Disclaimer: If I wrote Harry Potter, then Harry would be a very warped person. As it is, he's just a little weird, so I don't own anything but copies.
Note: The rating on this is probably steep (though I think I have a tendency to rate higher than I have to) but a friend who read this saw this as more graphic than I did. Better to err on the side of caution, I suppose...
1985, Number Four Privet Drive
Promise Kept
They said he was an animal, and anyone who saw the bloody, snarling mass would doubtless agree. He fought the much stronger grip of his uncle with all his power, kicking and clawing and biting at whatever skin he could reach - Vernon was drunk, and angry, and doubtless going for the kill.
It wasn't the first time.
Aunt Petunia stood to the side, watching them, too scared to help her husband rid them of the freak. She didn't want it to touch her with that mouth - it was doubtless rabid - and Vernon, her Vernon, was doing well on his own.
But before Vernon could finish the job, the boy began radiating that, and threw his uncle off. Vernon roared - not only in anger but in pain - and seized the boy by the scraps of clothing that had survived the assault and threw him bodily into his room, the cupboard.
The boy panted harshly, breathing in the musty air that was all that circulated under the stairs, and whimpered as the adrenaline that kept him fighting when he couldn't run began to fade.
He felt the tears of pain welling up in his eyes, and then swore to himself in a hoarse voice, "I swear, if it's the last thing I do, you'll pay for this. I'll make you pay." And with a swallow, the five year old slumped in a faint.
1997, Number Four Privet Drive
Harry could feel the wards degenerating as his seventeenth birthday approached. If he bothered to look outside, he could see them dismantling. Yes, it was strange, but in such concentration, it was a rare thing not to see magic. He'd been careful that no one knew it, though. His friends had loose lips.
The repaired clock perched on the broken-down table beside his bed read 11:57.
He glanced at it every few seconds, a knife in one hand. Just as he could see the magic that made up the blood-protection wards, he could sense the many Death Eaters stalking just outside them, ready and waiting for the moment they fell, the moment they could strike. He had a very precise time table to follow. He had a promise to keep.
11:58. He picked up the clock and set it on the sill, ready. He held the blade poised as the second hand went tick tick tick.
11:59 Most people would be fidgeting but he held himself deadly still; he could not afford the slightest of mistakes, or this plan would all fall apart. And as the second hand climbed ever upwards to the digit twelve, tendrils of anticipation surfaced.
Five seconds to go. Four. Three. Two…
He slid the razor-sharp edge of the knife into his hand, as the second hand struck twelve and the wards screamed and Death Eaters yelled, and hissed under his breath an incantation. The house shook as the wards stabilized completely, stronger than before at the willing shedding of the protected blood.
The Death Eaters turned to yelling in anger and cast spells to try and bring it down, and he smirked.
The Ministry no longer could track the magic at Privet Drive, and he had a hour with his relatives before the wards would collapse thanks to his use of blood magic. After that, he'd be gone, and the Death Eaters would enter. And while they would know, while the rest of the world would never believe it.
He had a promise to keep, one he'd made lying bloody but not broken in his cupboard at the age of five while tears of pain trickled down his face.
"Boy!" he heard his uncle snarl. "What is the meaning of this!"
He set the knife down, licking the rest of the blood from his hand absent-mindedly, and took his wand from his robes. Twirling it through he fingers, he turned on his heel and - as Vernon appeared in the open doorway, lazily murmured, "Petrificus Totalus."
He tried not to enjoy the stark terror on the man's face as he levitated the man down the stairs into the living room. The some followed for both his aunt and cousin, because Dudley may have been a child twelve years ago, but that didn't make him innocent.
He locked the doors to the den with an overpowered locking spell and charmed the windows unbreakable. They were not getting away.
The recliner was inviting, so he sat down, despite Vernon having warned him against it. Anger and fear had thoroughly imbedded in his relatives already - there was little he could do passively to make it worse.
In a moment of whimsy, he took the notion to lay the Dursleys upright against the wall, and did so.
"You know what coming of age in the wizard in world means, don't you? " he asked aloud. Aunt Petunia squeaked through the Body Bind. "I guess my dear aunt does, but I'll tell you. It means I can do all the magic I want, and the Ministry won't do a bloody thing."
He could feel the terror win out over the anger as he loosed them with Finite Incantatum.
"Now you boy," Vernon began as Petunia hid behind him. Dudley tried, hands over his fat bottom, but couldn't quite succeed. "I don't know what funny business you're on to, but it stops right now. I'll give you a beating you'll never forget!" he ranted.
"Is that so?" He snorted, and steeled himself. He would enjoy this. "Crucio."
It worked beautifully. A scream burst forth from the large man's mouth, and he collapsed to the ground as his legs gave out, twitching there and there in a convulsive fit. Petunia gave a scream of her own, taking refuge behind some furniture.
He didn't hold it long; there was no need really, as Vernon was already crying and whining like a little baby, begging and begging for him to stop. Anyhow he had more creative things planned than torturing his relatives into insanity.
Noting the shivering mass behind the sofa, he utilized the Banishing charm to slam his cousin into the wall - it groaned under the weight. Aiming carefully, he whispered, "Sectumsempra!" and the spell severed his cousin's arms through the humerus.
Dudley screamed even as he looked on in shock, so he silenced him.
"I never liked those arms of yours," he said casually. "They were too often used to punch me. I think you're much better off without." And he Summoned one of the arms, paying no attention as Petunia scrambled to her son to try and staunch the blood flow.
Vernon was still crying after the Cruciatus. Holding one of Dudley's arms in his left hand, he manipulated the other to his uncle's mouth and jerked. Vernon let out a fresh howl that was cut off as his jaw was ripped off, and gagged as the hand shoved itself partially down his exposed throat and began digging.
He tapped Dudley's other hand, transfiguring the nails into deadly sharp claws, and set it on Vernon as well - the long longs buried themselves into his uncle's back and slashed. He ignored the scream.
"You never stopped Dudley when his hands turned on me," he concluded, and contented himself with watching as his cousin lunged fruitlessly at the window, trying to shatter it with his weight.
Petunia was sobbing hoarsely, trying to get him to stop so she could apply a tourniquet. He had to admit she was trying, but Dudley was far too panicked to listen to sense… and it wouldn't matter anyway. He didn't have anything showy planned for his cousin, only an excruciatingly painful way to die.
Lightly waving his wand at Dudley's back, he doomed the boy to an hours-long death as his body rotted from the inside out. He had found it interesting that the curse was effective only on Muggles, yet the Death Eaters never seemed to use it.
Even after a certain amount of exposure to the Cruciatus, if the mind didn't snap, one stopped feeling the pain as the nerves overloaded. With the Rotting Curse, it preserved the nerves and prevented death until the curse had affected the entire body.
Not that it mattered. Dudley was screaming even if he was silenced, and Petunia was sobbing brokenly, as she stumbled to her feet. Taking in the insane, murderous glint in his aunt's eye, he sighed - and as she charged, snapped his wrist.
"Adnexus Terra!" The floor cracked and long ropelike vines whipped up, wrapping securely around her arms and legs. A last, longer and thicker vine twisted snakelike around her torso and neck.
Aside from holding her still, the spell did nothing. Yet. He'd made the spell that way.
But from the way the wards were shuddering, he had to make this quick…. There must have been a ward breaker in the Death Eaters surrounding the house, plus the death or his relatives was weakening them.
"You were always the worst, Aunt Petunia," he said quietly. "You were my mother's sister. You were supposed to care for me, not stand aside and wish you could help Uncle Vernon hurt me more."
"You're a little monster," she snapped, struggled against the vines. "You're a freak, and Vernon should have killed you when we had chance! You-"
He silenced her as well. As amusing as Petunia's diatribe could get, it also got repetitive, and he hadn't the time to listen.
He tapped the vines with his wand. "Terra Mortis." They came alive with magic and freed her - stunned still with shock she had no time to even scream before the greedy vines followed the example of Dudley's hand and slammed down her throat.
She gurgled and convulsed, skin bulging where vines tore through her - until they ripped free through her hands and feet, and apart.
The wards shattered.
Blood flew up into his face. He blinked for a moment, taken slightly off guard - the spell had been more vicious than he'd intended. Not that he really cared.
At that moment the door blew inwards, and a Death Eater stepped in, only to freeze when the bone-white mask turned his way. "What in the… Potter?"
Bellatrix, his mind supplied.
"I made a promise," he informed her. A vine, red with his aunt's blood clashing against the bright poisonous green, made a mark of her, and Bellatrix only barely managed to set it aflame as fellow Death Eaters closed in behind her.
He scrubbed his face. "I made a promise concerning you, too, Bellatrix." And while the vines went after the lady Death Eater, he Disapparated.
Harry had friends to rendezvous with and a wedding to attend, and for now they took priority. He'd waited twelve years to keep his promise to the Dursleys - he could wait a few more months for Bellatrix.
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