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New fic… I know, I'm bad, slap me… but I think you'll like this one…

"The Erlking"

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, et all are property of JK Rowling, and Bloomsbury, and Warner Bros and all those other nifty people that make it so we can read and watch the Potterverse whenever we feel like it.

Disclaimer 2: Some of the Erlking stuff is borrowed from "Nocturnes", page 93-101 by John Connolly and some from "Child of the Hunt", a Buffy novel by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder. The Myth itself is mostly based around the poem: http:// www . cs. rice. edu / ssiyer / minstrels / poems / 920 . html. The picture in the banner was a painting based on the poem "The Erl-King" by Goethe; cannot remember the name of the artist.

Summary: [LV/HP) When Harry was a child no one had bothered to warn him about the things that lurked within forests and woods waiting for unsuspecting children to wander into their paths. But when Harry escapes from one, it follows him home. Harry's trapped in the land of the Huntsmen and Voldemort's spirit is the first to lay eyes on the newly crowned Faun – the Erlking's pet and 'beloved'.

Warnings: Slash. LV/HP: Other/HP. AU. Character Death. Violence. Language. Torture.

Rating: R/NC-17 SLASH!!

A/N: Yeah, so… am I the first to do a fiction about Harry being kidnapped by the Erlking, or is there one like this out there that I haven't found yet? Some of the mythical stuff I found on websites, etc. I'll link to important things.

XXX

Words: 1,268

Chapter 1

Prologue

It's common knowledge that parents tell their children stories, old stories, to protect them, or scare them, or even to comfort them. In some families there are tales of the Sandman who tears out the eyes of small boys who refuse to sleep at night; tales of Baba Yaga, the demon witch who rides a chariot of bones and rests her hands upon the skulls of children; tales of Scylla the sea monster, who drags men into the depths in an attempt to appease an insatiable hunger. And then, in some families there are tales of the Hunt and the Huntsmen. Creatures who cause fears in the blackest of hearts, who send brave Centaurs running for cover their tales between their legs, and tales of their leader, the Erlking, the King of the Alders – sometimes mistaken for the Devil himself.

And in families like the Dursley's there are other tales. Tales you wouldn't believe even if you saw or hear them told yourself.

"Mummy! Mummy!" A young, but fairly rounded boy screamed from the floor of a living room. He looked to be about 6 years old. "Mummy, is the freak dying?" Petunia Dursley looked up from the couch and sighed. For the last ten minutes she had been leaning over a thin, young child with a strange scar on his forehead. Occasionally she dabbed his forehead with a wet clothe before tutting angrily. It wasn't that she particularly cared for the boy, but rather, if he died in her home she or her husband might get into trouble with His kind.

For, Harry Potter, the boy on the couch, was a Wizard. Tales of Wizards were sometimes regarded as the most magical kind; of Merlin and Grindelward, of Voldemort and even Harry himself. But little Harry had no idea, all he knew was that it hurt very, very badly right then.

And Aunt Petunia should have taken him to a doctor.

"Will he die mummy?" The boy asked again. He was fair haired, and red faced, with his fists clenched and beady little blue eyes.

"No. The freak will probably live, and we'll never be rid of him." She huffed at her son. Harry Potter wasn't important to her. He was only the child of her dead sister, and it really was Lily's own fault for getting herself blown up or whatever happened when she died.

"What happened to him?" Petunia looked at Dudley, his eyes wide as he peered over the side of the couch to poke his ill cousin. "Will I get sick too? Can I miss school?"

"Dudley," she sighed, wiping her own forehead with her arm before dabbing at Harry's with the cloth. She couldn't tell him the truth, because she didn't want to scare him, so, instead she told him a tale. One of the worst tales to ever cross someone's lips: as unbelievable as it was cruel. "He was a very bad boy, a dirty horrid little freak, and now God is punishing him. You won't get sick because you're such a good boy. Now be a good Duddikins and go get me more water, ok?"

"Do I have to?" Petunia's glare silenced him, but he still didn't move. In the end, Petunia had to get her own water.

When Vernon arrived home that day, he decided enough was enough. The boy had been milking his sickness long enough, but Vernon Dursley wasn't going to stand for it anymore. Despite a voice in the back of his mind, similar to the wind echoing through the trees, asking him if he would behave the same way if Dudley were sick, he bundled Harry up in a warm coat.

Vernon threw Harry over his shoulder roughly, and the young boy groaned in pain. Harry was laid out in the back of the car, while Vernon drove to the nearest forest. If anyone asked, he would tell him or her that he woke up and the boy was gone. He might even write a fake note, telling his relatives that he'd run away. When they arrived at the edge of the forest Vernon dragged Harry out of the car by his ankles. Harry was left on the forest trail, right beside two large oak trees.

Vernon made sure he was on the trail.

He remembered stories he had been told as a child. When he was younger he had been awed by the stories of the Erlking and the Hunt, absolutely terrified at the thought of being taken if he stepped of the footpath at night, and now – now he was too old to believe in such poppycock.

With a sneer, he kicked Harry over, until the boy rolled right off the path and was lying in a patch of grass at the base of one oak tree. The temperature suddenly dropped, and Vernon headed back to his car, his hand trembling where he'd shoved them into his coat pocket out of sight.

Harry lay where he was, unconscious, slowly being set upon by a grey mist, which seemed to rise off the forest floor out of nowhere, and was slowly crawling straight towards Harry.

When the mist settled directly beside Harry, it began to flutter lightly, similar to a cloak dancing gently across the ground as its wearer stood still and silent. The mist shifted, as an invisible person took a step closer to Harry. A bony hand reached down to brush the boy's fringe aside. The fingers were bone white, and narrow, the nails pointed and black. Around each finger twined spider webs and briars, interlocked with one another but neither drawing blood nor causing discomfort to the thing that stared down at the sickly child.

His robes suddenly swam forward as if they had a mind of its own, and the mist swept backwards, away from the cloak of human skin and towards the child as if trying to protect him. At the collar of the cloak, in place of ermine or fur was the scalps of unfortunate creatures, humans and goblins, centaurs and elves alike; the colours of their hair, red, brown, yellow, all mingling together so they looked – from afar – like autumn leaves. The hood of his cloak was up, shrouding his face in darkness so all that could be seen was the white of his pointed teeth as he smiled.

A crown of fingers sat upon his head, over the hood, the fingers curved inwards as if beckoning others to join. Strands of gold wound around the bones, the finger nails had all been ripped from the fingers that still had skin clinging to the bone.

The Erlking bent at the waist and breathed lightly on Harry's cheek as he brushed back the fringe again. He knew the boy was special, the marking on his forehead proved as much, so he could not kill the child, nor let the sick boy succumb to death.

But that didn't mean the Erlking couldn't keep the boy either.

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! Oh come thou with me!"1 He murmured, running his cold fingers over the child's cheek. Harry shuddered at the touch, before bolting upright a silent scream lost in the mist that suddenly rose and swallowed him whole.

Eyes blinded by tears, Harry stood, and as quickly as he could he turned in a circle searching for the one whose icy touch had woken him. When he saw no one, he sniffed and, while stumbling and falling, tried to make his way back to Number 4, privet Drive.

The Erlking let him go.

Sometimes, the chase was the best part.

XXX

1. The Erl-King by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - http:// www . cs . rice . edu / ssiyer /minstrels /poems /920 . html

TBC

Words:

Chapter 2

The Embrace

Coming Soon As…

I know I shouldn't have started a new one, but I couldn't help it… it was bouncing around my brain giving me migraines! That's what happens when you fire your muse.

Anyway, fortunately for you, I have the next chapter planned so you won't have to wait as long for it as you did with Black Complication… Which I will update. I have Tuesday and Thursday only off next week… and with Tuesday being Christmas…

I doubt any of you want to read my crap when you have family things to do – but I don't like family things, so for those of you as anti-social as me, I may well update Tuesday!

Now review… should I even bother to update this?