Story: Silentious

Summary: Harry's dark. Harry's angry. And Harry is now in Privet Drive, gloating in front of the terrified Dursleys.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any part of the Potterverse. I do not make any profit from this.

Just something that popped into my mind when I had my wisdom teeth pulled a couple of months ago and couldn't talk for days on end. A little darker than my usual style, but well...it hurt. A lot.

Hope you enjoy it!

Hum...english is my second language, so please point out the errors so I can correct them. (Thank you Death Relic for pointing out it's actually Salazar!)

'Stop screaming like a dying pig, for Salazar's sake! There, you've angered me enough for one night! Silencio! Silencio! Silencio!'

He paced the room angrily, looking more and more like a caged animal, as the now silent Dursleys huddled in fear in a corner of the sitting room. He exhaled loudly, and abruptly seemed to calm down, his mood changing fast.

'When they let me get hit with the curse, I'm pretty sure what they wanted was for me to realize how much of a burning need raged inside me, pleading for human contact, for some kind of communication. And yes, I do mean the "let", 'cause let's be serious here, had they wanted otherwise I would have never been hit with that one. There were plenty other curses flowing through the air, most of them blocked by my own shield, but one of them, only one, hit. I would have never let a curse with such an eerie green color hit me, as my own reflexes were already too honed towards avoiding the unforgivables.'

'The more I think about it, the more I convince myself of someone else casting it, someone from the light side; how could that curse have gone through my crisantemus block without me noticing and ducking to avoid it, had the caster been one of the death eaters in front of me? I very much doubt they would have wasted their time casting it, as it doesn't take effect until twenty-four hours after it hits; throwing such a curse in the middle of a battle is completely useless, not to say draining.'

'I can see in your faces you have no idea what curse I'm talking about, do you? Well, I guess you've never been ones to know curses, anyway. But you can't weasel your way out of this one, right? You are going to have to sit and listen, one way or another.'
He hummed lightly, looking around the room and absent-mindedly making sure the doors and windows were either closed or glamoured.

'Now, were was I? Oh, yes, the curse. It's all related to the curse, one way or another. That said, it wasn't actually a curse, it was more of a spell, but it is one of my favourite words-play, so I'm not changing that.' He sighed, exasperated, rolling his eyes at the trembling lumps of fat before him. 'You didn't get that either, huh? No, you wouldn't. It was a rather obscure modification of the silence spell, Silencio, but after I got hit everyone referred to it as "the curse", and I must say it has been, after all, the reason the whole Wizarding World is damned right now, so "curse" seems kind of fitting.'

As he told them so he tapped his lips, lost in thought and emerald eyes slightly glazed, and that scared them more than anything else he'd done before.

'As I said, I got hit with it, and twenty-four hours later, when the effect became obvious, I found out they already knew what it did. Suspicious, isn't it? I guess they didn't think a Gryffindor could be suspicious or sneaky, specially not me, the epitome of everything Gold.' He snorted.

No-one like the Dursleys to understand that he was not a pure, golden anything.

'Had they thought to look a little deeper they would have found the whole golden glow was only a light layer of paint, and that underneath I was very much the Slytherin, thank you very much. Only Snape did, but he wasn't going to tell that to Dumbledore, why would he? It might actually help them, Merlin forbid.' He explained, his smirk turning even darker as he intoned the last words, his whole demeanour mockingly sarcastic. 'Ah, the joys of war. Spies and traitors and faithful soldiers dying and killing for someone else's cause.' He looked slightly crazed as he spoke the last words, barely muttered under his breath, eyes alight in delight. 'They even told me to try and make the best out of the "situation".'

He giggled, and then imitated, in an irritatingly pitched voice: '"Think about it, Harry! You'll be able to connect with us better, to initiate a deeper understanding based on mere body language!"' He laughed again, a stark, harsh laugh that sounded broken coming from the teen. 'I really had a laugh with that one, not to her face, of course. You see, by this version of the Silencio spell I could not utter a sound for a fortnight. Fifteen days in fact, mute and unable to speak, laugh or even cry out. I would have even been unable to use my magic, but for the fact that I already had a rudimentary grasp on silent magic. The curse certainly helped with that, and by the end of the two weeks I had perfect control over my magic, and even got to modulate the power I put into each spell, which I had never been able to do with my spoken magic.' He mused.

'They took advantage of the curse, pretending they couldn't see me most times, and acting like they didn't understand me once I managed to make eye-contact with them. I could have written everything down for them to read, but I felt no overwhelming urge to do so, and by the third day I didn't even try to communicate. I remember that first night, looking on as they spoke and spoke, an unending flow of words flooring their mouths, and I felt oddly disconnected. For a couple of days I felt like I was barely more than an animal, deprived of communication, and I found myself thinking even more crudely than I had before. Once it passed, I felt self-sufficient, self-assured, and a fear I hadn't even realized I had been carrying disappeared. I guess fearing solitude, specially after the whole dark-cramped-little-cupboard business is to be expected. Being alone with the spiders as only company for days on end surely had an impact on me, but those first days of quietness cured me of that. I, little by little, started to go unnoticed, to fade in the background. Even Malfoy stopped provoking me, as it usually went without retort. How could I answer? I had been rendered mute, after all. By the time he wised up and started picking on my "friends" I was making the same remarks in my own head, so aside from a few silent chuckles he didn't get anything from me, and eventually he left me alone. And by going unnoticed I managed to finally,' he huffed, pacing around the room now, 'finally find a shadow to hide in and watch the world from. I tried to stay in the shadows when I first found out about the wizarding world, but how could I find one when every spotlight was on me? It completely fucked up my first weeks in there, and by proxy the school years that followed. But now I had at last found an opportunity to make the wrongs right, to take my own place on their fucked up society, and I was going to take it using every means at my disposal.'

A shiver of dread ran up Petunia's back. She, unlike Vernon and Dudley, had a good idea of how many means the boy had at his disposal.

'And so, it started. Do you know how much adult wizards tend to overlook when you can make no noise? I didn't even have to make too much of an effort to spy on the Order, and as their own strategy depended on ignoring me, they made an extra effort to make me unnoticeable. I am terribly grateful for their help, of course, but I'm pretty sure I could have managed on my own. A week into the curse I finally decided it was time to make a stand, to make the others see I had woken. But I've never been a rash Gryffindor, outward appearances be damned, and I knew perfectly well who had to see my little display -that certainly didn't include most of the Light side.'

'I sent a couple Slytherins anonymous letters asking them to be at a certain place that very night, knowing perfectly well how their House worked. Ron may think the polijuice incident was my first and only time in the Slytherin common room, but he was solely mistaken. I had been there many times in the past, scouting and familiarizing myself with those who could either became the enemy or my allies, depending on what path I chose to walk. I made sure to add every necessary touch to the letters, making them enticing and not bothering to hide how it could easily be a trap, but putting there enough clues to make them think I was a former Slytherin, someone who knew their code and who was, most obviously, on their side.'

'Imagine their surprise when instead they walked into Myrtel's bathroom to find little old me, smirking in the dark room in a decidedly predating manner. They didn't back out, I have to give them that, but that's essentially why I had asked so many of them to come, so they could feel safe in numbers; in truth, of the six students there I only needed one –Malfoy junior, Voldemort's right hand's heir- and was interested in two more –Zabini, seemingly neutral yet somehow sensually dark, and Daphne Greengrass, a little airheaded in the outside but vicious if you looked deep enough- the other three I had no use for. Nott junior I found boring and much too somber for my tastes, and he certainly had the habit of thinking too highly of himself, a habit I cured him of not long ago, but he was useful to distract the others. Bullstrode didn't interest me in the least; she wasn't intelligent, pretty or specially talented, and her grasp on magic was sketchy at best, which was exactly the reason I had chosen her –I could easily obliviate her as soon as the meeting finished. The last one I chose for one reason only –she annoyed me greatly, and if I had the need to prove myself to my new companions I could easily dispose of her. Unfortunately it turned out not to be necessary, but I ended up doing so anyway, as I had gotten quite enamoured with the idea after toying with it all day long. That Parkinson bitch never knew what hit her.' He snickered, while they looked on quietly repulsed.

'So, where was I? Ah, yes, how I arranged for them to meet me. Fortunately I had found beforehand that I could still speak parseltongue, as it was not a sound produced by my own lungs and vocal chords but a magical ability, and I invited them to meet me in the Chamber of Secrets, something they were quite tempted by, I assume. Yet they weren't going to follow me just like that, so I walked up to them slowly, predatory. I circled each of them with a hungry smirk, all the while hissing in parseltongue. Slytherins, myself included, have a penchant for dramatics, and I gladly indulged us all as from the darkness black asps came to answer my calling, hissing hypnotically. I had, obviously, conjured them beforehand, but they appreciated the theatrical effect it produced, anyway, and when I hissed at the sink and the gate to the Chamber was revealed they followed me inside. I had chosen the Chamber for the most obvious reason, aside from it's symbolic power, as I was the only one in the castle that had access to it, and the only way Dumbledore could have been granted entrance was by asking Voldemort nicely to open the Chamber for him, and I was pretty sure Dumbledore wasn't senile enough to do so. Of course-'

He suddenly cut off, looking around as if warned by a silent signal of the presence approaching the house.

'Well' he sighed 'the cavalry is here. How inconvenient. I had hoped to gloat for a couple more hours, maybe have a good session of drawn-out torture, the old-fashioned way, but there's no time for that now, is there? Your deaths will have to do. No time to tell you about how I joined Voldermot, or how I killed that Granger bitch, or how little Ronald got cursed into insanity. Not even to tell you of how I'm going to kill Dumbledore, slowly, painfully, until he cries and begs for "the next great adventure". Well, one must do what he must. Good-bye, my family.' He sneered, mockingly wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. 'See you all in hell. Avada kedavra. Avada kedavra. Avada kedavra.'

Three thumps as the bodies hit the floor, a soft pop, and then shouting as the door was broken in the saviours' haste to get to the Dursleys. There was no-one to save anymore, though.

Just as there was no saviour.

R&R? Pretty Please?