Shout – Harry Potter/Skyrim

Based off DZ2's New Powers challenge.

Plot: Harry wasn't as defenceless as people wanted to believe; on his first visit to Diagon Alley he discovers something that changes him in more ways than one and unleashes a power far beyond that of magic. Those who wish to do him harm must beware, for the Dragonborn comes.

SHOUT

One wild card ride later and Harry was standing on the front steps of Gringotts, blinking in the nearly blinding sunlight.

Hand brushing up against the pocket containing his bulging pouch of galleons, Harry looked around for some hint of where he should run to first, the gold in his pocket singing for him to spend it all. He may not have known how much galleons there were to a 'muggle' pound, but he knew that he had more money in his pocket alone than he'd had his entire life… and he had more money in his vault than the Dursleys could ever dream of.

And either Harry was going insane, or the gold was also chanting quietly as well as singing… thrumming through his ears was this voice chanting in a language he couldn't recognise, something in his blood itself begging for him to follow the voice.

"Might as well get yer uniform," Hagrid said slowly, gesturing with a massive hand towards a store called 'Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions'. "Listen, Harry," the large man added nervously, "would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a quick pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate 'em Gringotts carts".

"Huh?" Harry asked dumbly, finally pulling his mind away from the chanting long enough to recognise the huge man had spoken.

Hagrid blinked at him for a moment before sighing, "Yeh head in fer yeh robes," the man instructed as he pointed at Madam Malkin's, "I'm off fer a moment or two. I'll be back, promise, just have a quick errand to run".

"Oh, right," Harry murmured, head swinging around to stare in the direction the chanting was coming from. "I'll see you soon then Hagrid".

"Right," Hagrid agreed, Harry ignoring what he said next in favour of setting off in pursuit of the enthralling chant.

Dismissing the way that Hagrid was calling after him, Harry kept moving in the direction of the voice, something deep inside his chest almost… almost purring… at the unfamiliar language. Weaving through the crowd with an experience learned from avoiding people back at school, Harry eventually found himself standing in front of a run-down building with faded paint, the door tucked into the alleyway between a shop selling supplies for a sport called 'Quidditch' and a store selling stationary items like quills and ink.

Swallowing nervously as he moved down the alleyway, Harry pushed open the door, flinching at the loud tingling of the bell above it. Opening his mouth to ask if anyone were around the seemingly empty store, Harry froze as he realised the volume of the chanting had increased ten-fold, his eyes darting straight to an alcove that had been curtained off by what seemed to be the furred skin of a deer. After looking around for the store's owner one more time, Harry steeled himself and headed towards the alcove and the chanting behind it, raising a hand to the deer-skin and pulling it back before he could talk himself out of it.

There, resting on a tall podium Harry wasn't even sure he could reach, was a book.

Covered in pitch-black snakeskin and without a title or any form of writing on it, the book was thick and looked so old Harry would turn it to dust with a poorly aimed sneeze.

And more importantly, it was the source of the loud chanting that occupied the entirety of Harry's thoughts.

Stepping forward and up onto the dais the podium was on, Harry approached the book and pushed up onto the tips of his toes to stare down at the black cover. As he watched, a single word-rune appeared on the cover with a flash of blue-gold light, Harry's hand rising to brush across the surface of the warm rune as his mouth opened to speak it.

"Dovah".

The moment the word fell from his lips; the golden blue light was latching onto his hand and was crawling up his arm, the chanting cutting off instantly as he fearfully tried to tear his arm away. His hand remaining glued to the black cover of the book, the now burning light reached his shoulder and was now making its way up his neck, forcing its way down his throat as it continued to spread towards his chest before stabbing into where his heart would be. A scream of pain trying and failing to push its way past the light in his throat, Harry's body went limp and he collapsed forward against the podium and the book resting upon it.

And then it was over.

Gasping for air as he remained leaning across the book, too exhausted to pull himself away from the probably cursed book, the last thing Harry expected was to hear a woman's voice saying "That'll be 5 galleons".

Pushing away from the podium, Harry spun around to see a woman seated in a comfy looking armchair, a red hood with a single white stripe down the middle pulled low over her eyes. She couldn't see, he wasn't sure how he knew that, but even though her face was aimed in his direction Harry just knew that she was blind.

"What is it?" Harry found himself asking slowly, his throat raw and scratchy, "What did it do to me?"

"It unlocked a power deep within you," the blind woman admitted simply, "One far beyond the comprehension of the wizards we are surrounded by".

"But what is it?" Harry pressed, his hand already reaching for the moneybag in his pocket.

"It's the collected power of beings far more powerful than ourselves".

"What beings?" he asked, looking around the room curiously. There were things that seemed so much more impressive than his – the – book, a creepy looking sword both taller and wider than Harry with veins going up and down its surface and an eye blinking at him slowly. There was a charred and burned helmet with the letters 'N7' printed on their side. A small silver cylinder lay on a cushion beside Harry, a black button on its side. And just within arms-reach on the wall beyond it, a metal gauntlet with a red-orange gem inset into it rested on a small shelf.

The corner of the woman's lip tugged up slightly, "For five gold coins, you could have your answer".

Looking down at the five galleons already waiting in his hand, Harry crossed the room and placed them into the woman's waiting palm, jumping slightly as something nudged his foot. Glancing down at his new book, he glanced between it and the now blank wall that the alcove had once been set in, turning with a frown to face the blind woman only to find an empty chair.

Picking his book up and holding it to his chest, Harry looked around the store a final time before heading towards the door. He no longer wanted to be there, he had his book, and he'd never need anything again…

SHOUT

Reclining back in her seat, the blind woman felt her mouth twitching up into a smirk as the door swung shut behind young Harry Potter, her eyes dead to this world but not to the next.

"Our hero, our hero,
Claims a warrior's heart".

She sung softly under her breath as she raised her teacup to sip from it gently.

"I tell you, I tell you,
The Dragonborn comes".