(Sighs) Damn plotbunnies. Anyways, only a few notes. This'll be a oneshot and I'm gonna have to ignore The Half-Blood Prince for this to work since I wrote this before it came out so in this universe, the horcruxes don't exist. There's a reason why there's a AU tag on the summary. Yeah, and a bit of OOCness, sorry.

If you see any mistakes, don't hesitate to tell me.

So, enjoy.

The Black Book

By Dark Ice Dragon

Found

Harry looked up at the dark cloudy sky and sighed. It looked like he would finish doing the gardening in the rain. Well, he mused, it was better than being dry and inside with the Dursleys.

The sound of a slap distracted him from his thoughts.

Looking around, Harry saw a black book lying on the pavement. Frowning, he stood up, wiped his dirty hands on his baggy trousers and walked over to it. Glancing up and down the road, he confirmed what he had been thinking: there was no one else there. No one -apart from him- was outside their home in Privet Drive.

Mulling this over carefully, Harry was also sure that he didn't hear a 'pop' of someone apparating. Someone under an invisibility cloak? But why...?

He crouched over it, staring. It didn't look like that book Hagrid had told his Care of Magical Creatures class to buy two years before. Well, it wasn't growling and hadn't sprouted any teeth at least. Harry took a half step back when a memory surfaced. Something that had happened in second year. Was this...something that was like Tom's Diary? If he picked it up, would he end up possessed like Ginny had been?

That's when he noticed the writing on the front. Death Note. Voldemort wouldn't drop something so suspicious sounding would he? Or maybe that was the point...

"Harry!" Harry's head whipped around to see his aunt Petunia tight-lipped on the doorstep. "Why aren't you working on the garden?" Before he could answer, she spied the book on the ground. "I see."

And then it started to rain. It was a soft pitter-patter but it swiftly changed to a downpour.

"Don't just stand there," Petunia snapped. "Get inside."

Harry hesitated for a second and then scooped up the book. He was running out of parchment anyway. The paper inside it would do until he got some more.

xXx

Wriggling his toes under the duvet, Harry listened to the rain hitting the window-pane before turning his attention to 'Death Note'.

He flicked through the leafs and saw that they were empty; lined but empty.

Satisfied (the paper wasn't a good quality either so the book probably wouldn't be missed too much), he got out of bed and retrieved some of his homework from under the floorboards.

Opening to the first page, Harry was surprised to see that there was writing on the inside of the cover. Glancing to the title, it stated that they were rules.

Reading over the rules, The Boy Who Lived felt a small smile growing on his face.

The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

He was a wizard but a book that could take lives just by writing down a person's name? Maybe this was a book for those people who believed in voodoo.

This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her
name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.

Harry felt a little apprehensive after reading that. That would mean that the book could look into your mind. He shook his head. This magic was impossible so he continued to read.

If the cause of death if written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.

Riiight, Harry thought while rolling his eyes.

If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.

Here, Harry frowned. Just how much power was this book supposed to have? He glanced at the last rule. The power to kill at a distance, the power to kill a specific a person, the power to kill in a specific way and in any case, make the person suffer from a heart attack? He snorted.

But as Harry dipped his quill in the ink pot, he mulled it over in his head. Well, it wouldn't hurt and it wouldn't work anyway.

He concentrated on the face that he had seen only in a few weeks ago and wrote down a name.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Completed