. My head was throbbing. "What do they want now?" I asked myself. I hated them, but in my current state, I almost didn't care what they did to me.
Petunia stood in the hallway. Uncle Vernon towered beside her. He looked strange. His face was tired and his eyes were glassy, empty, as if he didn't even see me. He held a business card in his hand. As soon as I stopped in front of them, Vernon mechanically reached out his hand. He was handing it to me. I expected him to start screaming, to throw me out, but he just remained silent. That calm was more terrifying than his anger. Hesitantly, I reached for the card.
The moment my fingers touched the paper, Vernon let out a dry rasp: "Mors."
The world instantly tore apart before my eyes. I felt that familiar, violent jerk somewhere near my navel. A Portkey. I tried to throw the card away, but my fingers were stuck to it with invisible glue. Space twisted, colors blurred into a single smear, until the centrifugal force spat me out.
I slammed hard onto the ground. I buried my face in the gravel of some vast, manicured garden. The hysterical screeching of white peacocks echoed around me. Before I could recover, a shout pierced the silence: "Stupefy!"
A bolt of red light struck me in the back. My lungs failed me, the world went black, and I collapsed into the void.
Finally. Harry Potter was in my hands. Lucius had found some scrap of usefulness after all and fulfilled his duty. I looked down at that scrawny body in round glasses—he looked more like a ghost on the verge of death than my fated enemy. It was almost insulting that this boy, protected only by the sacrifice of his Mudblood mother, had managed to resist me for years.
"Your arm, Lucius," I commanded coldly. A faint, cruel smile settled on my face. I had decided that my triumph would not be a quiet one. All the Death Eaters would witness this legend finally being extinguished. Lucius proudly offered me his forearm. "Fool," I thought. "Branded like cattle and yet he takes pride in it."
I pressed the tip of my wand to the Dark Mark. The skin beneath it blackened, and Lucius suppressed a hiss of pain. I settled comfortably onto my throne of bone while the limp Potter lay on the cold floor like a discarded doll.
My faithful began to arrive in the hall one by one. Masked figures emerged from the shadows like wraiths, bowing subserviently at my feet and lining up in a motionless rank along the sides of the hall. A deathly silence took hold, broken only by the ominous rustle of heavy robes. I savored this moment. I wanted Potter, when he finally opened his eyes, to see nothing but a motionless army of masks and to feel my presence like a cold blade against his throat. His suffering would be legendary.
Finally, everyone was here. The performance could begin.
"Rennervate!"
With a flick of my yew wand, I pulled him out of the darkness. Potter inhaled with a jerk and immediately began to look around in a panic. His eyes behind his glasses searched desperately through the gloom of the hall until they landed on me.
"Welcome, Potter. Did you sleep well?" I asked, and my quiet, cruel laughter rang through the room.
"What do you want, Tom?" he snapped, though his voice wavered. "Are you going to fail again?"
"Crucio!"
His agonizing screams immediately filled the hall. He bellowed like an animal being skinned alive, thrashing on the floor, his fingernails clawing at the hard stone. I enjoyed it; it was pure, warming euphoria that I couldn't get enough of. With reluctance, I lowered my wand. I didn't want him to go mad so soon. That would rob me of all the fun.
When I broke the spell, the hall became so quiet that only Harry's desperate struggle for breath could be heard. My followers stood there like motionless specters in the shadows. Bellatrix was trembling with excitement, her breathing too fast and loud, while Lucius stared intently at the floor, as if afraid that if he looked up, he would be next.
"Harry, Harry..." I spoke into the silence, where only his intermittent, bubbling sobs were audible. "I'm sorry you don't know how to behave. But don't worry, I shall teach you."
I savored the sight. Harry Potter, the great hero of the wizarding world, lay at my feet. But he wasn't broken yet. Oh, no. That brat still had that disgusting, shapeless piece of courage in him that got on my nerves so much. I stepped closer to him to see the moment when the defiance in his eyes would finally go out. Harry pushed himself up onto trembling elbows with effort. His face was covered in dust and tears, but when he looked up at me, I saw no plea.
He coughed. It was a wet, gagging sound. Before I could react, Potter spat a thick, bloody glob of saliva onto my boot. A deathly silence fell over the hall. I heard Bellatrix gasp in shock and Lucius freeze completely beside her. No one dared to move. Slowly, I lowered my gaze to my foot and then back to him. My smile didn't vanish. It just became something much, much worse.
"Crucio!" I screamed hatefully.
The spell pinned him to the ground with even greater force. He began to thrash like an animal again, digging his nails into the hard floor until blood seeped from beneath them. His screams echoed through the hall, gradually losing their human sound and turning into a helpless, wet rattling. Again, I lowered my wand. I was waiting for that look. I was waiting for him to break.
"Still, Harry?" I asked quietly.
"Go… go… f-f-f… fuck yourself, Tom," he rasped. The words left his mouth only with great effort, mixed with blood and foam, but the same fire still burned in his eyes.
I gripped my wand so tightly my knuckles turned white. How was it possible that this brat had more pride in him than the adult wizards who crawled at my feet and kissed the hem of my robes? He was just an ordinary boy, and yet he defied me in a way that was starting to unsettle me. After a moment, however, I burst out laughing. The sound was unnatural in the freezing silence of the hall.
"Your suffering will be legendary, Harry Potter. We have only just begun," I promised him, dark excitement burning in my eyes. "Spatha Cutis!"
A sickly yellow beam shot from my wand and hit his forearm. A pleasant, tearing sound shook the hall, like old canvas being stretched. Harry's skin slit and, with a squelching, wet sound, began to slowly peel away from the raw flesh. I began to skin him alive.
He screamed like a pig at a slaughterhouse, his shrieks bouncing off the high walls until they nearly tore at my ears. But even through this unimaginable agony, even as his muscles trembled in the exposed meat, he still didn't beg. He still didn't give up. His entire left forearm was flayed. The red, wet muscles glistened and pulsed under the hall's light. Fortunately for me, he had a second one.
"Spatha Cutis!"
Again, that delicious, tearing sound. With a squelching rip, I peeled the skin from his right forearm as well. His screams didn't last long, however; after a moment, he fainted from the pain.
"Rennervate!"
He woke with a jerk, gasping for air like a drowning man, so I happily continued where I had left off. I hadn't even finished when the brat escaped into the darkness of unconsciousness again.
"Rennervate!"
The spell woke him for only a second, but his mind was already refusing to cooperate. He fainted again. It was starting to become a bore, but I had promised him his suffering would be legendary, and I keep my promises. With a wave of my wand, I pulled a chair from the corner, smashed it to pieces, and transfigured them into long, thick nails.
I conjured his body against the wall and, with blunt strikes, nailed him by his bloody palms to the stone. I didn't want him running off anywhere once he finally regained full consciousness. He hung there now like some twisted monument to my victory.
After a moment, I turned to my Death Eaters. The room reeked of blood and the animal fear radiating from them. None of them dared to move; none of them wanted to be next. The only ones finding pleasure in this bloody spectacle were Macnair and Bellatrix. I saw a morbid hunger for more violence reflected in their eyes. It didn't matter to me, though; servants are meant to serve, and the entertainment belonged to me.
I had promised Potter legendary suffering and I intended to keep it. For an enemy who refused to break even under my wand, I needed to bring out something worse.
"Bellatrix, Macnair. You will stay here and guard our precious guest. Don't you dare let him escape," I commanded them. Their faces lit up with twisted joy. Then I fixed my gaze on the rest of the masked crowd. "The rest of you... you have two hours to bring me forty-nine adult Muggles. They must be in good condition, without a single scratch. Whoever fails me, dies."
A movement swept through the hall. No one asked questions. Fear of my power was stronger than any compassion for the worms they were to lead to the slaughter.
"Dismissed!"
In an instant, they hurried off to fulfill my orders. Only the thundering of feet followed by the quiet cracks of Disapparition could be heard until the hall was empty. Satisfied, I settled back onto my throne and stretched my fingers across the armrests. I enjoyed the view. Potter hung there on the stone wall like a broken doll, his blood slowly trickling down the cold masonry, forming a dark puddle beneath him. Bellatrix and Macnair stood below him like an honorary guard in hell. Bellatrix occasionally touched the hem of her cloak as if trembling with anticipation, while Macnair just quietly, appreciatively observed my work on the boy's forearms.
It was just us. The silence in the hall was broken only by the occasional heavy drip of blood hitting the floor. Two hours. That was plenty of time to fine-tune the details of what was to come in my mind. Potter had no idea that being skinned was only the beginning of the lesson I had prepared for him.
Author's note:
So, what are your thoughts on this horror story so far? Did it catch your interest? This is just the first chapter out of six. I'm really curious to hear your reactions—let me know in the comments!
It's going to get even more horrific; we're just getting started.
Join our Discord community: tgdTNZYVKt - Vote on the plot, chat, and get the best FF recs!
The shadows are shifting... If you can't wait to see where the darkness leads, you can find the advanced chapters on YOU-KNOW-WHAT.
Support the craft and keep the ink flowing. Your contribution in the Restricted Section directly allows me to dedicate more time to this dark world and bring you deeper, faster updates.
Enter the Restricted Section here: you-know-what/PatrikWriter
Upcoming Chapters:
2. The Trojan Beast
3. The Demon's Feast
4. The Symbiosis of Terror
5. The Last Enemy
6. Epilogue: A World Apart
2. The Trojan Beast
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PatrikWriter
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Are people afraid of reading horror?
While Bellatrix and Macnair guarded our guest and the other Death Eaters gathered Muggles in Muggle London, I was preparing the ritual chamber.
I erected seven ritual circles around the central altar of black obsidian. Into each of them, I wove immobilizing and numbing spells; the Muggles had to be calm, submissive, and unaware of what awaited them, so that their fear would not taint the ritual blood. I fitted the altar itself with silver chains, enchanted so that any victim in their grasp would freeze in absolute immobility. I carved runes into the stone, which now pulsed with a dim light, suppressing any foreign magic on the altar. Deep grooves—funnels designed to ensure the blood from the victims flowed exactly where it was meant to—stretched from the ritual circles toward the center. To the altar.
Finally, everything was ready. I had a few minutes, so I sank into my memories through deep meditation.
Shortly after my studies at Hogwarts, I traveled the world seeking forbidden knowledge. In the ruins of ancient Alexandria, I stumbled upon scrolls covered in ancient hieroglyphs. I had to completely subjugate the mind of an Egyptian professor to have him translate those bloody secrets into Latin. It was there that I found the foundations for my Horcruxes, but those scrolls hid something else. A ritual so cruel and dark that even the most depraved ancient priests did not dare to perform it.
That is exactly what I will bestow upon my greatest enemy.
I had long since lost the translated scrolls, but thanks to Occlumency, every single symbol, every step, and every effect of the ritual was etched into my mind.
I returned to the main hall. With a flick of my wand, I ripped the nails from Harry's palms; he fell to the stone floor limp and with a heavy thud. I motioned for Bellatrix and Macnair to take him.
As soon as we entered the ritual room, I let his body levitate and placed him on the cold obsidian altar. With a wave of my wand, I activated the silver chains. With a metallic clink, they wrapped around his throat, chest, and mangled limbs so tightly that he couldn't even move. I noticed he was already alert. Even through that unimaginable pain, he perceived his surroundings—he was only playing helpless, desperately waiting for the slightest chance to escape. Fool. There is no escape from this place.
"Bellatrix, forearm," I commanded with a cruel smile. With a brief touch of my wand to her Mark, I summoned the others. It was time. My servants began to pour into the hall, leading confused Muggle victims with them. The Muggles had glassy, vacant stares; under the influence of the Imperius Curse, they walked obediently like cattle to the slaughter.
"Seven Muggles in each circle! Exactly!" I hissed at them.
I watched as my faithful mechanically divided those pieces of meat into the prepared circles. Forty-nine pairs of empty eyes, seven circles, and in the center, Harry Potter. The geometry of the ritual was perfect.
The ritual could finally begin. I raised my yew wand and, in a deep, guttural voice, began to recite words that the world had not heard for millennia:
"Septem circuli, septem fata, ad unum finem coeunt."
The air in the ritual chamber immediately thickened and began to pulse with raw magic. The ritual circles glowed with an unnatural light, and I felt a dark, euphoric power filling me. I closed my eyes in bliss.
"Sanguis quadraginta novem, flumen ad inferos, aperi januam tenebrarum!"
The circles pulsed one last time. At that same moment, blood began to pour from the Muggles with unnatural violence. It flowed directly into the pre-prepared grooves and, with a squelching sound, filled the space around the obsidian altar.
"O, Spiritus Abyssi, exhauri hanc formam fragilem. Intra in vas paratum!"
The magic sucked the last remains of life from the Muggles. All that remained of them were shriveled, dried pieces of meat and bone, tossed in the circles like waste. Potter disappeared. In his place on the altar pulsed a massive bloody cocoon, absorbing all that life essence.
"Harry Potter, non iam puer, sed vinculum daemonis! Fiat lux obscura!"
Immediately after I spoke the last word, the magic in the room grew so heavy it was almost impossible to breathe. All that darkness began to be violently sucked into the cocoon. Its color changed from a menacing red to an impenetrable, pitch black, and its surface hardened to stone.
An absolute, deathly silence reigned in the hall. Then came the first dry crack. The cocoon shattered into a thousand black shards. The enchanted silver chains that were supposed to hold Potter in place could not withstand the pressure and flew apart like threads.
Potter stood up abruptly with a guttural growl. He was no longer that weak boy. His eyes now shone piercingly with the unnatural color of the Avada Kedavra curse. He no longer looked like a phantom on the verge of death—his body was tall and powerful, every single muscle perfectly defined, with bulging veins pulsing under his taut skin.
His skin, however, was no longer human. It was deathly, dark black, as if it absorbed even what little light was in the room. Spikes of sharp black bone protruded from his shoulders and elbows, and from his forehead, exactly where the lightning bolt scar used to be, curved hellish horns now grew. Only tattered rags remained of his clothing. What stood there was not a man, but a wild beast ready to kill.
I smirked. The ritual was a success, and I felt victory in every breath. Without a word, with only a brief nod of my chin, I gave Macnair the command to attack. I wanted to see what this creature could do.
"Crucio!" Macnair screamed.
The red bolt hit the Beast's chest with full force. However, it didn't even flinch. It didn't double over in pain or cry out. It just stood there, watching Macnair with those glowing Avada-colored eyes. The Unforgivable Curse didn't even move it; it took it as a silent invitation.
In a fraction of a second, a black shadow flickered through the space. The Beast was upon him before Macnair could take another breath. It grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted him high like a ragdoll. Macnair thrashed helplessly, his legs flailing in the air, pure terror in his eyes. I saw the Beast smile—it was the wide, jagged grin of a creature enjoying its prey's agony.
Then the Beast squeezed sharply. In the silent room, the sound of crushing cartilage and bone rang out so loudly it hurt the ears. Macnair's throat was instant mush. He was left a wheezing shadow of a man, but for the Beast, it wasn't enough.
It opened its jaws unnaturally wide, the joints in its jaw snapping loudly. In one fluid motion, it bit into Macnair's head and tore off a massive chunk of flesh and bone. Warm blood sprayed in all directions, staining the monster's black chest and the obsidian altar. Behind my back, I heard muffled gagging sounds—some of my faithful Death Eaters couldn't mentally handle the sight.
The Beast, however, lapped up the blood and chewed its prey with a squelch. Harry Potter was dead. This was something else.
After a while, the Beast collapsed. It was accompanied by the foul sound of snapping bones and contracting muscles, until Harry Potter lay on the ground again. He was different—tall, strong, and muscular, but his skin had a human color again and the horns had vanished.
This was exactly how it was meant to be. The demon within him would now sleep, feeding on his trauma and gradually taking control. Potter himself would murder his loved ones and eventually, when not a shred of humanity remained in him, he would destroy himself.
"Severus?" I called into the huddle of Death Eaters, who were still reeling from Macnair's death.
My favorite half-blood immediately stepped forward with a deep bow. I respected his abilities, but I never trusted him. He was a true Slytherin—too cunning for me to risk him informing Dumbledore about what happened here today. Potter had to be my secret trump card. A perfectly disguised Trojan horse.
I didn't wait.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light illuminated the ritual chamber. Severus Snape didn't expect it; he didn't even raise his wand. He simply slumped dead at my feet with a vacant stare fixed on the ceiling. A murmur of horror rippled through the hall.
"Lucius," I called coldly.
Malfoy literally crawled toward me. Where was that famous pride of his? Now he was just a broken dog.
"Ye... yes, my... my lord? What can I do for you?" he let out in a trembling voice. At least he didn't wet himself this time.
"Apparate Potter to Diagon Alley. But first, discreetly tip off someone from the Order of the Phoenix so they find him there," I ordered with a cruel smile.
"Right away, my lord!" he blurted out and immediately ran to fulfill the order. Once, he might have dared to doubt, to ask if I was sure. Now, however, he knew very well that every hesitation separated him by only a millimeter from the fate that befell Snape.
I woke up. My heart was pounding wildly, my ears strained to hear the sound of torture. For a moment, I just lay motionless, but around me, there was only a familiar, quiet breathing. I was lying in a soft bed and could smell the scent of the Burrow—old wood, dried herbs, and Molly's freshly laundered sheets. I was safe.
It must have been just a dream. Voldemort would never let me go, not like that. But what happened? Why am I here? I had to get answers, even though it was the middle of the night.
I started nudging Ron. He only snorted, "Whaat... go to sleep, Harry," and rolled onto his other side. I nudged him harder. He could sleep later; I needed to know if I hadn't gone mad.
"Ron, wake up! It's important!" When he still wouldn't move, I yanked the duvet off him.
"Alright, alright... keep your hair on. You're worse than Mum," he yawned and finally sat up, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
"Ron, how did I get to the Burrow? I was supposed to be at the Dursleys', wasn't I?" I asked tensely.
Ron stared at me for a moment as if I'd lost it, but then he started talking. With every word he spoke, I felt something cruel and alien awakening within me.
"The Order brought you in last night. They found you dumped and tattered in Diagon Alley. Thank God you're alive!"
The blood froze in my veins. Ron didn't notice; he just stared vacantly into the darkness. "Dumbledore got a message from Snape that Voldemort had gotten you. We were all out of our minds with worry." He paused for a moment and then added with admiration, "How did you escape him? You're bloody lucky, mate. But... what the hell were you doing all summer? You look different. You're huge, all muscle. Was Hagrid sending you some kind of supplements?"
A single thought exploded in my head.
"Fuck, it wasn't a dream."
I felt the darkness rising within me. It clawed its way to the surface with an insatiable, animal hunger. I looked at my hands, and although they were smooth and clean, I could still smell the scent of Macnair's blood.
"By the way, Hermione is here too. When she found out you'd been kidnapped, she came immediately!" Ron blurted out with relief in his voice, completely unaware that death was already sitting on the next bed.
"Ron, please... run! Get away!" I screamed, but in that second, agony paralyzed me. I felt my bones breaking and knitting back together at unnatural angles, my skin turning black under the onslaught of darkness. I lost control. The demon within me took the helm, and I was pushed into the background, trapped inside my own head.
Instead of running, Ron did the worst thing possible—he lunged toward me and started screaming desperately, "Dad! Dad, something's happening to Harry!"
I pleaded desperately in my mind, screaming in that dark void my mind had become: "Please, leave him! Get away from him!" But the demon ignored me.
Stupid, loyal Ron... he believed it was me. He should have given up on me; he should have left me alone like he did during the Tournament. Now his kindness would kill him.
With horror, I watched as my own body grabbed him by the waist and lifted him high. My mouth opened unnaturally wide and, with a violent, wet snap, tore out his entire throat. Hot blood sprayed onto the walls, onto Ron's posters, onto everything. A shocked Ron just stared blankly ahead while his soul escaped his fading eyes. He died within seconds.
I could taste the iron and salt of Ron's blood flowing down my throat. In every crushing snap of his bones, I heard the end of my old life. I had killed him. My best friend, the brother I chose. And the Beast just purred contentedly.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed in the hallway. Rapid, frightened. I heard the thumping of feet on the stairs, but the Beast didn't care. It continued to feed contentedly on the body of my best friend as if it were just some prey in the forest.
The door burst open. Molly and Arthur were standing there. Mrs. Weasley immediately began to scream—it was a sound that tore at my ears and my soul. Arthur just stood there, incapable of word or movement, staring in shock at the bloody remains of his youngest son.
"Please, please, leave them..." I prayed in my mind, desperately trying to regain control over at least one muscle. In vain. Mrs. Weasley's scream was only an annoying noise to the demon, one that needed to be silenced.
The Beast lunged. Its speed was unnatural, just a blurred black shadow. With one violent swing of a hand tipped with claws sharp as razors, it decapitated Molly Weasley. A geyser of hot blood immediately erupted from her neck, which I could feel all the way inside. The room filled with a heavy, metallic smell of blood mixed with excrement and the scent of pure terror.
While Arthur watched this bloody spectacle motionless, the Beast savored the sight of her collapsing body. Why wasn't he running? Why didn't he pull out his wand and hit me with a curse that would end us both? He should have killed me.
But he just stood there, a broken man in petrified horror.
In a second, the Beast was behind his back. Arthur didn't even have time to scream. A sharp claw sliced his back open from his neck to his tailbone. I felt the resistance of bones and tendons as, with one brutal yank, it tore out his entire spine along with part of his ribs. Arthur fell to the ground like a deboned rag.
In the bloody silence that followed Arthur's last rattle, the Beast paused for a moment. A deep, rhythmic growling came from its (my) chest. It surveyed the massacre with satisfaction—the room that was once a sanctuary had turned into a slaughterhouse. Blood dripped from the ceiling to the floor in regular, heavy drops.
But the hunger within me was far from satisfied. That alien intelligence now controlling my limbs was only just warming up. It felt other lives in the house. The sweet, pulsing warmth of blood hiding behind the thin walls of the Burrow. It felt their fear—and that tasted the best.
"Enough! Stop it! Please, leave them!" I screamed in the darkness of my mind, but my voice was only a quiet whisper against its hunger.
Author's note:
Darker than you imagined? What are your theories? How will the story unfold, and more importantly... will anyone survive the night?
Join our Discord community: tgdTNZYVKt - Vote on the plot, chat, and get the best FF recs!
The shadows are shifting... If you can't wait to see where the darkness leads, you can find the advanced chapters on YOU-KNOW-WHAT.
Support the craft and keep the ink flowing. Your contribution in the Restricted Section directly allows me to dedicate more time to this dark world and bring you deeper, faster updates.
Enter the Restricted Section here: you-know-what/PatrikWriter
Upcoming Chapters:
3. The Demon's Feast
4. The Symbiosis of Terror
5. The Last Enemy
6. Epilogue: A World Apart
While Bellatrix and Macnair guarded our guest and the other Death Eaters gathered Muggles in Muggle London, I was preparing the ritual chamber.
I erected seven ritual circles around the central altar of black obsidian. Into each of them, I wove immobilizing and numbing spells; the Muggles had to be calm, submissive, and unaware of what awaited them, so that their fear would not taint the ritual blood. I fitted the altar itself with silver chains, enchanted so that any victim in their grasp would freeze in absolute immobility. I carved runes into the stone, which now pulsed with a dim light, suppressing any foreign magic on the altar. Deep grooves—funnels designed to ensure the blood from the victims flowed exactly where it was meant to—stretched from the ritual circles toward the center. To the altar.
Finally, everything was ready. I had a few minutes, so I sank into my memories through deep meditation.
Shortly after my studies at Hogwarts, I traveled the world seeking forbidden knowledge. In the ruins of ancient Alexandria, I stumbled upon scrolls covered in ancient hieroglyphs. I had to completely subjugate the mind of an Egyptian professor to have him translate those bloody secrets into Latin. It was there that I found the foundations for my Horcruxes, but those scrolls hid something else. A ritual so cruel and dark that even the most depraved ancient priests did not dare to perform it.
That is exactly what I will bestow upon my greatest enemy.
I had long since lost the translated scrolls, but thanks to Occlumency, every single symbol, every step, and every effect of the ritual was etched into my mind.
I returned to the main hall. With a flick of my wand, I ripped the nails from Harry's palms; he fell to the stone floor limp and with a heavy thud. I motioned for Bellatrix and Macnair to take him.
As soon as we entered the ritual room, I let his body levitate and placed him on the cold obsidian altar. With a wave of my wand, I activated the silver chains. With a metallic clink, they wrapped around his throat, chest, and mangled limbs so tightly that he couldn't even move. I noticed he was already alert. Even through that unimaginable pain, he perceived his surroundings—he was only playing helpless, desperately waiting for the slightest chance to escape. Fool. There is no escape from this place.
"Bellatrix, forearm," I commanded with a cruel smile. With a brief touch of my wand to her Mark, I summoned the others. It was time. My servants began to pour into the hall, leading confused Muggle victims with them. The Muggles had glassy, vacant stares; under the influence of the Imperius Curse, they walked obediently like cattle to the slaughter.
"Seven Muggles in each circle! Exactly!" I hissed at them.
I watched as my faithful mechanically divided those pieces of meat into the prepared circles. Forty-nine pairs of empty eyes, seven circles, and in the center, Harry Potter. The geometry of the ritual was perfect.
The ritual could finally begin. I raised my yew wand and, in a deep, guttural voice, began to recite words that the world had not heard for millennia:
"Septem circuli, septem fata, ad unum finem coeunt."
The air in the ritual chamber immediately thickened and began to pulse with raw magic. The ritual circles glowed with an unnatural light, and I felt a dark, euphoric power filling me. I closed my eyes in bliss.
"Sanguis quadraginta novem, flumen ad inferos, aperi januam tenebrarum!"
The circles pulsed one last time. At that same moment, blood began to pour from the Muggles with unnatural violence. It flowed directly into the pre-prepared grooves and, with a squelching sound, filled the space around the obsidian altar.
"O, Spiritus Abyssi, exhauri hanc formam fragilem. Intra in vas paratum!"
The magic sucked the last remains of life from the Muggles. All that remained of them were shriveled, dried pieces of meat and bone, tossed in the circles like waste. Potter disappeared. In his place on the altar pulsed a massive bloody cocoon, absorbing all that life essence.
"Harry Potter, non iam puer, sed vinculum daemonis! Fiat lux obscura!"
Immediately after I spoke the last word, the magic in the room grew so heavy it was almost impossible to breathe. All that darkness began to be violently sucked into the cocoon. Its color changed from a menacing red to an impenetrable, pitch black, and its surface hardened to stone.
An absolute, deathly silence reigned in the hall. Then came the first dry crack. The cocoon shattered into a thousand black shards. The enchanted silver chains that were supposed to hold Potter in place could not withstand the pressure and flew apart like threads.
Potter stood up abruptly with a guttural growl. He was no longer that weak boy. His eyes now shone piercingly with the unnatural color of the Avada Kedavra curse. He no longer looked like a phantom on the verge of death—his body was tall and powerful, every single muscle perfectly defined, with bulging veins pulsing under his taut skin.
His skin, however, was no longer human. It was deathly, dark black, as if it absorbed even what little light was in the room. Spikes of sharp black bone protruded from his shoulders and elbows, and from his forehead, exactly where the lightning bolt scar used to be, curved hellish horns now grew. Only tattered rags remained of his clothing. What stood there was not a man, but a wild beast ready to kill.
I smirked. The ritual was a success, and I felt victory in every breath. Without a word, with only a brief nod of my chin, I gave Macnair the command to attack. I wanted to see what this creature could do.
"Crucio!" Macnair screamed.
The red bolt hit the Beast's chest with full force. However, it didn't even flinch. It didn't double over in pain or cry out. It just stood there, watching Macnair with those glowing Avada-colored eyes. The Unforgivable Curse didn't even move it; it took it as a silent invitation.
In a fraction of a second, a black shadow flickered through the space. The Beast was upon him before Macnair could take another breath. It grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted him high like a ragdoll. Macnair thrashed helplessly, his legs flailing in the air, pure terror in his eyes. I saw the Beast smile—it was the wide, jagged grin of a creature enjoying its prey's agony.
Then the Beast squeezed sharply. In the silent room, the sound of crushing cartilage and bone rang out so loudly it hurt the ears. Macnair's throat was instant mush. He was left a wheezing shadow of a man, but for the Beast, it wasn't enough.
It opened its jaws unnaturally wide, the joints in its jaw snapping loudly. In one fluid motion, it bit into Macnair's head and tore off a massive chunk of flesh and bone. Warm blood sprayed in all directions, staining the monster's black chest and the obsidian altar. Behind my back, I heard muffled gagging sounds—some of my faithful Death Eaters couldn't mentally handle the sight.
The Beast, however, lapped up the blood and chewed its prey with a squelch. Harry Potter was dead. This was something else.
After a while, the Beast collapsed. It was accompanied by the foul sound of snapping bones and contracting muscles, until Harry Potter lay on the ground again. He was different—tall, strong, and muscular, but his skin had a human color again and the horns had vanished.
This was exactly how it was meant to be. The demon within him would now sleep, feeding on his trauma and gradually taking control. Potter himself would murder his loved ones and eventually, when not a shred of humanity remained in him, he would destroy himself.
"Severus?" I called into the huddle of Death Eaters, who were still reeling from Macnair's death.
My favorite half-blood immediately stepped forward with a deep bow. I respected his abilities, but I never trusted him. He was a true Slytherin—too cunning for me to risk him informing Dumbledore about what happened here today. Potter had to be my secret trump card. A perfectly disguised Trojan horse.
I didn't wait.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light illuminated the ritual chamber. Severus Snape didn't expect it; he didn't even raise his wand. He simply slumped dead at my feet with a vacant stare fixed on the ceiling. A murmur of horror rippled through the hall.
"Lucius," I called coldly.
Malfoy literally crawled toward me. Where was that famous pride of his? Now he was just a broken dog.
"Ye... yes, my... my lord? What can I do for you?" he let out in a trembling voice. At least he didn't wet himself this time.
"Apparate Potter to Diagon Alley. But first, discreetly tip off someone from the Order of the Phoenix so they find him there," I ordered with a cruel smile.
"Right away, my lord!" he blurted out and immediately ran to fulfill the order. Once, he might have dared to doubt, to ask if I was sure. Now, however, he knew very well that every hesitation separated him by only a millimeter from the fate that befell Snape.
I woke up. My heart was pounding wildly, my ears strained to hear the sound of torture. For a moment, I just lay motionless, but around me, there was only a familiar, quiet breathing. I was lying in a soft bed and could smell the scent of the Burrow—old wood, dried herbs, and Molly's freshly laundered sheets. I was safe.
It must have been just a dream. Voldemort would never let me go, not like that. But what happened? Why am I here? I had to get answers, even though it was the middle of the night.
I started nudging Ron. He only snorted, "Whaat... go to sleep, Harry," and rolled onto his other side. I nudged him harder. He could sleep later; I needed to know if I hadn't gone mad.
"Ron, wake up! It's important!" When he still wouldn't move, I yanked the duvet off him.
"Alright, alright... keep your hair on. You're worse than Mum," he yawned and finally sat up, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
"Ron, how did I get to the Burrow? I was supposed to be at the Dursleys', wasn't I?" I asked tensely.
Ron stared at me for a moment as if I'd lost it, but then he started talking. With every word he spoke, I felt something cruel and alien awakening within me.
"The Order brought you in last night. They found you dumped and tattered in Diagon Alley. Thank God you're alive!"
The blood froze in my veins. Ron didn't notice; he just stared vacantly into the darkness. "Dumbledore got a message from Snape that Voldemort had gotten you. We were all out of our minds with worry." He paused for a moment and then added with admiration, "How did you escape him? You're bloody lucky, mate. But... what the hell were you doing all summer? You look different. You're huge, all muscle. Was Hagrid sending you some kind of supplements?"
A single thought exploded in my head.
"Fuck, it wasn't a dream."
I felt the darkness rising within me. It clawed its way to the surface with an insatiable, animal hunger. I looked at my hands, and although they were smooth and clean, I could still smell the scent of Macnair's blood.
"By the way, Hermione is here too. When she found out you'd been kidnapped, she came immediately!" Ron blurted out with relief in his voice, completely unaware that death was already sitting on the next bed.
"Ron, please... run! Get away!" I screamed, but in that second, agony paralyzed me. I felt my bones breaking and knitting back together at unnatural angles, my skin turning black under the onslaught of darkness. I lost control. The demon within me took the helm, and I was pushed into the background, trapped inside my own head.
Instead of running, Ron did the worst thing possible—he lunged toward me and started screaming desperately, "Dad! Dad, something's happening to Harry!"
I pleaded desperately in my mind, screaming in that dark void my mind had become: "Please, leave him! Get away from him!" But the demon ignored me.
Stupid, loyal Ron... he believed it was me. He should have given up on me; he should have left me alone like he did during the Tournament. Now his kindness would kill him.
With horror, I watched as my own body grabbed him by the waist and lifted him high. My mouth opened unnaturally wide and, with a violent, wet snap, tore out his entire throat. Hot blood sprayed onto the walls, onto Ron's posters, onto everything. A shocked Ron just stared blankly ahead while his soul escaped his fading eyes. He died within seconds.
I could taste the iron and salt of Ron's blood flowing down my throat. In every crushing snap of his bones, I heard the end of my old life. I had killed him. My best friend, the brother I chose. And the Beast just purred contentedly.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed in the hallway. Rapid, frightened. I heard the thumping of feet on the stairs, but the Beast didn't care. It continued to feed contentedly on the body of my best friend as if it were just some prey in the forest.
The door burst open. Molly and Arthur were standing there. Mrs. Weasley immediately began to scream—it was a sound that tore at my ears and my soul. Arthur just stood there, incapable of word or movement, staring in shock at the bloody remains of his youngest son.
"Please, please, leave them..." I prayed in my mind, desperately trying to regain control over at least one muscle. In vain. Mrs. Weasley's scream was only an annoying noise to the demon, one that needed to be silenced.
The Beast lunged. Its speed was unnatural, just a blurred black shadow. With one violent swing of a hand tipped with claws sharp as razors, it decapitated Molly Weasley. A geyser of hot blood immediately erupted from her neck, which I could feel all the way inside. The room filled with a heavy, metallic smell of blood mixed with excrement and the scent of pure terror.
While Arthur watched this bloody spectacle motionless, the Beast savored the sight of her collapsing body. Why wasn't he running? Why didn't he pull out his wand and hit me with a curse that would end us both? He should have killed me.
But he just stood there, a broken man in petrified horror.
In a second, the Beast was behind his back. Arthur didn't even have time to scream. A sharp claw sliced his back open from his neck to his tailbone. I felt the resistance of bones and tendons as, with one brutal yank, it tore out his entire spine along with part of his ribs. Arthur fell to the ground like a deboned rag.
In the bloody silence that followed Arthur's last rattle, the Beast paused for a moment. A deep, rhythmic growling came from its (my) chest. It surveyed the massacre with satisfaction—the room that was once a sanctuary had turned into a slaughterhouse. Blood dripped from the ceiling to the floor in regular, heavy drops.
But the hunger within me was far from satisfied. That alien intelligence now controlling my limbs was only just warming up. It felt other lives in the house. The sweet, pulsing warmth of blood hiding behind the thin walls of the Burrow. It felt their fear—and that tasted the best.
"Enough! Stop it! Please, leave them!" I screamed in the darkness of my mind, but my voice was only a quiet whisper against its hunger.
Author's note:
Darker than you imagined? What are your theories? How will the story unfold, and more importantly... will anyone survive the night?
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Upcoming Chapters:
3. The Demon's Feast
4. The Symbiosis of Terror
5. The Last Enemy
6. Epilogue: A World Apart