Harry Potter and the Lord of the Night | By : Demonized Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Harry/Hermione Views: 19389 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I make any money off of this work. Kyrios, however, is my original character, and is not from any other fandom whatsoever. |
Whether it is a stroke of luck or pure coincidence that he has chosen to rest in a tree overlooking the front yard of Number Four of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey is something that matters little to him, though it will later be the subject of vicious debate. He has grown tired from his flight over the Atlantic Ocean and has decided a stopover in the South-Eastern part of England will do him some good. Sure, there are better ways of traveling than in the form of a Large Flying Fox, but he prefers the freedom of spreading his wings, even if it shouldn't be possible for this particular breed of bat.
He is not just any old bat. No, he is Kyrios, a vampire. The strongest there is, known only to the various types of vampires that inhabit the world. Not even the magical folk know of him, though there are likely myths and legends that have been crafted from the stories that had been passed down by word of mouth from the earlier years of his undead life. Even the humans have some legends and myths that allude to him, particularly in Greece, his birth land.
Hanging upside down on one of the tree's thicker branches, he is about to go to sleep when something appears out of nowhere in the near vicinity. His senses are excellent and a source of pride for him, and he tenses when this new presence begins approaching his direction. Kyrios waits with bated breath, prepared to strike should this be an attempt on his life when a cat, and nothing more, walks into his field of vision.
He stares at the cat for a long moment, watching as it looks up at the street sign on the corner of the street some twenty feet away from the animal, and a bit more from him, to read the lettering on the sign that names the street as Privet Drive. That is a bit odd for a cat nowadays. Staring at the animal harder, he notices that the air around it seems to shimmer a little with something he hasn't come across in a very long time. Magic. The cat is one of those magical people able to take on the form of a singular animal.
From within the depths of Number Four comes something of a slight ruckus, causing Kyrios' ears to twitch and his attention to go to the front door of the dwelling. The cat seems to notice the ruckus as well and has jumped up onto the low brick wall that encloses the front yard of Number Four. Both of them watch as the front door opens and a rather portly man with short, slicked down blonde hair and a mustache waddles out onto the stoop. He closes the door with a bit of a bang and walks over to the gate that lets out onto the driveway, where he gets into his car, his great weight causing the vehicle to groan a bit and lean towards that side.
His gaze going back to the cat, he watches it as it watches the human start up the car and drives away from the home. How curious. Ignoring his primary reason for having landed in the tree, not that he genuinely needs to sleep to rest up from the start, he decides that watching the cat will prove much more interesting, as well as probably informative.
Eventually, sometime after the portly man had left, a tall and rather thin woman with a child that oddly resembles a beach ball in size leaves Number Four. The cat seems to stiffen and must have been glaring at the two as the child screams for sweets and kicks at his mother while they walk down the street. He feels a bit repulsed by the child's actions, but even more so towards the parents for allowing the child to act in such a way. The mother doesn't even do anything to dissuade the screaming and kicking, instead promising the very sweets the child is screaming for.
How abhorrent, Kyrios thinks as he lets his attention return to the cat, who is watching the two until they disappear. Once the cat can no longer see them, it visibly relaxes but does not seem intent on moving from the low wall. Is there some sort of business this magical has with the Number Four household?
Hours and hours will pass before he finds out; the residents of Number Four, all having returned, carry out the rest of their day and go to sleep. Precisely one hour after the three have gone to sleep, another person appears right at the corner of Privet Drive. He can see them quite clearly from his branch, and it is an old man dressed quite oddly in a long, flowing purple robe? Kyrios blinks at this, his head tilting slightly as he takes in the pointed high-heeled boots that are peeking out from the hem of the robes, which are covered in silver stars. This magical human has a long white beard, a twice-crooked nose, and he wears crescent moon-shaped glasses. Behind those glasses are blue eyes that twinkle with a sort of wrongness to them.
The oddly-dressed magical man fishes around in his robes, and after a moment or two, he pulls out a cylindrical silver device that somewhat resembles a lighter. Instead of a flame appearing, each time the little device clicks, one of the street lamps on Privet Drive goes out, and a small glowing orb is swallowed up by the device. One by one, he puts out the street lamps until there is but the light of the moon and the stars to hopefully guide their sight.
A glance at the cloudy sky overhead that threatens to give way to rain later on in the evening makes it apparent that they will not be using moonlight or starlight to see. Instead, there comes a thin sort of stick from the man's robes and the tip of it lights up as he approaches Number Four. The man pauses to stare at the cat before an amused smile graces his weathered features.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall," the old man addresses the cat in a slightly amused tone.
The cat, McGonagall, gives the old man a baleful glare and leaps off of the low brick wall to the sidewalk. Mid leap, the cat shifts into a stern-looking woman dressed in green tartan robes. Her hair is still dark, though streaked with bits of gray, and pulled back into a rather severe bun. Minerva's lips purse and become a thin line as she resumes her baleful glare. "How did you know it was me?"
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly." The man gives a more benign smile, though that too is setting off Kyrios' senses and instincts.
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," McGonagall replies a bit tartly.
"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." Celebrating? What would they be celebrating? There are no holidays that he is aware of. Samhain has already passed. Maybe it has something to do with the magical humans only. McGonagall seems to disagree, though, for she sniffs angrily.
"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right." Her tone is impatient and her anger flaring. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no—even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." With this, she jerks her head towards Number Four's darkened living room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls…shooting stars… Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent—I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."
Muggles? That is a term he has never come across before. With a glance at Number Four, he figures that it meant that they are nonmagical, though it sounds kind of discriminatory, as well as highly derogatory. As for what all had been on the news, he had been so focused on the cat, on McGonagall, that he had not heard any of it. The non-magical humans had not been all too interesting to him.
"You can't blame them," the old man says in a gentle tone, as though he truly means it. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."
Kyrios finds himself blinking at that. He has not been in Great Britain for a long while, so he does not understand what is going on. Maybe listening in further will help.
"I know that." McGonagall is getting more irritable, her anger spiking. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."
Really now? He has not noticed any of that, and certainly, none of that has occurred on this street. The only thing of interest has been McGonagall, and now this old man who he still has no name for.
McGonagall gives the old man a sharp glance at this point, as though she is hoping for him to have something to say on the matter, but he maintains his silence. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared, at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"
That is quite an odd name, and even odder is the whole 'You-Know-Who' business. Kyrios certainly does not know who and hopes that these magicals will reveal who 'You-Know-Who' is. It is also funny that McGonagall seems to be fretting about the non-magicals finding out about them when he has by simply staying in this tree.
"It certainly seems so." The man, now named as Dumbledore, says quite simply. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
That is quite random. Even McGonagall seems to share his sentiment, though hers might have been simply out of naïveté as she exclaims, "A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of." Dumbledore starts fishing in his robes for a said lemon drop.
"No, thank you." McGonagall's tone is icy, and it is obvious that she thinks that now is not the time for a lemon drop. The discussion between the magicals has been rather important, or at least that is how it sounds. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone—"
"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense—for eleven years, I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." It is at the name, Voldemort, that McGonagall flinches, though Dumbledore, who is busily unsticking two of the precious lemon drops he has fished out of his robes, seems to not notice her reaction. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."
Voldemort sounds like a French name. Translating it into English gives him the meaning of 'flight from death', which truly makes this Voldemort seem like a coward. It cannot be his proper name, but it is something to now identify him by. Given that he seems to be a local magical problem, Kyrios is certain that he has never heard of him at all.
"I know you haven't." McGonagall sounds as though she is torn between two different emotions, exasperation and admiration. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know-oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."
Kyrios blinks a bit at that, then proceeds to stare harder at this Dumbledore fellow, wondering just how a rather old-looking man provokes such a strong fear in someone who seems to be quite feared himself. He certainly does not see it, though something is very off with the old man, and it is not provoking fear in the bat-formed vampire. Instead, it is giving him the urge to attack.
"You flatter me," Dumbledore says way too calmly for Kyrios to like. "Voldemort had powers I will never have." That sounds like a lie.
McGonagall seems to buy the lie, however. "Only because you're too—well—noble to use them."
"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs." Dumbledore is definitively not blushing, not even a tiny bit. Instead, he seems rather pleased with himself that the Professor seems to think so highly of him.
McGonagall's gaze sharpens as she stares at Dumbledore, though she cannot see the lack of blush in the darkness. "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"
Holy hell, this woman has a lot of questions. Questions that he also wants answers to. Kyrios shifts slightly on the branch he is hanging from, growing restless as the conversation carries on. Dumbledore studiously ignores McGonagall as he unsticks yet another lemon drop, which is starting to irritate him quite a bit too.
"What they're saying," she presses on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are—are—that they're—dead."
Dumbledore lowers his head, drawing a gasp from the Professor, followed by a sob.
"Lily and James…I can't believe it…I didn't want to believe it… Oh, Albus…" She presses a hand over her heart while Dumbledore merely reaches over and pats her on the back.
"I know… I know…" Albus Dumbledore gets points for making a rather believable grieving countenance, as well as for the heavy way he states that.
"That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potters' son, Harry. But—he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke—and that's why he's gone." Her voice trembles as she speaks, tears wetting her cheeks. Dumbledore nods, his face a perfect picture of glumness. "It's—it's true? After all, he's done…all the people he's killed…he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding…of all the things to stop him…but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"
This reads oddly to Kyrios. From what it sounds like, Harry Potter is a young magical child. His parents, James and Lily, are more than likely magical as well, with how familiar McGonagall seems with them. Voldemort, according to these two magicals in front of him, is rather powerful, so it makes little sense that a young child will be able to do anything to him. There is more missing from the story, which he figures involves the parents having something to do with this Voldemort's demise.
"We can only guess." Well, that confirms as much for Kyrios. "We may never know." Another lie. Dumbledore does seem to know what it is, but he is unwilling to share the information.
McGonagall produces a handkerchief which she uses to wipe her eyes and cheeks, shifting her spectacles out of the way to do so. Meanwhile, Dumbledore pulls a golden watch from within his robes and observes it for a few moments. Once he is finished, he puts it away and looks towards the sky. "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"
"Yes," McGonagall sniffs, wiping a bit more at her eyes. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"
"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now." In the safety of the darkness, Dumbledore gives a peculiar smile, one that has Kyrios' back up.
"You don't mean—you can't mean the people who live here?" McGonagall straightens up immediately, having nearly the same reaction that he is while pointing at Number Four. "Dumbledore—you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son—I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter, come and live here!"
It had been a rather abhorrent display, and like McGonagall, he would not dare to leave a child here for these non-magicals to deal with, especially if the child is magical like this Harry Potter seems to be.
"It's the best place for him." Dumbledore's tone is firm and one that brooks no arguments. This man is apparently used to getting his way all of the time. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."
A letter? He is not going to knock on their door and explain to them why they will be receiving a child in the dead of night? It is a cold and callous maneuver on Albus Dumbledore's part. Kyrios has heard enough that he truly wants to intervene.
"A letter?" McGonagall echoes his thoughts perfectly, her voice is faint as she sits down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous—a legend-I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in the future—there will be books written about Harry—every child in our world will know his name!"
"Exactly. It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?" Dumbledore's voice is calm, his tone coming off as a little condescending while he explains something that should be obvious to McGonagall.
For her credit, McGonagall opens her mouth to argue, then closes it and swallows down her anger. "Yes—yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?"
"Hagrid's bringing him," Dumbledore states that like it should also be obvious.
"You think it—wise—to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?" From how she says it, this Hagrid person does not sound very trustworthy to be bringing what sounds to be like a very young child, an infant almost, to Privet Drive.
"I would trust Hagrid with my life." That seals it for Kyrios. Hagrid is not someone he will trust, not with someone who is this crafty and cunning vouching for him.
"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place." McGonagall's voice is a tad bit grudging as she speaks of this Hagrid person. "But you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to—what was that?"
Kyrios and McGonagall seem to hear it first. A low rumbling sound that fills the air. As it grows closer, Dumbledore finally seems to notice it, and the two magical humans look up and down the street while the vampire looks up at the sky. He watches as the oddest thing, a huge flying motorcycle with an even larger passenger astride it, descends from the sky. The rumbling grows to a loud roar as the magical humans finally look up. The motorcycle falls out of the air and lands on the road in front of them, the man driving it much larger than even himself in his humanoid form.
Hagrid, if that is who he is, is twice as tall as Kyrios is and close to five times as wide. He has a wild look about him, his hair a long, bushy black mess of tangles, and a beard that hides most of his face. His hands are bigger than the lids of a metal trash can and his feet, in what only can be custom-made leather boots, are the size of dolphin calves. In his vast arms, he holds a tiny bundle of blankets that Dumbledore eyes.
"Hagrid." Dumbledore looks and sounds rather relieved, though it is likely due to the bundle that the giant of a man holds. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"
"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, Sir." Hagrid moves slowly and carefully to get off of the bike, taking care not to jostle the bundle, Harry Potter, that he holds. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."
"No problems, were there?" Kyrios stares at the old man's back at that question. A flying motorcycle, borrowed from some Sirius Black, and a young boy whose parents are now dead? How are these not problems?
"No sir—house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol." Hagrid holds the bundle out for Dumbledore and McGonagall to peer at. Inside of the blankets, and definitely fast asleep, is a little baby boy with a tuft of jet black hair. Underneath that tuft is a rather painful-looking scar in the shape of a lightning bolt that is still oozing a bit of blood.
"Is that where-?" McGonagall's whisper is something he barely catches, though he has already concluded that the scar is where Voldemort's magic has struck the young Harry Potter.
"Yes. He'll have that scar forever." Dumbledore's eyes gleam as he inspects the scar, or Kyrios imagines that they are gleaming.
"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?" It is such an innocent question, and it seems well within Dumbledore's supposed great powers to do.
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well—give him here, Hagrid—we'd better get this over with." It is not that he cannot get rid of the scar. Dumbledore plainly admitted to as much that he will not get rid of it. What a cruel thing to do to a young child. The scar looks like it hurts, and it is still bleeding.
Dumbledore takes the bundled up Harry and begins to carry him over to the stoop of Number Four. He actually pauses mid-step just before Hagrid calls after him with, "Could I—could I say goodbye to him, sir?" The old man gives a congenial smile and turns to let the giant man give Harry a kiss on the forehead. Immediately after that, Hagrid begins to howl, reminding Kyrios of a dog that has been wounded.
"Shhh!" McGonagall shushes Hagrid with a hiss, glancing 'round at the darkened houses and especially at Number Four. "You'll wake the Muggles!"
Never mind the sleeping child. Let's not wake the non-magicals to let them discover your sordid affair, Kyrios thinks bitterly, watching as the giant stammers out a reply only to be led away by McGonagall. Dumbledore resumes his walk towards the stoop, garnering the vampire's attention as he sets the child down and tucks the letter into the boy's blankets. Once he rejoins McGonagall and Hagrid, the three of them just stand there, staring at Harry in silence.
"Well, that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations." McGonagall seems rather put out by Dumbledore's statements, but the magical woman is still staring at Harry on the stoop, her lower lip trembling.
"Yeah. I'd best get this bike away. G'night, Professor McGonagall—Professor Dumbledore, sir." Hagrid wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket then climbs back onto the bike. He kicks the engine to life, and with a roar that should awaken the sleeping child, as well as the sleeping non-magicals in the area, it rises into the air, and Hagrid flies off into the night.
"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall." Dumbledore gives another congenial smile and nods at the upset woman who merely blows her nose in response. Eyes twinkling, he turns and walks back down the street where, when he reaches the corner, he takes the silver device back out from his robes. He clicks it once, and all the street lamps light back up, casting an orange glow over Privet Drive. He glances back down the street to see the now cat-formed McGonagall turn a corner at the other end of the street. His gaze slides to the bundle of blankets, now barely visible but still on the stoop of Number Four. "Good luck, Harry," is murmured just before the man turns, and with a swish of his equally purple cloak, he winks out of existence.
Dropping down from the tree as he shifts back to his human form, which is truly only half of Hagrid's size, he lands in a crouch. He stands at about six foot one, has an evenly tanned tone to his skin, and his dark hair is long, down to the middle of his shoulder blades and cut so that only there was a swath of it down the center of his head. McGonagall's presence has fully disappeared at this point, so he carefully gets up and approaches the low brick wall that separates Number Four and Number Six's yards. He steps over it and quickly goes over to the stoop where little Harry Potter still sleeps.
His hazel gaze sweeps over the babe's features, lingering on the still bleeding scar for a few seconds. It is disturbing. That Albus Dumbledore would practically abandon this child on his relatives' doorstep with little more than a blanket and a letter to explain his appearance is far more abhorrent than what he has witnessed of the family over the day. The scar will definitely need to be tended to, and while, as a vampire, he does drink blood, it is not such a necessity for him, and the smell of it now is not even doing anything to him.
Kneeling down, he carefully eases the child into his well-muscled arms, his build easily matching that of a Greek statue. Harry doesn't so much as make a sound as he holds the boy to his chest, a long-forgotten feeling welling up in him. He remembers his own sons that he had held back when he had been human, and just as protective of them as he had been then, does he feel the same for this Harry Potter.
He will not dare to leave this boy with the non-magicals that McGonagall has been so against him going to, regardless of them being his last living relations. They are more likely to harm the boy, and Kyrios is not one to let a child suffer at the hands of others. "I'll protect you, Harry Potter, with my life and all of the power at my disposal." Surprisingly, there is a bright flash that envelopes them, which has him squeezing his eyes shut temporarily. Warmth seems to suffuse in him, one that radiates love and acceptance. The love is directed towards the boy, that much he is able to tell, and he seems to tingle a bit as the warmth fades. Opening his eyes, he gazes down at the child in wonder, starting to think that maybe he is a bit wrong about what has happened with Voldemort.
Thunder sounds overhead, followed by a brief flash of lightning, and the rain begins to fall. Cursing under his breath, he takes off the simple dark brown jacket he is wearing and wraps the still sleeping Harry in it, giving him an extra layer of protection. Once that is taken care of, he makes his way out of the yard with Harry. Little Whinging is thankfully just to the south of London, and he can travel at a fast enough pace that will see them in London and at a hotel in at least twenty minutes.
Whether it is a stroke of luck or pure coincidence that he had chosen to rest in a tree overlooking the front yard of Number Four of Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey is something that matters little to him, though it will later be the subject of vicious debate. What does matter is that the child had been left on the doorstep of Number Four with little more than a baby blanket and a letter on a night that promises rain. That matters a lot, and it is unforgivable.
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