Written for round 11 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I am Chaser 3 with the Falmouth Falcons.

Prompts:

(word) Pancakes

(word) Shatter

(Dialogue) "I'm bored. Play with me!"

Rated M for what I'm implying and general creepiness. Also for the tiny Lolita reference. Gods that books gives me the creeps; which was actually great inspiration for this story.

Word count: 2961

Creeper

Harry had no idea where he was.

He spotted masks on the walls, shrunken heads, an opal necklace and a cut off hand on a pillow. The last item caught his attention, so he walked closer to it and reached out. He was just shy of touching the glass case it was in when he saw movement in the window.

Malfoy and a tall man—probably his father—were about to enter the shop. Just as the bell rang, Harry slipped into an old closet and shut the door.

As Malfoy and his father talked to the shopkeeper, Harry focused solely on the hand in the glass nearby. In fact, he forgot about their presence entirely until Draco asked about the hand. The shopkeeper informed Draco that "The Hand of Glory", as it was called, was quite popular with thieves and bandits. Malfoy's father denied Draco anything in the shop, promising him a new broom instead, and then he concluded his business with the shopkeeper.

Harry waited until the two had left, and the shopkeeper had walked into the back of the shop mumbling about Malfoy's illegal objects hidden in their manor, before leaving.

Seeing the opportunity to escape, Harry darted out of the closet and towards the door. When he passed the cases with various ominous objects, he made a rash decision and took the hand with him.

The hand could prove quite useful in the long run.

These girls with their short skirts and the way they swung their hips as they went to class. All of them, tempting him. They did it on purpose; they were trying to drive him mad. Young girls weren't legal in the eyes of the law. Oh, how he loathed the law and its recent restrictions. He had been born in the wrong century. A hundred years ago – give or take – he could have had his pick as long as he had the money for it.

He should tear them to pieces for tempting him like this. But he wouldn't—not yet at least. For now, he would just watch them as they smiled those fake, innocent smiles.

Of course, he wasn't the only one feeling this; the boys of Hogwarts looked at the girls with lustful eyes too. It sickened him; or at least it did when their eyes landed on the one he wanted desperately. The girl with a wall of books in front of her, the barrier against those same boys that he loathed so much.

Soon she wouldn't need that wall. He would protect her; he would keep her safe. No one else would ever lay a hand on her or look at her again.

He would make sure of it.

He wasn't sure why he didn't tell Hermione or Ron about the hand until their fourth year.

"Harry, what is that?" Hermione asked.

Alright, so he didn't tell them so much as they stumbled over it. Ron had found it one night when he had been looking through Harry's stuff, and now Hermione spotted it in his bag. He had planned to sneak into the Restricted Section of the library, something he had started doing a lot with the help of the Hand of Glory.

"I'm not sure exactly," he lied.

"What do you mean you're 'not sure exactly'? Where did you get it?"

Harry cast a look at Ron, who returned it with a 'don't look at me, mate, I told you to get rid of it', so he was no help.

"I found it."

Ron snorted, and Hermione turned to look at him instead. Ron sunk down in the couch and hid behind his book. Neither Harry nor Hermione bought that he was suddenly interested in Potions, but Hermione was focused on Harry now.

"What if it's a dark object?"

There it was; the reason he had hid it. Of course, the first year he had forgotten about it as it lay on the bottom of his trunk. Then Tom's diary and Ginny's subsequent blackouts had told him it was better to leave his friends in the dark about it.

In his third year, that decision proved to be wise, or so he thought. If they knew that Harry used the map and the hand to look for his Godfather—who they thought had murdered Harry's parents at the time—they would have taken it away from him.

Except for visits to the Restricted Section, Harry hadn't needed the hand as much this year, so he had hoped he could keep it hidden for longer. But he had grown careless around his friends, and now they knew.

"Harry!" Hermione snapped, pulling him out of his train of thought. "What if it has a bad influence on you?"

"I think we would have noticed by now," Ron said.

Everything she did was delicious. He felt lucky to be able to have her close, but he hated that he never got her alone.

He loved watching her. In classes, she would give that self-satisfied smile when she got an answer right, and he felt a pull in his groin. Or, in Snape's classes, she would look self-righteous, angry, sad or another dark emotion would fall over her face. In those moments, it was hard to hold himself back from either strangling the Potions master or dragging her away.

His little nymphet was a complex character that was clear. But what was even more apparent was that the spell she had cast over him would not go away anytime soon.

"I found it."

"Found what?" Ron asked, though it didn't exactly sound like that with his mouth full of pancakes. Normally, Hermione would have made a face at his disgusting eating habits, but whatever she had found seemed to have her zeroed in on Harry.

"It's called the Hand of Glory."

Without thinking, Harry replied, "Yep."

"You knew?"

"Of course, I didn't," he said. "I'm just not doubting your expertise."

The compliment only worked for a second before Hermione saw through it.

"I spent seven hours in the library looking for this." Hermione took a deep breath before she said in a louder volume, "Seven!"

"What's the big deal, Hermione? You are always in the library!" Ron said, giving Harry a reprieve from Hermione's ire. While Hermione yelled at Ron, Harry stole the rest of the pancakes from the nearby plate. Ron seemed more upset about that than Hermione's tirade.

Hermione didn't stop yelling at Ron until they left the Great Hall to go to class.

"I think someone is stalking me," Hermione said.

"I bet it's Cormac McLaggen; you know he has a thing for you Hermione," Ron said, happy that Hermione had dropped the previous topic.

"I don't know…" she said.

"How do you know someone is following you?" Harry asked.

"It's just this feeling, like someone is always watching me."

"If you're worried, we can protect you," Ron offered.

"Are you sure?" Hermione bit her lip.

"Of course, we're sure," Harry said.

"Thanks." Hermione smiled at the both of them, the argument from before clearly forgotten.

Each step brought him closer to her. Entering the library earlier had been normal, each step like clockwork, like the steady beat of his heart. But now he could feel his heart beating faster and faster as he got closer. The pendulum of fate started swinging faster, speeding up the clock to make their union come quicker.

She always sat in the same spot, like she wanted to be found by him, to be seen. When he saw the space between some books, he knew he was right – she wanted to be watched. It was perfect; he got the full view of her face and body while his countenance was out of view. He knew it was her who had set it up because he could see the books laying by her side as she studied.

That's when he noticed; damn it all, she was with her best friends. The redhead was talking to her now, so the other one must be close.

Then he saw her face in profile. That button nose, her round cheeks, and her tongue darting out between those perfect, white teeth to lick her dry lips. Bless her for not having anything else to moisten them with.

A groan escaped him, and the object of his fascination and her annoying friend both looked around to find the source of the sound. He managed to move before she could get a good look at him, but their eyes met for a fraction of a second before he could make his exit.

If only she wasn't a delectable treat put out to tempt him into sin; then he could drive all thoughts of her away and concentrate on an easier target.

But he was too far gone; all his thoughts were centered around his little nymphet.

"He was just here!" Hermione told Harry when he came back from the Restricted Section. They were studying the Hand of Glory, in case there really was something dark about it. Hermione's idea, of course. Harry had managed to avoid this all of last year by saying he was too busy with the Triwizard Tournament.

"Where?" Harry asked.

Ron, who was comforting a distraught Hermione, pointed between some books, and Harry went in that direction to look for the guy.

When he got on the other side, he could see where the guy had been looking at Hermione, but there wasn't a trace of him left. After looking around for a couple minutes, Harry returned to the spot and shuffled some books around so the stalker couldn't look at Hermione from the same angle again.

"I couldn't find him," he said when he returned.

It took a while to calm Hermione down before they could go back to studying. After the incident, both Harry and Ron put in a lot more effort. The object of their studies lay in the middle of them. There was something about the Hand of Glory in the library light that made it look like it moved at times. Harry got distracted and ended up staring at the severed hand until Hermione spoke up and interrupted his thoughts.

"The Hand of Glory can be used to open any door—"

"Really?" Ron blurted out, excited about that last bit. Harry tried to hide a smile at his best friend's antics.

Hermione ignored his outburst and continued, "and is therefore used mainly by burglars. It is made by cutting off the hand of a convicted felon after he is hanged. To make it, you have to collect the blood of the man you take it from and—" Hermione stopped talking and made a disgusted face.

Ron looked over her shoulder to read the rest. "That is gross!"

"Harry, I don't think you should mess around with anything made by blood magic."

"Come on, Hermione. It's very useful in a bind!"

"What if there is something more to it? Like Tom Riddle's diary?"

Harry rolled his eyes at that. "I don't sit up at night talking to a severed hand, so I think we're safe."

Ron snorted at that image but stayed silent when Hermione glared at him.

"Well, what if you summoned his ghost by using it?" Hermione continued. She was governed by logic so she thought that any argument that was made using logic could sway someone else. That was what this entire research trip was about.

"Yes, and now he is following Hermione around Hogwarts," Ron joked.

Harry laughed at that at first, but stopped when he saw Hermione lose all color in her face.

"Promise me you'll get rid of it, Harry."

He knew she noticed him, thought about him. She would turn to look behind her in deserted hallways, try to hide in the darkness, surround herself with her friends. It was all just a lie, a lie to herself about how she felt about him.

There was no denying the flush to her cheeks and neck—possibly even her chest, but he couldn't tell with the clothes she wore. Those prim and proper clothes that he would tear off when she stopped denying what was going on between them.

Right now, they might as well be strangers, but that would change. Soon he would have her; take her the way she was begging to be taken. But she wasn't ready, yet, and she might never be ready for him. The thought saddened him, but he knew it didn't matter as long as he was ready for her.

Still, it was hard to contain himself whenever he found himself next to her. He could easily reach a hand out and touch her unruly hair or brush against her when she was studying—she was so focused she barely noticed anyone around her, after all. If she noticed, though, his careful plans would be foiled and she might escape his grasp completely.

He couldn't risk that happening.

When she fell asleep in the library one night, he couldn't help but get close to her. He brushed away a strand of hair like he had resisted doing for so long. Underneath his fingertips, he could feel her marble skin. She was delicate and wonderful; it felt amazing to be touching her—as if he was touching a piece of Heaven. It was then he knew he couldn't resist any longer. He had to have her; he had to feel her intimately, unlike anyone else ever had.

He withdrew the hand when he heard noise nearby. Looking around, he couldn't see anyone else, but he couldn't take that chance so he withdrew into the shadows again.

Harry had hidden the hand at the bottom of his trunk and forgotten about it until he found it next to Sirius' mirror. He was angry about Sirius' death, so he threw both of them at the wall, shattering the mirror into several smaller pieces.

Seeing the dark object in the pieces of glass didn't help Harry heal. Instead, it made him cry, thinking if he had remembered that he had either of the objects, Sirius wouldn't be dead. It was all his fault; he was a horrible person.

Part of him knew it was wrong to lust for her this way.

But he couldn't help following her so close; it was a miracle he wasn't caught. No, not a miracle—destiny wanted them to be together. There was no other explanation for the opportunity he was given.

Her name came out in a whisper.

"Hermione."

She turned around, and he got to see all of her beautiful white sclerae. All of it in a display of the fear she felt because a voice she couldn't recognize called her name in a deserted hallway.

He was close enough to see the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she couldn't see him in the darkness. In his hands, he held the Hand of Glory—borrowed from Harry Potter. Her face was illuminated in the strange light of the magical item. The candle flickered and played with the contours of her young face.

He felt his heart race; it was perfect. He could take her away now, and no one would find out until the morning. He would be far away by then.

His free hand reached out to grasp her neck, but he stopped when he heard the footsteps. He couldn't risk having anyone witness what happened.

He stepped into the shadows again when his Hermione—his beautiful, sweet Hermione—got distracted with the other man.

He couldn't watch her care for someone else than him.

While following Draco around Hogwarts, Harry was glad he still had the hand. Malfoy walked in the shadows and it would have been hard to follow him without a light.

Ever since that day at Borgin and Burke's in the summer before his second year, Harry knew that the Malfoy family was dark; he just needed proof. Unlike four years ago, Harry would wait to tell someone about his suspicions until he had definite proof.

Maybe he would catch him stalking Hermione. Hermione had said she felt eyes on her more and more as time went by, and Harry had noticed the change in Draco's demeanor this year.

He had tried to confront him on the Hogwarts express and ended up with a bloody nose for his troubles. This time, he would try to be sneaky and find proof before he confronted Draco.

But it was impossible to pinpoint Draco's movements—even with the map and hand to help him out, Draco kept disappearing.

Then, one night, he overheard Snape and Draco talking. It disgusted Harry. He knew the Professor was of a dubious character, but he would have never thought he would help Draco with his plans for Hermione.

He just hoped he wouldn't be too late to stop them from doing something to Hermione.

It was time.

Ever since Hermione had said it could open any door, he had wondered if it would help him up the staircase to her dorm. When he walked up towards her holding the Hand of Glory, he waited for the staircase to transform into a slide, but it never did.

In just a moment, he would shatter everything she thought she knew. He could feel his heart in his throat, excited about the night he had in front of him. Scratch that, the night they had in front of them. He tiptoed into her room and cast 'Muffliato' to keep the others from hearing.

"I'm bored. Play with me!" he said, waking up his little nymphet.

Hermione blinked and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes before she could focus on the man in front of her. She scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. "Harry?"

"Harry?"